Tag Archives: film about film

The perilous camera-eye: El sexto sentido | The Sixth Sense (ES 1929)

Posted on 22 May 2018 by silentsplease

The camera never lies. This cliché is now so discredited that even its antithesis is something of a truism: images are almost infinitely manipulable, via both technology, context, and human interpretation. Ultimately, El sexto sentido puts stock in both the idea of … Continue reading →

Posted in Film | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

Diva films about diva films

Posted on 21 December 2015 by silentsplease

After spending some quality time with the films of Borelli, Menichelli, and Makowska, now I want to cast my net a little wider. Diva films were a major force of the Italian film industry in the teens—but how did people perceive … Continue reading →

Posted in Film | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

The film star performing the film star: Asta Nielsen in Die Filmprimadonna (DE 1913)

Posted on 16 September 2015 by silentsplease

“Lower the flags in her honour; she is incomparable and without peer.” So wrote early film theorist Béla Balázs of Asta Nielsen in his 1924 book Der Sichtbare Mensch (The Visible Man). It is well-known that Nielsen was one of the first international … Continue reading →

Posted in Film | Tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Hesperia! The diva as star attraction in Emilio Ghione’s Anime Buie (IT 1916)

Posted on 13 July 2015 by silentsplease

Today marks the 99th anniversary of the première of Anime Buie | Dark Souls, fourth in a series of films featuring the character Za La Mort, an honourable French apache (street criminal gang member) and his adventures in the criminal underworld and beyond. The character … Continue reading →

Posted in Film | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Double trouble: Die falsche Asta Nielsen | The False Asta Nielsen (DE 1915)

Posted on 31 January 2015 by silentsplease

Die falsche Asta Nielsen is a film that, barring a miracle, I will never see: no copies are known to exist. It’s a great shame, because it looks like a lot of fun! Asta in a double role, a comedy … Continue reading →

Posted in Film | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Одна из Многих | One of Many (USSR 1927)

Posted on 11 November 2014 by silentsplease

A Soviet girl dreams of Hollywood in the charming short combined live action/animated film Одна из Многих | One of Many (USSR 1927). Like Потцелй Мери Пикфорд | A Kiss for Mary Pickford, also 1927, One of Many takes its cue … Continue reading →

Posted in Film | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 12 Comments