The first match was struck by Griffith, and it led to an explosion, the effects of which the industry is still feeling. The Birth of a Nation was a cinematic revolution — it was responsible for revolutions in every field affected by motion pictures. Riots and demonstrations were living proof of the power of the film. No well-informed person could allow themselves to ignore it. The intelligentsia, who had regarded movies much as the jukebox is regarded today, conceded at last that the film had value. With critics and writers embroiled in controversy, the middle classes went to see for themselves. (more…)
Tag: silent films
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I think the most disagreeable part I ever had was in The Aryan. It was hard for me to really feel it, being that of a white man, forswearing his race, makes outlaw Mexicans his comrades and allows white women to be attacked by them. It is difficult to put all one’s decent instincts aside and live and think as such a despicable character must have done. But by allowing myself only to think of the terrible wrong that the white race had done me — pure imagery — I settled into it, and I am sure Bessie Love at the time believed I was the typical brute. — William S. Hart (more…)
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I am reviewing two films together because they don’t merit stand-alone reviews, but I want to say something about them anyway. It is just a coincidence that they both star Brad Pitt.
First, the good news. If you like Guy Ritchie’s comic crime capers like Snatch or Lock, Stock, & Two Smoking Barrels or The Gentlemen, you will love David Leitch’s Bullet Train.
Guy Ritchie basically took Quentin Tarantino’s formula of eccentric, wise-cracking criminals, non-linear narratives, and blood and guts, then purged it of all auteur pretensions. (more…)
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December 13, 2021 Beau Albrecht
Bolshevism on Trial
The prolific writer Thomas Dixon wrote a number of books that were adapted into early cinema. The most famous was The Clansman,[1] adapted into the iconic movie The Birth of a Nation. He often wrote about Fraternity Tri Kappa and the Radical Reconstruction. Another frequent topic was the Red Menace. Along those lines was his book Comrades. (more…)
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Dawson City: Frozen Time is an extraordinary documentary about the 1978 Dawson Film Find, the unlikely tale of when hundreds of hitherto missing and presumed lost silent films and newsreels were rediscovered buried under a swimming pool in Dawson City, a microscopic town of 1,375 people in the Canadian Yukon, 150 miles south of the Arctic Circle. You can watch it here. (more…)