Bioscope Newsreel no. 2

The life of a vampire
The first biography of Max Schreck, cadaverous star of F.W. Murnau’s Dracula-inspired Nosferatu (1922) is being written by Stefan Eickhoff. Entitled Max Schreck - Gespenstertheater (Ghost theatre), it will be published later this year. Learn more.

Bardelys at Pordenone
The recently re-discovered King Vidor film, Bardelys the Magnificent (1926), will be unveiled at the Pordenone silent film festival in October. Other highlights announced include French comedies, the films of W.C. Fields, the films of W.K.L. Dickson, and ‘lost’ films of Sessue Hayakawa. Learn more.

Divas dolorosa
A new book has been published on the ever-suffering diva actresses of Italian silent film, such as Francesca Bertini and Lyda Borelli. Angela Dalle Vacche’s Diva: Defiance and Passion in Early Italian Cinema is published by the University of Texas Press and is accompanied by the DVD Diva Dolorosa made by silent found footage auteur Peter Delpeut. Learn more.

Sentiments past
Lea Jacobs’ new book is The Decline of Sentiment: American Film in the 1920s, and “seeks to characterize the radical shifts in taste that transformed American film in the jazz age”, looking at Erich von Stroheim, Charlie Chaplin, Ernst Lubitsch, and Monta Bell, among many others. It’s published by the University of California Press. Learn more.

‘Til next time!

Bioscope Newsreel no. 1

British newsreel cameraman Jack Cotter, working for Pathé Gazette in 1922

I need to do a little more to separate news pieces from background, more discursive pieces, and so I’m going to introduce The Bioscope Newsreel. This will be a gathering of news alerts on silent cinema, with links to further information, released at what will no doubt be irregular intervals. Nevertheless, just like the newsreels (which were of course an invention of the silent cinema), each release will be numbered, there will be an average five stories per reel, and each story will have a mildly jokey title. So here goes with issue number 1…

Filming the father of Indian film
A feature film is to be made of the life of Dadasaheb Phalke, who made Raja Harishchandra, the first Indian fiction film, based on Hindu mythology, in 1913. Learn more.

Read all about it
The bi-monthly PDF magazine on silent cinema, The Silent Treatment, is now available online, with back issues for 2007. Learn more.

Hard times
Flicker Alley is to release a DVD of the important American social dramas Traffic in Souls (1913) and The Italian (1915) in July 2008, under the title ‘Hardships of the New Land’. Learn more.

More from the alley
Flicker Alley is busy at the moment, because also promised in September 2008 is its DVD release of Abel Gance’s pacifist classic J’Accuse (1919) and a Douglas Fairbanks boxed set in November 2008. Learn more.

Repatriation
A collection of American newsreels, documentaries, trailers and promotional films, dating 1912-1927, is being repatriated from the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia to American film archives. Learn more.

‘Til next time!