The Silent Cinema Reader

by Lee Grieveson (Editor), Peter Kramer (Editor)

The Silent Cinema Reader is a comprehensive resource of key writings on early cinema, addressing filmmaking practice, film form, style and content, and the ways in which silent films were exhibited and understood by their audiences, from the beginnings of film in the late nineteenth century to the coming of sound in the late 1920s.
The Reader covers international developments in film aesthetics, the growth of the American film industry and its relationship with foreign competitors at home and abroad, and the broader cultural, social and political contexts of film production and consumption in the United States as well as Britain, France, Russia and Germany. The Reader includes in-depth case studies of major directors and stars of the silent era, including Cecil B. DeMille, Eisenstein, D. W. Griffith, Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino.

Articles are grouped into thematic sections, each with an introduction by the editors, which focus

* Film projection and variety shows
* Storytelling and the nickelodeon
* Cinema and reform
* Feature films and cinema programmes
* Classical Hollywood cinema
* European national cinemas

Genres: Film, Nonfiction

442 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Lee Grieveson is the director of the graduate program in film studies at University College London and the author of Policing Cinema: Movies and Censorship in Early-Twentieth-Century America.

Reviews

[Katrin Baker]

I’m not going to pretend I read every single essay in here but also I’m adding it to my reading challenge so maybe I am

[Greta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really good collection of articles on the silent era, including Tom Gunning, Richard Abel (one of which is on Pathe Freres supplying the burgeoning nickelodeon market), Charles Musser, Sumiko Higashi (on the commodification of women in DeMille comedies). Includes both American and European cinema. The people even comment on each other’s essays

[Vasili Birlidis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great overview of global cinema in the silent age. Many of the authors are well-respected experts in the film studies field, and the book is a great primer for those interested in early cinema. Read for ENG 3121 - History of Film 1 with Prof. Mennel (second year, University of Florida, Spring 2015).

[Bailey · Rating 2 out of 5]

yawn