LU.MIERE. read the emblazoned jackets of two moviemakers, cranking their Cinematograph outside the Giza pyramids, circa 1895. Suddenly a Mummy rushes over the dunes, grabs the tripod-mounted camera and smashes it into the sands. An intertitle reads, “Censorship Already!!” The year is actually 1995, and the Lumières are played by two actors under the direction […]
Tag: silence
Though not a silent film, Jules Dassin’s Rififi is most famous for the absence of audio, strikingly creating a relationship with sound and then removing it. Following a group of robbers attempting a daring diamond heist in the middle of Paris, this crime film delivers on generic expectation from the outset. After a piece of […]
One of the most fondly remembered works of silent cinema, Keaton and Bruckman’s The General is a masterpiece in both daring comic performance and narrative simplicity – many of the greatest visual jokes ever filmed all revolve around one man and his train. That man is Johnnie Gray (Keaton), a railroad engineer whose attempt to enlist […]