Silent

One of the most exciting novelties of cinema: the possibility to present objects in technical-aethetical pointed ways, like the time-lapse in “Das Blumenwunder” that turn ones own garden into a distant planet.
Sponsored by the chemical corporation BASF (Badische Soda and Anilin Factory), “Das Blumenwunder” – a hybrid of “Kulturfilm” and “Lehrfilm” (instructional film) — set out an almost impossible task, to give time-lapse cinematography a “feature length” run.
A new spin on the art of macroprojection, the “film symphony of the life and death of flowers” premiered on February 25th, 1926 in Berlin’s Piccadilly-Theater with an original music score and elaborate frame narrative.Read More »

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Every country has its peculiarities (Germans like dark atmosphere, Japanese like trains and Britons like tea…), so consequently these were reflected in their old silent pictures; with the French, it’s rivers and barges. This led to a kind of subgenre in that country, the “barge films” of which there are excellent examples during the 20s.Read More »

Synopsis
A modernist lady sculptor seeks a model for a statue to be put in front of a Berlin hospital, and finds him in the form of a London policeman-boxer. She’s also interested in having a child.Read More »

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Germany 1922 – Director: Ernst Wendt – Screenplay: Dr. F. Einar Stier, Ernst Wendt – camera: Mutz Greenbaum – animal director: John Hagenbeck – actors: Carl de Vogt, Eduard von Winterstein, Nora Swinburn, Fritz Orwa, Marta Bauer-Santen, Frieda Siewert-Michels, Dorinea Shirley, Carl Balta – 101 minutes –Read More »

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A charismatic lieutenant newly assigned to a remote fort is captured by a group of mountain bandits, thus setting in motion a madcap farce that is Lubitsch at his most unrestrained.Read More »

Richard Cross, Letterboxd wrote:
Evil businessman Lorenzo (L. Rogers Lytton) doesn’t handle rejection by a waitress (Rosemary Theby) well, and makes it his life’s work to ruin both her and Miguel (Leo Delaney), the honest worker who comes to her rescue and becomes her husband. At 39 minutes, Mills of the Gods doesn’t quite qualify as a feature, but is a lot longer than most films from 1912, and fills its running time with enough incident – including arson, poisoning, kidnapping, insanity and eviction – to fill a couple of movies.Read More »

It tells about young painter Tchartkoff who bought a weird portrait represented an old man. The portrait appeared to be unfinished, but the power of the handling was striking. The eyes were the most remarkable picture of all: it seemed as though the full power of the artist’s brush had been lavished upon them. At home Tchartkoff moistened a sponge with water, passed it over the picture several times, washed off nearly all the accumulated and incrusted dust and dirt, hung it on the wall before him, wondering yet more at the remarkable workmanship. The whole face had gained new life, and the eyes gazed at him so that he shuddered; and, springing back, he exclaimed in a voice of surprise: “It looks with human eyes!” This was no copy from Nature; it was life, the strange life which might have lighted up the face of a dead man, risen from the grave… And there was only the beginning of horror that was coming to young painter.Read More »

Danish Film Institute wrote:
Jørgen wants to propose to Marie as soon as he has been promoted and can offer her a proper home. Indeed, his future looks promising until his father, who is a bookkeeper in the town bank, tells Jørgen that he has embezzled and spent money from the bank. In order to uphold his father’s honour, Jørgen must raise the missing amount, and the only one he knows with that much ready money is his uncle, the canny merchant Ole Konge, whom his father detests. Ole Konge will only help if Jørgen marries his daughter Amalie, who has long pined for her cousin from afar..Read More »

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The tragic story of Don Jose, a Spanish cavalryman, who falls under the spell of a gypsy girl, Carmen, who treats him with both love and contempt and leads him into temptation and thus damnation.Read More »