Documentary focusing on the film careers F.W. Murnau, Frank Borzage and William Fox and their impact on the history of cinema.
IN THE LAND OF GIANT PYGMIES, a diary of Aurelio Rossi's 1925 trek into the immense Belgian Congo, preserves a long-gone-Colonial-era wonder at natural resources, "primitive" tribes, customs and costumes in Europe's cast African possessions, and implies that the "dark continent" could benefit from the "civilizing" influences of home.
In the Land of Giants and Pygmies
1925
6
Film historians, and survivors from the nearly 30-year struggle to bring sound to motion pictures take the audience from the early failed attempts by scientists and inventors, to the triumph of the talkies.
The Dawn of Sound: How Movies Learned to Talk
2007
7
Wallace Carlson walks viewers through the production of an animated short at Bray Studios.
How Animated Cartoons Are Made
1919
6
The lives of Stan Laurel (1890-1965) and Oliver Hardy (1892-1957), on the screen and behind the curtain. The joy and the sadness, the success and the failure. The story of one of the best comic duos of all time: a lesson on how to make people laugh.
Laurel & Hardy - Die komische Liebesgeschichte von Dick und Doof
2011
7
A day in the city of Berlin, which experienced an industrial boom in the 1920s, and still provides an insight into the living and working conditions at that time. Germany had just recovered a little from the worst consequences of the First World War, the great economic crisis was still a few years away and Hitler was not yet an issue at the time.
Berlin, die Symphonie der Großstadt
1927
7
A silent succession of black-and-white photographs of the city of Montreal.
One Second in Montreal
1969
5
This pioneering documentary film depicts the lives of the indigenous Inuit people of Canada's northern Quebec region. Although the production contains some fictional elements, it vividly shows how its resourceful subjects survive in such a harsh climate, revealing how they construct their igloo homes and find food by hunting and fishing. The film also captures the beautiful, if unforgiving, frozen landscape of the Great White North, far removed from conventional civilization.
Nanook of the North
1922
7
A film by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, shot in late October 1888, showing pedestrians and carriages crossing Leeds Bridge.
Traffic Crossing Leeds Bridge
1888
5
The first woman to appear in front of an Edison motion picture camera and possibly the first woman to appear in a motion picture within the United States. In the film, Carmencita is recorded going through a routine she had been performing at Koster & Bial's in New York since February 1890.
Carmencita
1894
5
Staged boxing match between Sergeant-Instructor Barrett and Sergeant Pope, with a round, interval, and knockout.
Boxing Match; or, Glove Contest
1896
3
Surfing at Waikiki Beach, Hawaii, on the island of Oahu. Most surfers are human, one is a dog. The educational documentary is part of the Bruce Scenic Novelties series.
Sons of the Surf
1926
0
Experimental film fragment made with the Edison-Dickson-Heise experimental horizontal-feed kinetograph camera and viewer, using 3/4-inch wide film.
Men Boxing
1891
4
A brief portrait of famous and brave bullfighter Manuel Benítez el Corbobés; an account on still photos of his triumphs and failures.
Cordobés 65
1965
7
This documentary shows how the Berliner workers lived in 1930. The director Slatan Dudow shows through images: a) the workers leaving the factory; b) the raise of the rents; c) the "unpleasant" guest, meaning the justice officer that brings the eviction notice; d) the fight of classes of the houses of capitalists and working classes; e) the parks of the working class; f) the houses of the working class, origin of the tuberculosis and the victims; g) the playground of the working class; h) the swimming pool for the working class, ironically called the "Baltic Sea" of the working class; i) the effects of humidity of basement where a family lives, with one member deaf; j) one working class family having dinner while the capitalist baths his dog; k) the eviction notice received from an unemployed family and their eviction.
Zeitprobleme: Wie der Arbeiter wohnt
1930
5
A fascinating pictorial document: On an old, cluttered work ship, a man is helped on with a bulky, old fashioned diving suit. It's a complicated process, many layers and sections are carefully applied. He goes over the side. Some men row out to what looks like a wrecked barge and set dynamite. Then the diver returns and now laughs and acknowledges the camera. The other men, now safely away, blow up the barge.
The Diver
1911
0
In 1926, Buster Keaton was at the peak of his glory and wealth. By 1933, he had reached rock bottom. How, in the space of a few years, did this uncontested genius of silent films, go from the status of being a widely-worshipped star to an alcoholic and solitary fallen idol? With a spotlight on the 7 years during which his life changed, using extracts of Keaton’s films as magnifying mirrors, the documentary recounts the dramatic life of this creative genius and the Hollywood studios.
Buster Keaton, un génie brisé par Hollywood
2016
7
Documentary by Portuguese Silvino Santos, about the Amazon, its flora, fauna, its inhabitants and among other wonderful images from the beginning of the 20th century with alternating close-up shots of caimans, jaguars and tropical flora with footage of Indigenous rituals--including some of the earliest known moving images of the Indigenous Witoto people--and longer sequences showcasing the region’s extractive industries: rubber, the Brazil nut, timber, fishing, even the egret feathers that were a staple of women’s fashion at the time.
Amazonas, Maior Rio do Mundo
1918
0
Grave robbing, torture, possessed nuns, and a satanic Sabbath: Benjamin Christensen's legendary film uses a series of dramatic vignettes to explore the scientific hypothesis that the witches of the Middle Ages suffered the same hysteria as turn-of-the-century psychiatric patients. But the film itself is far from serious-- instead it's a witches' brew of the scary, gross, and darkly humorous.
Häxan
1922
7
An appreciative, uncritical look at silent film comedies and thrillers from early in the century through the 1920s.
Days of Thrills and Laughter
1961
5
An account of the journey that King Alfonso XIII of Spain made to the impoverished shire of Las Hurdes, in the province of Cáceres, in the region of Extremadura, in 1922.
Las Hurdes, país de leyenda
1922
4