100 Silent Films

<p>100 Silent Films provides an authoritative and accessible history of silent cinema through one hundred of its most interesting and significant films. As Bryony Dixon contends silent cinema is not a genre; it is the first 35 years of film history a complex negotiation between art and commerce and a union of creativity and technology. At its most grand - on the big screen with a full orchestral accompaniment - it is magnificent permitting a depth of emotional engagement rarely found in other fields of cinema. Silent film was hugely popular in its day and its success enabled the development of large-scale film production in the United States and Europe. It was the start of our fascination with the moving image as a disseminator of information and as mass entertainment with its consequent celebrity culture. <p/>The digital revolution in the last few years and the restoration and reissue of archival treasures have contributed to a huge resurgence of interest in silent cinema. Bryony Dixon's illuminating guide introduces a wide range of films of the silent period (1895-1930) including classics such as The Birth of a Nation (1915) The General (1926) Metropolis (1927) Sunrise (1927) and Pandora's Box (1928) alongside more unexpected choices and represents major genres and directors of the period - Griffith Keaton Chaplin Murnau Sjöström Dovzhenko and Eisenstein - together with an introductory overview and useful filmographic and bibliographic information.</p>