silver nitrate notes

archive

all posts since october 2008

One hundred and eight posts.

2026

• 08 may Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise and the Door That Stays Closed
• 03 may John Alton, T-Men, and the Black That Was Not a Mistake
• 22 apr Subrata Mitra and the Bedsheet that Lit Pather Panchali
• 12 apr Gregg Toland's Deep Focus Was an Accident

2025

• 14 nov My Darling Clementine and the Dance on the Unfinished Church
• 28 sep Touch of Evil and the Opening That Survived
• 18 aug Wild Strawberries and Victor Sjöström's Last Face
• 23 jun Nights of Cabiria and Giulietta Masina's Last Look
• 30 may Godard's Breathless and the Jump Cut as Declaration
• 12 feb Hiroshima mon amour and the Two Cameras

2024

• 19 dec Summer with Monika and the Stockholm Archipelago
• 07 oct Casablanca and the Problem of the Finished Film
• 16 jun Truffaut, Decaë, and the Handheld Schoolboy
• 23 apr Late Spring and Ozu's Empty Chair
• 17 feb The Big Sleep and the Case We Stopped Trying to Follow

2023

• 02 oct Bicycle Thieves and the Refusal of Composition
• 04 aug Madame de... and the Camera That Will Not Stop Moving
• 15 jun Sansho the Bailiff and the Long Track to the Lake
• 11 mar The Seventh Seal and Gunnar Fischer's Cloud
• 26 jan The Virgin Spring and Nykvist's First Bergman

2022

• 19 dec Pickpocket and the Hands at the Gare de Lyon
• 13 oct Stanley Cortez and the Theology of Charles Laughton
• 03 jul Dreyer's Day of Wrath and the Burden of the Pious
• 25 apr Notorious and the Key in the Hand
• 08 feb Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast and Henri Alekan's Sleep

2021

• 18 nov Some Like It Hot and Charles Lang's Comedy Light
• 07 sep Kiss Me Deadly and the Great Whatsit
• 15 jul A Man Escaped and the Cell Door
• 27 may Rashomon's Sun and Miyagawa's Mirror
• 14 apr Smiles of a Summer Night and Bergman's Other Register
• 18 feb Throne of Blood and the Fog of Cobweb Castle

2020

• 30 nov On the Waterfront and the New Jersey Wind
• 22 aug Shadow of a Doubt and Hitchcock's American Town
• 27 jun Diary of a Country Priest and the Discipline of Refusal
• 14 may Tokyo Story During Lockdown
• 08 apr The Best Years of Our Lives and Toland's Last Major Film
• 04 mar The Life of Oharu and Mizoguchi's Descent

2019

• 15 nov Fellini's La Strada and the Road as Moral Geography
• 18 sep Les Diaboliques and the Bathtub That Does Not Drain
• 04 jul Chaplin's Gold Rush and the Dinner That Gets Eaten
• 09 may Sullivan's Travels and Preston Sturges's Disguise
• 12 apr To Be or Not to Be and the Comedy of Occupation
• 08 mar Stray Dog and the Lost Pistol
• 28 jan Sunset Boulevard and the Dead Narrator

2018

• 21 dec Sierra Madre and the Cinematography of Greed
• 05 oct The Wages of Fear and Armand Thirard's Truck
• 12 aug Double Indemnity and the Black in Every Shadow
• 23 jun Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and the Filibuster
• 15 apr Ford's Grapes of Wrath and Toland's Camera for the Poor
• 10 feb Drunken Angel and Kurosawa Meeting Mifune

2017

• 18 nov Kubrick's Paths of Glory and the Tracking Shot as Argument
• 25 aug Dreyer's Ordet and the Resurrection That Does Not Arrive in Colour
• 11 jul Anatomy of a Murder and Sam Leavitt's Courtroom
• 02 jun James Wong Howe and the Cold Lights of Manhattan
• 19 apr Bringing Up Baby and the Speed of Hawks Without His Usual Lighting
• 27 feb La Règle du Jeu and the Depth of the Staircase

2016

• 09 nov Kurosawa's Ikiru and the Bureaucrat's Coat
• 30 sep Cat People and What You Do Not See
• 28 aug Umberto D and the Last Days of Neorealism
• 11 jul Mizoguchi's Ugetsu and the Crossing of the Lake
• 27 may Psycho and the Shower Sequence as Editing Argument
• 05 apr Strangers on a Train and the Geometry of the Carousel
• 19 feb Seven Samurai and the Weather

2015

• 10 dec Paisan and Six Stories of Liberation
• 04 oct Robert Krasker and the Tilted Vienna
• 14 aug Duck Soup and the Mirror Scene
• 02 jul Rebecca and Hitchcock's First American Film
• 22 may Out of the Past and Nicholas Musuraca's Night
• 12 mar Bride of Frankenstein and John J. Mescall's Crown

2014

• 08 nov Falconetti's Face
• 23 sep The Wind and Lillian Gish on the Mojave
• 30 aug Rossellini's Rome Open City and the Film Shot in Rubble
• 18 jun King Kong and the Empire State Composite
• 05 may The Lady Vanishes and the Compartment That Forgot
• 16 mar Huston's Maltese Falcon and the Close-up Conversation

2013

• 25 nov Renoir's La Grande Illusion and the Class War of Officers
• 30 aug It Happened One Night and the Walls of Jericho
• 19 jun The Crowd and the Camera Out the Window
• 22 apr Les Enfants du Paradis Under Occupation
• 18 mar Hitchcock's 39 Steps and the Handcuffed Run
• 05 feb The Blue Angel and the Two Cuts of Der Blaue Engel

2012

• 14 dec The Magnificent Ambersons and the Film RKO Destroyed
• 28 oct His Girl Friday at 240 Words a Minute
• 13 sep Wings and the First Aerial Cinema
• 23 jul Pandora's Box and the Face of Louise Brooks
• 14 jun L'Atalante and Jean Vigo's River
• 09 may 12 Angry Men and the Shrinking Room
• 14 feb Whale's Frankenstein and Arthur Edeson's First Monster

2011

• 08 dec Chaplin's City Lights and the Refusal of Sound
• 04 nov The Last Laugh and Karl Freund's Camera Off the Wall
• 14 sep Lang's M and the First Whistle in Cinema
• 05 jun Brief Encounter and the Platform That Does Not Move
• 30 apr Steamboat Bill Jr and the House Falls
• 23 mar Murnau's Sunrise and the Unchained Camera

2010

• 23 dec Greed and the Eight-Hour Cut
• 02 nov Nosferatu and the Light Schreck Walked Into
• 08 sep Chaplin's Modern Times and the Last Silent Film
• 22 jul Safety Last and Harold Lloyd on the Clock
• 18 jun Caligari and the Question of Tinting
• 01 mar Sherlock Jr and the Projectionist's Dream

2009

• 12 nov Stagecoach and the Death of the Western Backlot
• 21 aug Murnau's Faust and the Sky as Architecture
• 15 jul Chaplin's The Kid and the First Feature
• 17 jun Lang's Metropolis and the Lost Reel
• 03 apr Eisenstein's Odessa Steps and the Grammar of Editing
• 10 feb Nanook of the North and the Documentary Lie

2008

• 05 dec Keaton's The General and Gravity
• 11 oct what this is