https://silvernitratenotes.com/ A personal log of classic black and white cinema, by Hal Vesper. Silent era through the late 1950s, with occasional forays into the early New Wave. en-au hal@silvernitratenotes.example (Hal Vesper) hal@silvernitratenotes.example (Hal Vesper) Mon, 11 May 2026 11:31:10 +1000 silver nitrate notes (handcrafted) https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2026-trouble-paradise.htmlFor roughly thirty-three years, between July 1935 and the collapse of the Production Code in 1968, Ernst Lubitsch's Trouble in Paradise (1932) was effectively unavailable in the United States.Fri, 08 May 2026 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2026-trouble-paradise.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2026-t-men.htmlMost of the cinematographers I have written about on this site (Toland, Howe, Krasker, Musuraca) had a Hollywood orthodoxy to push back against. John Alton (1901-1996) had something different.Sun, 03 May 2026 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2026-t-men.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2026-pather-panchali.htmlSubrata Mitra (1930-2001) was twenty-one years old, had never operated a motion-picture camera, and had been hired by Satyajit Ray on the basis of a folder of black and white still photographs taken on a Rolleiflex around the Calcutta…Wed, 22 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2026-pather-panchali.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2026-toland.htmlBy 1941, Toland had been working out the technique for the better part of a decade.Sun, 12 Apr 2026 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2026-toland.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2025-my-darling-clementine.htmlFord's most optimistic Western. MacDonald photographed Monument Valley as stillness.Fri, 14 Nov 2025 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2025-my-darling-clementine.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2025-touch-of-evil.htmlOrson Welles's Touch of Evil (1958) is his last American studio film. Universal hired him to direct at the insistence of Charlton Heston, who had been offered the lead role and had asked who was directing.Sun, 28 Sep 2025 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2025-touch-of-evil.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2025-wild-strawberries.htmlBergman cast Sjöström for his face. Fischer softened the contrast.Mon, 18 Aug 2025 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2025-wild-strawberries.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2025-cabiria.htmlFederico Fellini made Nights of Cabiria (Le notti di Cabiria, 1957) three years after La Strada, again with Giulietta Masina in the lead and again with Otello Martelli as cinematographer (with Aldo Tonti on some sequences).Mon, 23 Jun 2025 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2025-cabiria.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2025-breathless.htmlThe rough cut was too long. Godard cut within shots.Fri, 30 May 2025 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2025-breathless.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2025-hiroshima.htmlVierny photographed the hotel room. Takahashi photographed the archival Hiroshima.Wed, 12 Feb 2025 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2025-hiroshima.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2024-summer-monika.htmlIngmar Bergman made Summer with Monika (Sommaren med Monika, 1953) four years before The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries.Thu, 19 Dec 2024 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2024-summer-monika.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2024-casablanca.htmlCompetence compounded over seven weeks produced something better than any one of them alone.Mon, 07 Oct 2024 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2024-casablanca.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2024-400-blows.htmlThe New Wave begins in a light Arriflex, Plus-X, and a car.Sun, 16 Jun 2024 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2024-400-blows.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2024-late-spring.htmlYasujirō Ozu's Late Spring (1949) is the first of the films he made with Yūharu Atsuta that established the mature Ozu style.Tue, 23 Apr 2024 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2024-late-spring.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2024-big-sleep.htmlHickox lit Warner Bros into what we now call noir. The plot is incoherent. The film is one of the best of the decade.Sat, 17 Feb 2024 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2024-big-sleep.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2023-bicycle-thieves.htmlA picture of postwar Rome that has not been bettered.Mon, 02 Oct 2023 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2023-bicycle-thieves.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2023-madame-de.htmlMax Ophüls (1902-1957) made The Earrings of Madame de... (1953) at the end of his career, four years before his death. The cinematographer was Christian Matras, whom we have met on Renoir's La Grande Illusion sixteen years earlier.Fri, 04 Aug 2023 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2023-madame-de.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2023-sansho.htmlMizoguchi's Sansho the Bailiff (1954) followed Ugetsu by a year. The cinematographer was Kazuo Miyagawa again, his third Mizoguchi film and the one where Miyagawa's long-take technique reaches its most extended form.Thu, 15 Jun 2023 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2023-sansho.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2023-seventh-seal.htmlFischer filtered the sky so that clouds became hard white shapes against near-black.Sat, 11 Mar 2023 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2023-seventh-seal.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2023-virgin-spring.htmlIngmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring (Jungfrukällan, 1960) was the first Bergman film photographed by Sven Nykvist (1922-2006).Thu, 26 Jan 2023 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2023-virgin-spring.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2022-pickpocket.htmlBresson's Pickpocket (1959), his third collaboration with Léonce-Henri Burel, is a film about a young Parisian pickpocket named Michel (Martin LaSalle) who works the train stations and race tracks of the city, gets better at his craft,…Mon, 19 Dec 2022 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2022-pickpocket.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2022-night-of-hunter.htmlCortez photographed something American cinema had not photographed before.Thu, 13 Oct 2022 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2022-night-of-hunter.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2022-day-of-wrath.htmlShot in occupied Denmark. Dreyer makes the audience watch what his camera watches.Sun, 03 Jul 2022 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2022-day-of-wrath.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2022-notorious.htmlTetzlaff's crane descent to Bergman's hand remains the shot.Mon, 25 Apr 2022 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2022-notorious.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2022-belle.htmlJean Cocteau (1889-1963) was, primarily, a poet and a dramatist. His film work was occasional.Tue, 08 Feb 2022 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2022-belle.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2021-some-like-it-hot.htmlWilder refused colour. Monroe agreed. Lang lit the result.Thu, 18 Nov 2021 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2021-some-like-it-hot.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2021-kiss-me-deadly.htmlOne of the most visually aggressive American films of its decade.Tue, 07 Sep 2021 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2021-kiss-me-deadly.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2021-man-escaped.htmlBresson followed Diary of a Country Priest with a war film, A Man Escaped (Un condamné à mort s'est échappé, 1956), adapted from a memoir by André Devigny, a member of the French Resistance who had been imprisoned by the Gestapo at Fort…Thu, 15 Jul 2021 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2021-man-escaped.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2021-rashomon.htmlMiyagawa pointed the camera at the sun. The technique became a standard.Thu, 27 May 2021 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2021-rashomon.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2021-smiles.htmlSmiles of a Summer Night (Sommarnattens leende, 1955) is the Bergman film most people have not seen. It is also, by some distance, the funniest thing he made.Wed, 14 Apr 2021 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2021-smiles.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2021-throne-of-blood.htmlKurosawa's Macbeth, in fog manufactured by Toho over weeks.Thu, 18 Feb 2021 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2021-throne-of-blood.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2020-waterfront.htmlKaufman used the cold. The longshoremen's breath visible in the air is the photography.Mon, 30 Nov 2020 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2020-waterfront.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2020-shadow-of-doubt.htmlThe menace in the same frame as the idyll, neither separable from the other.Sat, 22 Aug 2020 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2020-shadow-of-doubt.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2020-country-priest.htmlRobert Bresson (1901-1999) made Diary of a Country Priest (Journal d'un curé de campagne, 1951) from a 1936 novel by Georges Bernanos. It is the first film in which Bresson's mature style is fully visible.Sat, 27 Jun 2020 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2020-country-priest.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2020-tokyo-story.htmlWatching Ozu in April 2020 made his pace make physical sense for the first time.Thu, 14 May 2020 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2020-tokyo-story.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2020-best-years.htmlWilliam Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) was Gregg Toland's last major credit. Toland died of a heart attack in 1948 at forty-four.Wed, 08 Apr 2020 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2020-best-years.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2020-oharu.htmlKenji Mizoguchi's The Life of Oharu (Saikaku Ichidai Onna, 1952) preceded Ugetsu by a year. The cinematographer was Yoshimi Hirano, working with Mizoguchi for the first and, as it turned out, only time.Wed, 04 Mar 2020 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2020-oharu.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2019-la-strada.htmlThe bridge between Italian neorealism and the Fellini register of the 1960s.Fri, 15 Nov 2019 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2019-la-strada.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2019-diaboliques.htmlClouzot made Les Diaboliques two years after The Wages of Fear, again with Armand Thirard on camera. The source was a novel by Boileau and Narcejac, the writing team who would later provide Hitchcock with the source for Vertigo.Wed, 18 Sep 2019 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2019-diaboliques.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2019-gold-rush.htmlThe licorice boot took sixty-three takes.Thu, 04 Jul 2019 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2019-gold-rush.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2019-sullivans-travels.htmlSeitz shoots the film in two registers. The shift is not announced.Thu, 09 May 2019 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2019-sullivans-travels.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2019-to-be-or-not.htmlErnst Lubitsch (1892-1947) directed To Be or Not to Be (1942) at United Artists during the war, with Carole Lombard and Jack Benny as the leads.Fri, 12 Apr 2019 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2019-to-be-or-not.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2019-stray-dog.htmlI have been promising a post on Kurosawa's Stray Dog (1949) for years. A reader chided me about it in the guestbook back in 2026. Here it is, finally.Fri, 08 Mar 2019 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2019-stray-dog.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2019-sunset-boulevard.htmlThe house is a mausoleum. Swanson is performing an older cinema.Mon, 28 Jan 2019 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2019-sunset-boulevard.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2018-sierra-madre.htmlWarner Bros hated location shooting. Ted McCord went to Mexico anyway.Fri, 21 Dec 2018 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2018-sierra-madre.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2018-wages-of-fear.htmlHenri-Georges Clouzot (1907-1977) made The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la peur, 1953) in a format that did not yet have a standard name. Two American studios had passed on the project.Fri, 05 Oct 2018 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2018-wages-of-fear.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2018-double-indemnity.htmlJohn F. Seitz refused to light the room.Sun, 12 Aug 2018 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2018-double-indemnity.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2018-mr-smith.htmlFrank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) was made the year after It Happened One Night had won everything in sight.Sat, 23 Jun 2018 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2018-mr-smith.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2018-grapes-of-wrath.htmlToland on loan from Goldwyn, a year before Citizen Kane.Sun, 15 Apr 2018 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2018-grapes-of-wrath.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2018-drunken-angel.htmlAkira Kurosawa made Drunken Angel (Yoidore Tenshi, 1948) in occupied postwar Japan. It was the first film in which he directed Toshirō Mifune.Sat, 10 Feb 2018 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2018-drunken-angel.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2017-paths-of-glory.htmlThe argument of the film is made by the tracking shot before any dialogue makes it.Sat, 18 Nov 2017 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2017-paths-of-glory.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2017-ordet.htmlCarl Theodor Dreyer made Ordet (The Word, 1955) seven years after Day of Wrath. He had made one film in between, Two People (1945), which he disowned. Ordet was his return to the long, formal, unhurried cinema of Passion and Wrath.Fri, 25 Aug 2017 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2017-ordet.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2017-anatomy.htmlOtto Preminger directed Anatomy of a Murder (1959) on location in Marquette, Michigan. The cinematographer was Sam Leavitt (1904-1984), whom Preminger had worked with on The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) and would work with again.Tue, 11 Jul 2017 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2017-anatomy.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2017-sweet-smell.htmlHowe lit the streets to look like the streets.Fri, 02 Jun 2017 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2017-sweet-smell.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2017-bringing-up-baby.htmlHoward Hawks directed Bringing Up Baby (1938) for RKO with Russell Metty (whom we will meet later on Touch of Evil) as cinematographer. The film was a commercial failure on release. The studio cut Hawks's contract immediately afterwards.Wed, 19 Apr 2017 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2017-bringing-up-baby.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2017-rules-of-the-game.htmlBachelet's deep focus two years before Toland.Mon, 27 Feb 2017 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2017-rules-of-the-game.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2016-ikiru.htmlNakai's photography of Shimura in a black overcoat is the best single-actor photography of any Kurosawa film.Wed, 09 Nov 2016 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2016-ikiru.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2016-cat-people.htmlJacques Tourneur directed Cat People (1942) for Val Lewton's small horror unit at RKO. Lewton had been told by the studio to deliver low-budget genre films with sensational titles. He took the titles and made the films into something else.Fri, 30 Sep 2016 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2016-cat-people.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2016-umberto-d.htmlVittorio De Sica's Umberto D (1952) is, by most accounts, the last proper Italian neorealist film. The movement had been losing momentum since around 1949.Sun, 28 Aug 2016 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2016-umberto-d.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2016-ugetsu.htmlMiyagawa photographs the lake crossing in a single long take that refuses to mark the supernatural.Mon, 11 Jul 2016 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2016-ugetsu.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2016-psycho.htmlAlfred Hitchcock made Psycho (1960) with his own money when Paramount refused to finance it. He shot the film on a reduced budget of around $800,000 using his television crew from Alfred Hitchcock Presents. The cinematographer was John L.Fri, 27 May 2016 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2016-psycho.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2016-strangers-on-a-train.htmlBurks's first Hitchcock. The carousel sequence as technical triumph.Tue, 05 Apr 2016 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2016-strangers-on-a-train.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2016-seven-samurai.htmlKurosawa did not wait for weather. He manufactured it.Fri, 19 Feb 2016 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2016-seven-samurai.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2015-paisan.htmlRossellini followed Rome, Open City with Paisan (1946), a six-episode film that tracks the Allied advance up the Italian peninsula from Sicily in 1943 to the Po Valley in 1944.Thu, 10 Dec 2015 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2015-paisan.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2015-third-man.htmlThe Dutch tilts are a statement about what a film can know about a place.Sun, 04 Oct 2015 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2015-third-man.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2015-duck-soup.htmlMcCarey's wide takes held the Marx Brothers in the same frame as their targets.Fri, 14 Aug 2015 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2015-duck-soup.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2015-rebecca.htmlAlfred Hitchcock made Rebecca (1940) at Selznick International Pictures, his first American film.Thu, 02 Jul 2015 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2015-rebecca.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2015-out-of-past.htmlThe bar scene in Acapulco is a continuous darkening of the frame.Fri, 22 May 2015 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2015-out-of-past.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2015-bride-of-frankenstein.htmlJames Whale's Bride of Frankenstein (1935) is, on most lists, the better of the two Whale Frankenstein pictures. Whale himself is reputed to have agreed. The cinematographer this time was John J.Thu, 12 Mar 2015 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2015-bride-of-frankenstein.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2014-falconetti.htmlDreyer gave his silent audience a face.Sat, 08 Nov 2014 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2014-falconetti.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2014-wind.htmlVictor Sjöström (1879-1960), the Swedish director who would later play the lead role in Bergman's Wild Strawberries, made The Wind (1928) at MGM in his final American film as director.Tue, 23 Sep 2014 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2014-wind.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2014-rome-open-city.htmlRoberto Rossellini (1906-1977) began shooting Rome, Open City in January 1945, two months before the Germans retreated from northern Italy and nine months before the war ended.Sat, 30 Aug 2014 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2014-rome-open-city.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2014-king-kong.htmlO'Brien's stop-motion and Walker's effects photography saved RKO from bankruptcy.Wed, 18 Jun 2014 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2014-king-kong.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2014-lady-vanishes.htmlAlfred Hitchcock directed The Lady Vanishes (1938) at Gaumont-British in his last year of British production before his move to Hollywood. The cinematographer was Jack Cox, a regular Hitchcock collaborator.Mon, 05 May 2014 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2014-lady-vanishes.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2014-maltese-falcon.htmlHuston threw away the backgrounds. Edeson lit Bogart from the side.Sun, 16 Mar 2014 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2014-maltese-falcon.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2013-grande-illusion.htmlThe visual register tells us the world of uniforms is ending.Mon, 25 Nov 2013 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2013-grande-illusion.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2013-it-happened-one-night.htmlCapra's motel-scene workaround for the Production Code.Fri, 30 Aug 2013 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2013-it-happened-one-night.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2013-crowd.htmlKing Vidor (1894-1982) directed The Crowd (1928) at MGM with Henry Sharp (1892-1966) as cinematographer.Wed, 19 Jun 2013 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2013-crowd.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2013-les-enfants.htmlShot in Nice in 1943 with half the crew in hiding.Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2013-les-enfants.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2013-39-steps.htmlAlfred Hitchcock directed The 39 Steps (1935) at Gaumont-British, in the middle of his English period.Mon, 18 Mar 2013 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2013-39-steps.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2013-blue-angel.htmlSternberg trained the audience to look at Dietrich as an object that resists clear viewing.Tue, 05 Feb 2013 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2013-blue-angel.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2012-ambersons.htmlOrson Welles's The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) is, in its released form, not the film Welles made. Welles shot, cut, and scored a 131-minute version that he was happy with.Fri, 14 Dec 2012 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2012-ambersons.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2012-his-girl-friday.htmlHawks uses the wide two-shot the way other directors use cross-cutting.Sun, 28 Oct 2012 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2012-his-girl-friday.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2012-wings.htmlWilliam A. Wellman directed Wings (1927) for Paramount on a budget of around $2 million, much of it spent on twenty-eight aircraft, two military airfields, and the cooperation of the US Army Air Corps.Thu, 13 Sep 2012 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2012-wings.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2012-pandoras-box.htmlBrooks's face is, on screen, a brightness in a room. She is weather.Mon, 23 Jul 2012 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2012-pandoras-box.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2012-atalante.htmlJean Vigo (1905-1934) made L'Atalante (1934) while dying of tuberculosis. He finished the shoot too ill to supervise the editing.Thu, 14 Jun 2012 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2012-atalante.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2012-12-angry-men.htmlLumet and Kaufman's solution to a single-room film was to make the room shrink.Wed, 09 May 2012 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2012-12-angry-men.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2012-frankenstein.htmlEdeson invented, for all practical purposes, the visual grammar of the American horror film.Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2012-frankenstein.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2011-city-lights.htmlChaplin made a silent film in 1931. The industry told him he was a fool. He did it anyway.Thu, 08 Dec 2011 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2011-city-lights.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2011-last-laugh.htmlF.W. Murnau's The Last Laugh (Der letzte Mann, 1924) is the film in which the unchained camera was, for the first time, fully unchained.Fri, 04 Nov 2011 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2011-last-laugh.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2011-m.htmlLang and Wagner worked out asynchronous sound in 1931.Wed, 14 Sep 2011 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2011-m.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2011-brief-encounter.htmlDavid Lean (1908-1991) directed Brief Encounter (1945) from a Noël Coward one-act, Still Life, that Coward had expanded into a full screenplay.Sun, 05 Jun 2011 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2011-brief-encounter.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2011-steamboat.htmlBuster Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr. (1928) was his last fully independent production. The following year, his contract was sold to MGM, and he never again had directorial control over his own material. Steamboat Bill, Jr.Sat, 30 Apr 2011 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2011-steamboat.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2011-sunrise.htmlSunrise extended the unchained camera on a scale Hollywood had not seen.Wed, 23 Mar 2011 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2011-sunrise.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2010-greed.htmlErich von Stroheim's Greed (1924) was, in its director's cut, ten hours long. MGM, who had inherited the production when Goldwyn merged into the new studio, found the runtime unacceptable.Thu, 23 Dec 2010 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2010-greed.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2010-nosferatu.htmlWagner photographed Wismar in underexposed afternoon daylight.Tue, 02 Nov 2010 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2010-nosferatu.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2010-modern-times.htmlChaplin directed Modern Times (1936) nine years after The Jazz Singer had made sound mandatory, five years after he had refused sound for City Lights, and sold it to the public as his final bow to silent cinema.Wed, 08 Sep 2010 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2010-modern-times.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2010-safety-last.htmlHarold Lloyd (1893-1971) was, through the 1920s, more commercially successful than either Chaplin or Keaton. His films made more money. His films also had fewer pretensions. Safety Last! (1923), directed by Fred C.Thu, 22 Jul 2010 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2010-safety-last.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2010-caligari.htmlA reader asked whether Caligari qualifies for this site. Here is what I think.Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2010-caligari.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2010-sherlock-jr.htmlKeaton walks into the screen and the backgrounds change around his fixed body.Mon, 01 Mar 2010 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2010-sherlock-jr.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2009-stagecoach.htmlFord delivered Monument Valley.Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2009-stagecoach.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2009-faust.htmlF.W. Murnau directed Faust (1926) at UFA the year before he left for America to make Sunrise. It was his last German film, and the largest production of his career to that point.Fri, 21 Aug 2009 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2009-faust.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2009-kid.htmlCharlie Chaplin's The Kid (1921) was his first feature-length film. He had been making two-reel shorts at Mutual and First National for six years.Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2009-kid.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2009-metropolis.htmlFor eighty years, Metropolis existed as a film whose reputation was larger than any surviving print. Then Buenos Aires opened a closet.Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2009-metropolis.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2009-potemkin.htmlThe film that worked out what cutting between shots can do.Fri, 03 Apr 2009 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2009-potemkin.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2009-nanook.htmlThe first feature-length documentary is also, by modern standards, a staged film.Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2009-nanook.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2008-general.htmlKeaton submits to physics and finds comedy in what happens when a human body meets a machine that does not care.Fri, 05 Dec 2008 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2008-general.html https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2008-welcome.htmlFirst post. The plan, the focus, the reading list.Sat, 11 Oct 2008 09:00:00 +1000https://silvernitratenotes.com/posts/2008-welcome.html