Film scoring for silent film has long been something that has interested me, even before I had the pleasure of seeing films with live accompaniment at the IU Cinema. It’s a practice that seems both endless and finite in its possibilities. You can create something that’s in the pocket of the era the film was… Read more »
Tag: silent film
Festival Recap: Il Cinema Ritrovato
For the last 35 years, a wonderful event has happened in Bologna: Il Cinema Ritrovato, meaning “the cinema rediscovered,” a unique film festival that does not showcase new films competing for prizes or distribution, but rather one that’s dedicated to preserving and sharing the classic and lost treasures of film history. Film culture remains alive… Read more »
A Portrait of the Artist at Work: Unknown Chaplin
Though it’s perhaps difficult for us to fully conceive today, Charles Chaplin (1889-1977) likely remains the most widely recognized great artist in the history of movies. Chaplin’s startling degree of success in his own time, combined with the important fact that he worked in the “universal” language of silent cinema, made him a truly international… Read more »
Harold Lloyd’s Love for Love
When I think of Harold Lloyd, that dazzling innovator of silent comedy, I don’t think of the iconic image of him dangling on a clock, high above a bustling city street. I don’t think of him racing a horse-drawn wagon until its wheels pop off or clinging to a girder as its moves through the… Read more »
An Interview with Jon Vickers Scoring Award-Winning Composer Patrick Holcomb
Guest post by Alyssa Brooks, IU Cinema’s Marketing and Programming Coordinator. In 2019, Jacobs School of Music student Patrick Holcomb was awarded the fifth Jon Vickers Scoring Award, a commission to compose a new orchestral score for a silent film. Holcomb’s score for Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life will premiere Saturday, April 17. This… Read more »
New IU Press Book Explores Love and Loss in Hollywood
Last month, IU Press published a fascinating book. It is called Love and Loss in Hollywood: Florence Deshon, Max Eastman, and Charlie Chaplin, edited by Cooper C. Graham and Christoph Irmscher, Provost Professor of English and Director of the Wells Scholars Program at Indiana University. Aside from a few minor/undated items, the book contains every… Read more »