DMZ 4

The problem for the modern viewer is that sound's popularity killed its silent cousin -- not intentionally, of course, any more than VHS killed Betamax; it's just how things worked out. Business being business, the studios themselves then set about destroying many of those uselessly silent films; if they didn't, the film itself tended to ignite & burn down buildings. To appreciate silent film today takes a willful viewer: part art lover, part archeologist, he and she must not just seek out these seemingly strange films, but educate themselves on how to watch them as well. Not surprisingly, it's not a task chosen by those who simply want to pass an afternoon away from their daily cares.Enter Mr Brownlow and his imposing awareness of all things cinematic before films talked. Most wonderfully, he realized the need to document something about silent film *before* all its participants had passed away, which makes this book not just essential but irreplaceable. Some people will say things like "If you read only one book about silent film, this is it" -- and they're right. Brownlow makes the convincing [and necessary!] argument that silent cinema is not modern film's poor cousin, nor even an embarrassing progenitor, but a peak art form in its own right. Many enthusiasts of film's first few decades will even argue that silent is the superior form of the art, and this viewer occasionally finds himself agreeing with them. This book goes a long way toward explaining why.

Because so many films of the silent era have been lost or are damaged or projected at the wrong speed (24fps instead of 16fps) the general public's notion of them is a bit skewed. Kevin Brownlow's love of film, and especially the Silent Films, brought forth this invaluable book published in the 1960s. He was able to interview many of the pioneers of the film industry while they were still alive--at a time when so many had already been forgotten by both the public & their own industry. Digital restoration of early silent films has now shown us how well-made & beautifully photographed many of them were. It's a shame this book is out of-print, but film lovers & future filmmakers alike will find it enthralling & educational.As an aside, Brownlow is featured in a fascinating new book  A Thousand Cuts: The Bizarre Underground World of Collectors and Dealers Who Saved the Movies  all about the underground world of film collectors & how their passion for film led to so many classics being saved.

This book is on silent pictures, centered on interviewing people who were there when cinema started to raise and Hollywood was created, which makes it incredibly interesting. Some chapters are on people who had already died but had an undenied influence on the development of moving images to progressively elaborated silent pictures, as D,W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille or Douglas Fairbanks. Forgotten names are also given credit, as Edward Slomon or William deMille, whose pictures are mst ofthem lost. Directors, actors and technicians are reunited. Henry King, Allan Dwan or William Wellman, Gloria Swanson, Mary Pickford, and lesser known people in the editing, title, scenario setting or lighting processes are all there.One of the best qualities about this book, full of anecdotes and interesting people, is its lack of criticism, which (with one exception) leaves the reader the freedom of creating his/her own opinion. It is written with interest and respect, and in a time (the sixties) when it was much necessary that someone cared to preserve these memories, because many of those people were still alive to ask and look back to a past we can now only read about.A highly rewarding reading.

What makes this book so different than other books about silent movies is the stories. Kevin Brownlow interviewed these people in the sixties while they were still alive and got personal anecdotes that would have otherwise died with them. So this isn't a portrayal of "this happened and then this happened", but an insight to what it was like to be making movies at that time. It is a fascinating telling of a bygone time. Movies are just not able to be made like they were then and something was really lost in the process. While many of the great movies mentioned in the book are still "lost" (hopefully in some private collections somewhere to see the light of day at some point), many have been "rediscovered" since the publishing of this book. My recommendation is to read the book and then see the movies, if that is at all possible. Even if you have already seen the movies before, you will get an entirely different perspective on the film after reading this book. Enjoy!

I'm still reading this massive book but the interviews in it by Kevin Brownlow that he got when so many significant people from the beginnings of motion pictures in America were still with us is priceless. You really get to feel how life was in movie making in the early silent era! From directors to cameramen to actors, they tell you in their own words how life was then and how making movies was all those years ago. Many more films I sure hope to see are mentioned!

Good quality for such an old book. Received it quickly too.

Great book about how silent movies were actually made. It's pretty amazing how slapdash they were - just hiring random people off the street to make movies. One interview is with a woman who got hired to write scripts at the age of *12* - and it's interesting how many women were involved before filmmaking got to be a "man's job." There's plenty of perspective from people who were not "stars" - cameramen, PA's and the like, which I find fascinating.

Exceptional writing and art and story. What's more?

this comic book is what got me into comic books. The Brian Woods best so far!