The Sound (and Look) of Silents

Silent movies are the topic of PASTE's List of the Day. Since the success of The Artist, there has been a renewed interest in silent films. Because of the volatility of the film, and lack of preservation techniques in earlier decades, the majority of films have been lost, either partially or completely, known only through writings, if at all.






But thanks to the ongoing efforts of groups like the National Film Preservation Foundation, many classics have been saved and restored, at least in part, and are often recovered from personal collections, storage facilities, and in the strangest cases, they are found accidentally (such was the case of Carl Theodor Dreyer's The Passion of Joan of Arc, long considered lost when a near-perfect print was found by a janitor in the broom closet of a mental facility in Oslo -- left by a doctor who had ordered it in the 1930s).







And great news! Some of these classics are available in the DVD section of the library:



The Passion of Joan of Arc


Gold Rush


Metropolis


Intolerance


The General


City Lights


Birth of a Nation






Check out other silent treats in the collection, such as More Treasures from the American Film Archives, 1894-1931 , Broken Blossoms starring Lillian Gish, and Nanook of the North, a 1922 documentary of Eskimo life in the Arctic. Or read about silent era greats like Mary Pickford and temptress Alla Nazimova, whose 'Garden of Allah' was THE party pad for Hollywood elite in the '20s and '30s...