Blog
The Jazz Singer premiered in October 1927 and the industry flipped within two years. Silent stars with thick accents or weak voices fell away, dialogu...
The Hays Code and Classic HollywoodFrom 1934 to 1968 the Production Code Administration, run by Joseph Breen, approved every Hollywood script. Crime could not pay, marriages could not b...
New Hollywood: The 1970s Director DecadeA generation of film school graduates took over after Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider proved youth tickets. Coppola, Scorsese, Altman, Bogdanovich, an...
Beyond Hollywood: World Cinema LandmarksClassic cinema is bigger than Hollywood. Japan gave the world Kurosawa and Ozu, Italy gave De Sica and Fellini, Sweden gave Bergman, France gave the N...
From Two Strip to TechnicolorColor arrived in steps. Two strip Technicolor tinted silent sequences. Three strip, from 1934, needed a huge camera and blinding lights: Becky Sharp c...
Why Black and White EnduresBlack and white is not a limitation, it is a language. Shadows carry moral weight in film noir, faces become landscapes in closeup, and abstraction sh...