The Global Cinema Before World War I
Based on my book Traum und Exzess. Die Kulturgeschichte des frühen Kinos. Vienna 2011
Film library in progress. Comments are welcome.
Please, search by entering text (e.g. film titles or names) into the search box at the right. Click the links at the right to search by country, or use the lists below to look for ‘Pioneers’ or film genres
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What films reflect are not so much explicit credos as psychological dispositions – those deep layers of collective mentality which extend more or less below the dimensions of consciousness.
(Siegfried Kracauer)
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The Pioneers
AUGUSTE AND LOUIS LUMIERE
GEORGES MÉLIÈS
ALICE GUY
LOUIS FEUILLADE
MAX LINDER
SEGUNDO DE CHOMÓN
ALBERT CAPELLANI / LÉONCE PERRET
EDWIN S. PORTER
DAVID W. GRIFFITH
CHARLES CHAPLIN 1914/15
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Genres
RAILWAYS, PHANTOM RIDES – CIRCUS, VARIETÉ, MUSIC HALL
SOUND AND COLOUR EXPERIMENTS
LANDSCAPES, URBAN VIEWS – RE-ENACTMENTS
EARLY DOCUMENTARY FILMS I – EARLY DOCUMENTARY FILMS II
DANGEROUS CARS AND AIRPLANES – CHASE FILMS – EXCESS, DREAM, PARANOIA
DRAMA / MELODRAMA I – DRAMA / MELODRAMA II
ADVENTURE – HISTORY – WESTERN – SOCIAL DRAMA
SLAPSTICK AND BURLESQUE – COMEDY I – COMEDY II
SERIALS – THRILLERS: GANGSTERS AND DETECTIVES
MYTHS, MYSTERY, FAIRY TALES – TRICK FILMS AND CARTOONS
MONUMENTAL AND BIBLE FILMS – EROTICA AND PORNOS – COMMERCIALS
SHAKESPEARE ON SCREEN HORROR: MONSTERS AND SHADOWS
CATASTROPHE AND DISASTER – WAR
Stars
Roscoe Arbuckle / Theda Bara / Lionel Barrymore / Sarah Bernhardt / Francesca Bertini / Lyda Borelli / Annie Bos / John Bunny / Lon Chaney / William F. Cody / Maurice Costello / Dorothy Davenport / Marie Dressler / Marcel Fabre (i.e. Marcel Perez) / W.C.Fields / Flora Finch / Margarita Fischer / Gene Gauntier / Lillian Gish / Dorothy Gish / Suzanne Grandais / William S. Hart / Gale Henry / Alice Joyce / Florence La Badie / Florence Lawrence / Mae Marsh / Pina Menichelli / Tom Mix / Asta Nielsen / Mabel Normand / Mary Pickford / Valdemar Psilander / Lydia Quaranta / Wallace Reid / Ruth Roland / Mac Sennett, / Al St. John / Ford Sterling / Gloria Swanson / Blanche Sweet / Norma Talmadge / Alma Taylor / Florence Turner / Henry B. Walthall / Kathlyn Williams / Clara Kimball Young / Vera Yureneva
Bibliography: The Early Silent Cinema
Archive: 1590 films
April 2024
Establ. Nov. 2012
About:
Prof. Dr. Klaus Kreimeier, Berlin
Film historian and writer
Author of Die Ufa Story. München: Hanser 1992 / The Ufa Story. NY: Hill and Wang 1996; Berkeley: UCP 1999
“The Ufa Story” online
Biography
Articles, Essays, Reviews (in German)
Walter Benjamin und der Film (2018)
Blicke im Kino – Blicke im Film (2018)
Am Anfang war das Chaos. Filmgenres und ihre Genese im frühen Kino (1895–1914) (2017)
Entfesselung und Steuerung. Blickstrategien in der frühen Kinematografie (2014)
Als das Morden im Kino begann (2014)
Eine technische Tour de Force. Thomas A. Edison und seine Mitarbeiter (2010)
Der geheimnisvolle Club von Joseph Delmont (2007)
Die doppelte Verdopplung der Kaiser-Ikone (2002)
Vom Vampir zum Vamp (2000)
Filmstandort Berlin (1998)
Magic Moments in Early Film History
Reviews
Ma l’amor mio non muore
Le Mystère des roches de Kador
The Musketeers of Pig Alley
Posle smerti (Nach dem Tod)
Det hemmelighedsfulde X (Das geheimnisvolle X)
THE EARLY SILENT ERA 1895-1915 