The Birth of a Nation
One of the most watched and debated American films in history, The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 silent film by D. W. Griffith…
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Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980)
Anglo-American director Alfred Hitchcock was one of the most influential auteurs in cinema history, making more than fifty feature films between 1925 and 1976. He…
Delsarte, François (1811–1871)
A performer and teacher of voice and movement, François Delsarte developed a theory of expression that influenced modern dance, actor training, poetic recitation, silent film,…
Emak Bakia (1926)
Emak Bakia (Basque for “Leave me alone”) is a 16-minute long black-and-white silent film directed by Man Ray. Subtitled a “cine-poem,” it features no obvious…
Brug, De (The Bridge) (1928)
De Brug (The Bridge) is a black-and-white short silent film by Joris Ivens about the Koningshavenbrug in Rotterdam, a railroad lift bridge built between 1925…
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans is an American silent film directed by German director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, who was renowned for his Expressionistic films…
Modernism in Europe
We are living in a very singular moment of history. It is a moment of crisis, in the literal sense of that word. In every…
Surrealism Overview
Soupault’s publication of Manifeste du Surréalism in 1924. Rising in the wake of the First World War, Surrealism revolted against a world that had become…
Chaplin, Charlie (1889–1977)
Charles Spenser Chaplin was born in London on April 16, 1889, and died on Christmas Day, 1977, at home in Corsier-sur-Vevey, Switzerland. He had been…
Pudovkin, Vsevolod Illarionovich (1893–1953)
Vsevolod Pudovkin was a Soviet actor, director, and film theorist working during the first half of the 20th century. He studied chemistry at Moscow State…
Sjöström, Victor David (1879–1960)
Victor Sjöström (also known as victor Seastrom) was a Swedish film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is, with Mauritz Stiller, the joint founding father of…
Waugh, Evelyn (1903–1966)
Evelyn Waugh (1903–66) is not usually regarded as a modernist writer, but his works reveal a productive ambivalence towards Modernism. In Decline and Fall (1928),…
Regen (Rain) (1929)
Regen (Rain) is a black-and-white short film by Joris Ivens and Mannus Franken about a rain shower in Amsterdam. As a masterpiece of Dutch avant-garde…
Agee, James (1909–1955)
James Agee was an American film critic, journalist, and novelist, who, like his modernist contemporaries, pushed against the constraints of his genres. Born in Knoxville…
Denishawn (1915–1931)
Denishawn, a for-profit enterprise combining a school and dance company, was founded in Los Angeles in 1915 by the internationally acclaimed solo performer Ruth St.…
Enomoto, Kenichi 榎本 健一 (1904–1970)
A Japanese comedian, also known as Enoken, Enomoto initially created popular musical comedies in Tokyo’s downtown entertainment district Asakusa. His comedy style, containing elements from…
Furukawa, Roppa (1903–1961)
Furukawa Roppa was a Japanese comedian, film actor, and essayist, who was known for his round face with Lloyd’s glasses. He was active before and…
Revueltas Sánchez, Silvestre (1899–1940)
Silvestre Revueltas was a Mexican modernist composer and violinist. Known mainly for his references to modern Mexican culture, Revueltas is regarded as an essential figure…
Castle, Vernon (1887–1918) & Castle, Irene Foote (1893–1969)
During the years 1911–1917, Irene Foote Castle (1893–1969) and her husband Vernon Castle (1887–1918) explicitly marketed ragtime dancing as “modern” to their upper-class and, increasingly,…
Dovzhenko, Alexander [ДОВЖЕНКО, Олександер Петрович] (1894–1956)
The Ukrainian film director, artist, and writer Alexander Dovzhenko was born in Sosnytsia (Chernihiv region) and graduated from the Hlukhiv teachers’ college in 1914. He…
Modernism and Film Music in Latin America
Modernism in Latin America was, as in Europe, a movement that began as a reaction to late-nineteenth-century artistic currents, primarily in visual and plastic art,…
Lindsay, Vachel (1879–1931)
Vachel Lindsay was an American poet whose concern for developing a new, popular American language led him to become one of the first people to…
Shōchiku Company Limited [松竹株式会社]
Shōchiku Company Limited [松竹株式会社] is a Japanese entertainment gaint that owns theaters, film studios, production companies for motion pictures and theater, real estate, and other…
Porter, Edwin S. (1870–1941)
Edwin Stanton Porter was an American film exhibitor, producer, and director. He started his career in cinema in 1896 as a traveling exhibitor and moved…
Lumière, Auguste (1862–1954) and Lumière, Louis (1864–1948)
The Lumière brothers, Auguste and Louis, invented the Cinématographe, a motion picture camera and projector, and used it to create the film La Sortie des…