The Trouble with Sound: Prix de beauté (Augusto Genina, 1930) Shari Kizirian October 2019 CTEQ Annotations on Film Variety’s correspondent in Berlin describes the unfortunate fate of Prix de beauté (Augusto Genina, 1930), a film about a beauty queen saddled with a jealous boyfriend, released during the mad rush to sound: “O...
Rosita (Ernst Lubitsch, 1923) Shari Kizirian July 2019 CTEQ Annotations on Film A 1923 American release about a scrappy street singer who catches the eye of a lascivious king in a fictional Old Seville, Rosita was a turning point in the careers of two of silent-era cinema’s most consequent...
The Ascent (1977): Larisa Shepitko’s Final Word Shari Kizirian March 2019 CTEQ Annotations on Film The breathless immediacy of Voskhozhdeniye (The Ascent, Larisa Shepitko, 1977), adapted from a novella by Vasily Bykov about two Belarusian partisans during World War II, combines with a profound understanding ...
Asphalt (Joe May, 1929) Shari Kizirian June 2018 CTEQ Annotations on Film Light on plot and heavy in atmosphere, Asphalt (Joe May, 1929) was one of the last silent films to come out of Ufa, and the German mega-studio seems to have spared no expense in its making. The story of a young...
1927: The Girl with the Hatbox (Boris Barnet) Shari Kizirian December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema The first solo effort by Boris Barnet, Devushka s korobkoy (The Girl with the Hatbox) opened during a pinnacle year for silent cinema. Called “annus mirabilis” by Kevin Brownlow (1), 1927 saw the premieres of M...
1927: October (Sergei Eisenstein) Shari Kizirian December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema In 1926, the October Revolution Jubilee Committee pulled Sergei Eisenstein, Grigorii Aleksandrov, and cameraman Eduard Tisse away from Generalnaia Liniia (The General Line, eventually completed in 1929) to begi...
1929: Man With a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov) Shari Kizirian December 2017 100 Years of Soviet Cinema From Failed Propaganda to Timeless Masterpiece: Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929) In 1927 while Soviet cinema was celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, one of its most ferve...
Regeneration (1915): Raoul Walsh Begins Shari Kizirian September 2017 CTEQ Annotations on Film Made the year exhibitor William Fox established himself as a moviemaker, Regeneration (Raoul Walsh, 1915) was released as part of the company’s ambitious plan for filling its 125-movie-theater chain with its ow...
Money Makes the Movies Go Round: Marcel L’Herbier’s L’Argent Shari Kizirian September 2015 CTEQ Annotations on Film Motion pictures get made in a tensile tradeoff between art and commerce, expression and resources, creator and investor, and most elementally both on-set and behind-the-scenes, between director and producer. So...
An Interlude in Swedish Cinema: Gustaf Molander’s Intermezzo Shari Kizirian June 2015 CTEQ Annotations on Film When Hollywood came calling to sign both Ingrid Bergman and Gustaf Molander for a remake of Intermezzo (1936), the actress and the director’s reluctance was probably no surprise, considering MGM’s famous diffic...
The Mistress and the Actress: Marion Davies in The Patsy Shari Kizirian August 2013 CTEQ Annotations on Film A black sheep with blonde hair, Patsy Harrington has a crush. The younger sister of the social-climbing Grace who, abetted by a single-minded mother and a weak-willed father, always gets her way, Patsy is the f...
The Girl with the Hatbox Shari Kizirian August 2012 CTEQ Annotations on Film The first solo effort by Boris Barnet, Devushka s korobkoy (The Girl with the Hatbox) opened during a pinnacle year for silent cinema. Called “annus mirabilis” by Kevin Brownlow (1), 1927 saw the premieres of M...
