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Film History Discussion Series: 1895-1945

Join members of BMFI’s faculty for a series of discussions charting a course from the birth of cinema to the brink of its modern age. We will visit a chronological series of styles and national cinemas, including actualities from the U.S. and Europe, German Expressionism, and classics from Hollywood's first few decades, as well as other movements and genres of the medium's first fifty years.

Films to be discussed are (click the title for a description):

1/28: "A Trip to the Moon" (Georges Melies, France, 1902);
"The Great Train Robbery" (Edwin S. Porter, US, 1903);
Shorts from Thomas Edison, The Lumiere Brothers, and more
2/4: The Birth of a Nation (D.W. Griffith, US, 1915) 
2/11: The Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, USSR, 1925)
2/18: No Discussion
2/25: The Gold Rush (Charlie Chaplin, US, 1925)
3/3: The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, US, 1927)
3/10: M (Fritz Lang, Germany, 1931)
3/17: A Story of Floating Weeds (Yasujiro Ozu, Japan, 1934)
3/24: No Discussion
3/31: It Happened One Night (Frank Capra, US, 1934)
4/7: Triumph of the Will (Leni Riefenstahl, Germany, 1935)
4/14: The 39 Steps (Alfred Hitchcock, UK, 1935)
4/21: No Discussion
4/28: Stella Dallas (King Vidor, US, 1937)
5/5: Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, US, 1944)