While we continue to compile the Pordenone diaries (which is no light task), here’s the latest edition of our regular newsreel, which today has a special publications theme this time around, noting some of the new books on silent film published recently.

Early cinema today
Early Cinema Today: The Art of Programming and Live Performance, edited by Martin Loiperdinger, published by John Libbeyis the first in a series of studies in early cinema issued by KINtop. KINtop’s publications to date have been predominantly in German, so this marks an interesting and welcome depature. The volume reviews recent work in programming early cinema, from the Crazy Cinématographe shows to Mariann Lewinsky’s A Hundred Years Ago programmes at Bologna. Read more.

Stummfilmdramaturgie
But let’s not overlook German language works. Claus Tieber’s Stummfilmdramaturgie: Erzählweisen des amerikanischen Feature Films 1917-1927, published by LIt Verlag, is a study of modes of narration in American silent cinema 1917-1927, and sets out to challenge accepted notions of classical Hollywood cinema. Read more.

Emerald illusions
Gary D. Rhodes’s Emerald Illusions: The Irish in Early American Cinema, published by Irish Academic Press, is based on his doctoral thesis and provides what he calls the first history of pre-cinema and the Irish in America. So its subject is not Irish film as commonly studied but rather the rich theme of the portrayal of the Irish in American film and pre-film stagings, as he looks back to the magic lantern and the variety stage, and covers non-fiction films as well as fiction. Read more.

Cinema audiences and modernity
Cinema Audiences and Modernity: An Introduction is edited by Daniel Biltereyst, Richard Maltby and Philippe Meers, and published by Routledge. It brings together papers on cinema-going in Europe first given at the 2007 ‘Glow in their Eyes‘ conference. This is the second volume of papers to be published from the conference, the first (by the same editors), Explorations in New Cinema History: Approaches and Case Studies having been published earlier this year. Read more.

‘Til next time!