D.W. Griffith’s 1915 epic The Birth of a Nation needs no introduction. Set during and after the American Civil War, the film proved instantly influential and controversial, remaining a white elephant in film studies — impossible to circumnavigate but difficult to deal with. Much has been written on the film’s…

Everyone has that moment in their childhood, when a visual is so burned into their mind that even after the context has been forgotten that visual remains. More often than not, these are visuals that inspire fear, terror, horror — that first sublime taste of horror in youth can have…

“Publishable, but worth it?” So went the author’s assessment of his work. How fortunate we are that it was published. How fortunate I am. This book changed me. It is one of the most achingly beautiful works it has ever been my privilege to read, and I shall never forget…

August, 1910. A team from the Kalem Company of New York City are headed across the Atlantic to Ireland. Their goal: to make the first American film shot in Ireland.

The ocean was silent. It always was. Jud could never figure out what about this town’s coastline made the waves lap so silently against the rocks. It was deafening in its slow, gentle ebb and flow. The lighthouse life was one of loneliness for Jud Bench. The long, monotonous days…

In her 1980 book, Terpsichore in Sneakers: Post-Modern Dance, Sally Banes writes: “[…] reacting against the expressionism of modern dance, which anchored movement to a literary idea or musical form, the post-modernists propose […] that the purpose of making dances might be simply to […] look at movement for its…