Joan the Woman
Keeping silent cinema alive, showing the films of the era at the right speed and in their original image format, and having a pianist accompany them with respect, is all part of the normal work of a film library. But at a time when electronics is offering filmmakers new ways of making their images, it is even more relevant to periodically recall how eloquent were the images of the so-called silent era of film history. Silent cinema is therefore an essential component of the Cinémathèque's programming. And it is not a bad thing to remember that these are the works and filmmakers who made modern cinema possible, not to mention that it is always pleasant to be able to return for a few hours to the era of images that speak.
Accompanied on the piano by Chantale Morin
Restored version by the George Eastman Museum
Using the backdrop of World War I as a framing story, an English soldier, played by matinee idol Wallace Reid, in a trench uncovers a buried sword that once belonged to Joan of Arc. From there the film flashes back to 15th Century France. (George Eastman Museum)
Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille was an American director and producer. Initially an actor in the 1900s, he co-founded a film production company with Jesse L. Lasky and Samuel Goldwyn (the precursor to Paramount) and directed the first feature film shot in Hollywood, The Squaw Man (1914). Through numerous vaudeville comedies starring Gloria Swanson, he became one of the most important directors of silent films in the 1920s. He then specialized in adventure and historical films, such as The Sign of the Cross (1932), The Crusades (1935), Northwest Mounted Police (1940, his first Technicolor film), Reap the Wild Wind (1942), Unconquered (1947), The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), and The Ten Commandments (1956). A pioneer of his art and an independent producer, Cecil B. DeMille was one of the few directors to enjoy complete artistic freedom throughout his career and one of the first to envision cinema as entertainment for the general public. A great director of crowd scenes, he managed to impose his own distinctive and recognizable style. While his name remains associated with extravagance and grandeur in cinema, Cecil B. DeMille is nonetheless one of the most important directors of the Golden Age of American cinema. Like David W. Griffith and Charles Chaplin, his career was decisive, and his influence was significant on his contemporaries and subsequent generations of filmmakers.
