Abstract
This paper traces the growth of the American silent film from its origins to 1920. It focuses on technology and music. It discusses influential filmmakers such as D.W. Griffith and Ceceil B. DeMille, Charles Chaplin and Mack Sennett. The author also explores the impact of World War I.

Tags:Film, Cinema, Movie, Griffith, DeMille, Silent, WWI, Western, Chaplin, Sennett, Comedy, Music, Technology

Abstract
The word "auteur" has slipped from common usage when describing an artist of film. Perhaps, and there are critics that would rebut it, only Woody Allen is left as someone who is involved in every creative process of film making. The paper argues that while surely there were auteurs in the early days (D.W. Griffith , Charlie Chaplin, Mack Sennett and Cecil B. deMille), there are three pinnacles in recent times (i.e., since the 1950s) that truly deserve the name that was coined for them: Alfred Hitchcock, Jean-Luc Godard, and Federico Fellini. The paper shows how each provided audiences world-wide with a style that was uniquely theirs; some masterpieces and others just good entertainment. Each worked in a different country (countries, in Hitchcock's case, but mostly, his successes were in America), each brought a particular genre to the film, and it is as different auteurs that their work is examined and evaluated.

From the Paper
"La Strada, which was undoubtedly his first international success, Fellini considers "his most juvenile, lyrical, most confessional film." It was also one film which made Anthony Quinn a star- getting rid of his villain roles in American films, and providing him with a powerful image that changed his entire career. While it is often difficult for a writer-director, an auteur, to explain precisely what motivates the film, in the case of La Strada, Fellini said that "Jesus must be sought outside the church....Christ appears to men under different manifestations, even in the guise of a circus performer. Today we are finished with the Christ myth and await a new one." "

Tags:realism, Blackmail, flops, Universal, Psycho