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![\"Pordenone](\"http:\/\/www.charlesmusser.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Pordenone-2012-019.jpg\")
<\/a>Now I don’t bother to look at the program.\u00a0 I just go.\u00a0 In 2012, once again, there was serendipity.\u00a0 I was writing an essay for Film History<\/em> entitled “Conversions and Convergences: Sarah Bernhardt in the Era of Technological Reproducibility, 1910-1913.” And the Giornate showed Bernhardt’s first motion picture: a brief excerpt of the duel scene from Hamlet<\/i> (1900), made for the Phono-Cinema-Theatre at the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1900.<\/p>\n<\/a>Sarah Bernhardt in the duel scene from Hamlet<\/em> (1900).<\/p><\/div>\n It was in color and wonderful condition.\u00a0 And I saw it in the context of almost two dozen other Phono-Cinema films, many with recorded sound tracks from the period.<\/p>\n The greatest surprise and perhaps the greatest pleasure of the week was my discovery of Anna Stein, the Soviet film star of the late 1920s, who had a brief career in Germany then moved on to the US where Goldwyn tried to boost her career–but failed. From Boris Barnet’s The Girl with the Hatbox<\/em> (1927) to Robert Siodmak’s Storms of Passion<\/em> (1931), I was enthralled.<\/p>\n Anna Stein<\/p><\/div>\n Another high point of the week was chairing a panel with Richard Koszarski, Kevin Brownlow, Ned Thanhouser and Andrew Erish (who had just published a book on William Selig). This Collegium session took place on October 12th: “Hidden History: the forgotten studios\u2013Selig, Thanhouser and the others.”\u00a0 The Edison company (my area of particular expertise) is clearly not one of the forgotten studios, though I have done my share unearthing some obscure ones.<\/p>\n Talking Silent Cinema at Pordenone<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n It was a great honor to be on the same stage with Kevin Brownlow–the first time we actually sat down together.\u00a0 I am hoping it broke the ice.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>