Kevin Brownlow

Editors on Editing

Film editing initially began as a woman's art in France. As veteran film editor, Dede Allen, tell it, "They thought that women were good at little details, like sewing." Before editing became a craft, women were the earliest technicians. Today, the long tradition of women editors carries on.

Cartoon Carnival

Cartoon Carnival tells the story of the pioneering early days of the animated art-form and chronicles one film preservationist's quest to rescue pre-sound cartoons from obscurity and screen them to new, appreciative audiences.

Silents, Please! A Love Letter to the Silent Era

A TCM original production on why silent movies matter, featuring new interviews with Honorary Academy Award winner Kevin Brownlow, filmmaker Bill Morrison, TCM Silent Sunday Nights host Jacqueline Stewart, and film collector/expert Shane Fleming. They discuss the beauty, cultural importance, and long-standing impact that silent film holds in its celluloid.

Image Makers: The Adventures of America's Pioneer Cinematographers

Documentary following the history of America's first cinematographers.

Be Natural: The Untold Story of Alice Guy-Blaché

The epic life story of Alice Guy-Blaché (1873–1968), a French screenwriter, director and producer, true pioneer of cinema, the first person who made a narrative fiction film; author of hundreds of movies, but banished from history books. Ignored and forgotten. At last remembered.

Notfilm

NOTFILM is a feature-length experimental essay on FILM -- its author Samuel Beckett, its star Buster Keaton, its production and its philosophical implications -- utilizing additional outtakes, never before heard audio recordings of the production meetings, and other rare archival elements.

Searching for the Lost Pochta

Travelogue of two film historians Nikolay Izvolov and Sergey Kapterev who visit world film archives around the globe in search of a lost sound version of one famous Soviet cartoon. It's "The Post" made by Mikhail Tsekhanovsky in 1929 and based on a poem by Samuil Marshak. At first "The Post" has been released in a silent form and later Tsekhanovsky remade it with experimental music and narration by Daniil Kharms. At that moment it was the first Soviet sound cartoon and it was a success all over the world. Russian film studies consider "The Post" to be of great importance and artistic value but unfortunately it's still lost. Only the silent version and the 1964 remake are still known and available.

Reel Herstory: The Real Story of Reel Women

Using rare footage and exclusive interviews with filmmakers from all over the globe, "Reel Herstory" corrects the historic notion that women behind the scenes in motion pictures held peripheral careers compared with their male counterparts.

Birth of the Tramp

A look back at Charlie Chaplin's early life and career, from his rough childhood and music hall success in England to his early Hollywood days and the development of his enormously popular character, the Little Tramp, also called Charlot.

Three Hours That Shook the World: Observations on Intolerance

Three Hours That Shook the World: Observations on Intolerance is an interview with Kevin Brownlow which includes occasional clips and stills from the film. He has a ton of fascinating anecdotes about the film and its participants, including a really funny story involving David Shepard, another vaunted name in silent film, and Intolerance's editor, James Smith.

Presenting The Gold Rush

In 1942, Charles Chaplin released his definitive sound version of THE GOLD RUSH, effectively abandoning the original 1925 silent version of his film. In this documentary short subject, created by The Criterion Collection, Kevin Brownlow and Chaplin biographer and archivist Jeffrey Vance recount the journey of this comic masterpiece.

The Chronoscope

A documentary about the Irish scientist Charlotte Keppel who in the 1930s invented a machine that could see into the past.

Silent Hollywood: Cult, Stars, Scandals

Documentary about Hollywood during the silent film era.

White Thunder

A riveting account of the tragic adventure of filmmaker Varick Frissell and his filming of "The Viking" (1931) and the tragic events that befell that adventure into early film-making.

Cinerama Adventure

A nostalgic and compelling look into the legendary three camera, three projector process that revolutionized motion pictures and led the industry into the widescreen era.

Captured on Film: The True Story of Marion Davies

Blonde, beautiful and talented, Marion Davies was the first and funniest screwball comedienne. As star of two of the best comedies ever made, Show People and The Patsy, she combined zany slapstick and exuberant mimicry. Glamorous, witty and kind, both on screen and off, Davies was also famous for her 35-year-long love affair with William Randolph Hearst.

Censored!

A documentary about the cultural effect of film censorship, focusing on the tumultuous times of the teens and early 1920s in America.

The Race to Save 100 Years

As the documentary points out, 85 percent of all silent pictures are gone forever because of neglect, abuse, and improper storage of original prints. This film stresses the importance of saving these and more recent films as cultural documents that have become part of our shared history. It also takes the viewer through the painstaking process of film restoration, and highlights some of the organizations and individuals who are spear-heading this movement.

Louise Brooks

55-Minute BBC Arena documentary on the film actress Louise Brooks

It Happened Here Again

The making of Winstanley (1975)

Abel Gance: The Charm of Dynamite

BBC documentary on the long and flamboyant career of French filmmaker Abel Gance.

About "The White Bus"

Follows the creation of Lindsay Anderson's The White Bus (1968), from pre-production to the shoot and in post.

The Original Action Hero

The film will track the evolution of the action hero in films and how aspects and perspectives have changed about them. Along with Stallone, it will also star Arnold Schwarzenegger, Luke Evans, and Charley Palmer Rothwell among others.