- When:
- Friday, February 20, 1998, 3:00pm - 3:00pm
- Description:
- Contrary to popular belief, films of the silent era were not just black and white. They often featured beautiful, vivid colors -- a fact that has recently drawn the attention of film preservationists and scholars alike. On Friday, February 20 at 4:00 p.m. in Cobb Hall 307, Dr. Paolo Cherchi Usai, Senior Curator of Film at the George Eastman House, will give a public lecture entitled "How Color Movies Think: What Happens While They Are Seen" on the aesthetics of color in early silent film. Prior to the lecture, at 3:00 p.m. in the Max Palevsky Cinema, 1212 East 59th Street, there will be a free public screening of rare silent color films from the George Eastman House collection. Dr. Cherchi Usai will discuss how color affects our aesthetic interpretation of moving images and how the notion of "natural" color emerged, and assess its influence on ideas of abstraction, reality, and narrativity in film. In addition to his position at the George Eastman House, he is also Director of the L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation, Associate Professor of Film at the University of Rochester, and Co-Director of the Pordenone Silent Film Festival. Among his most recent publications are "Burning Passions: An Introduction to the Study of Silent Cinema" (1994) and volume one of "The Griffith Project" (1997).
- Co-sponsored by Cinema and Media Studies and Doc Films
How Color Movies Think
Dr. Paolo Cherchi Usai, Senior Curator of Film at the George Eastman House