Subject
KINtop no. 7:Stummes Spiel, sprechende Gesten / Silent Acting, Telling Gestures Acting and actors have become an important issue in early cinema studies. Refusing the teleological view according to which film acting progressively had to emancipate itself from theatrical conventions, current scholarship explores the rich social, cultural and aesthetical contexts which shaped actors' performances on the screen. KINtop 7 - Stummes Spiel, sprechende Gesten is a collection of seminal essays on various aspects of this complex field written by scholars of international renown: Ivo Blom on the Italian diva Lyda Borelli, Ben Brewster / Lea Jacobs on pictorial acting style, Monica Dall'Asta on Maciste and other Italian strong men, Joseph Garncarz on the absence of child stars in Germany, and Frank Kessler on theories of bodily expression. Outside the main section Stephen Bottomore describes how the 1911 Delhi Durbar became a major cinematographic event, and in an English language essay Hiroshi Komatsu discusses pre-cinema screen practices in Japan. Two contributions deal with scholarly and archival work on early cinema: Martin Humphries presents the Cinema Museum, London and Sabine Lenk examines the publication policy of French and Dutch archives. And finally, Herbert Birett has compiled a revised and completed list of where to find early German cinema related journals. Stroemfeld Verlag: Basel, Frankfurt am Main 1998 ISBN 3-87877-787-6
