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This review article discusses a special journal issue on Asta Nielsen, a Danish actress known for her work in German films. The issue contains eight contributions that focus on Nielsen and related themes, such as the advent of the star system and the introduction of long feature films. The articles make extensive use of digitized newspapers and film trade journals as sources, providing valuable information on Nielsen's films and their marketing. The review also highlights the neglect of other early film stars and the presence of women in the silent cinema, suggesting that future research should take a more statistical and vernacular approach to provide a comprehensive understanding of the early film industry. [Extracted from the article]

This section reprints two rare early texts about the craft of film coloring, dating from 1898 and 1908, by Duncan Mitchell in Britain and Elizabeth Martine in the United States. Mitchell and Martine each describe the meticulous nature of their work as colorists and discuss specific techniques and aesthetic issues that they believe are important in the process of coloring films by hand. The accompanying overview article by Stephen Bottomore summarizes and analyzes the points made by this pair of colorists and compares their accounts with what existing sources tell us about early film coloring. Brief biographies of Mitchell and Martine are also included. KEYWORDS: hand coloring, color film, early film colorists, magic lantern, This article deals with two early and hitherto unknown texts, transcribed and reproduced below, about the hand coloring of films. The first is an article by Duncan Mitchell from the [...]

While it seems that Thomas Hardy was dubious in private about the 1913 film version of Tess of the d'Urbervilles (Letters, May 15), he was more enthusiastic to journalists, the [...]

Camera teams trying to capture the Balkan wars of the early 20th century faced censorship and often demonstrated an imaginative sensationalism. British chroniclers faced an uncooperative home government as well as censorship from the combatant nations. They also faced technical difficulties in documenting a wide-scale and technologically advanced war. They often overcame these obstacles by staging battles or piecing together strings of unrelated footage. However, some chroniclers won the endorsement of the belligerent states and were commissioned to film actual battles unobstructed by censorship.