Shallow at times, but motivated me to read more,

Writing about silent movies seems a bit like dancing about architecture, and an audio book on the subject is probably even more a slightly silly idea. But Donna Kornhaber does indeed have a lot of interesting facts and insights to share.

I learned about silent film's first beginnings, its move from carnival curiosity to a very accessible international form of art and entertainment, and how the industry became what it is essentially has been for the last century or so. The rough outline of the film industry's development and how it shaped movies is well-argued and well-illustrated with examples and facts. This is especially true for the non-US movie makers, especially from France - which dominated the field in the beginning. But Kornhaber dug up examples from all over the world, from Australia to Japan and the remotest corners of colonial empires. This is certainly the greatest strength of this introduction, and I learned a lot.

The book is a lot shorter on social history - and rather shallow. That early cinemas - nickelodeons - were seen with some suspicion and that censorship was introduced rather early is "explained" by people in power mistrusting "minorities", especially in larger groups. Given how ever since Plato's Republic every new medium (then: writing) was first seen with suspicion, with the rationalizations not having changed much since, well, Plato - a deeper historical analysis would have been more helpful. The same goes for the (very much emphasized) parts that women played: They were employed in very large numbers in the 1920s, but far less so in the 1930s, because... well, Kornhaber blames the influence of powerful men, without really going further into the specifics: Why did these men not prohibit women from working behind the camera in the first place? What changed?

The same goes for "Birth of a Nation", a movie both famous for how it changed the whole industry and infamous for ... well, Kornhaber tells us repeatedly that it is infamous indeed, but without really telling the audience why exactly. Yes, there is only so much space in a very short introduction. Nevertheless, it would have helped to either tell the full story (my preferred option), or leave the "infamy" part out - name-dropping or better name-calling alone is just useless and wasteful at best.

That aside: The book covers a lot of ground, and many of the sketched topics can be easily looked up in more depth on Wikipedia. It works very well as a starting point, precisely because the majority of points are discussed at a depth that motivated me to read more about them.

Thus, 4/5 stars for the book. The audio presentation is clear, crisp and easy enough to follow and to understand - with the exception of Beresford's pronunciation of German words. Since they are very few and inconsequential, her performance is as near-perfect as it can be, and a joy to listen to.

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