This book provides a groundbreaking exploration of silent film performance. It combines close reading of silent screen acting with theoretically informed analysis, stressing the overlap between different performative arts, such as film and stage acting, dance, mime, and pantomime. The boundary between silent and sound films is also challenged. Anna Pavlova’s acting in
The Dumb Girl of Portici
is read through Freud’s work on the uncanny, disability studies, and notions of intermediality. Vladimir Mayakovsky’s performance in
The Young Lady and the Hooligan
is approached as a silent soliloquy and a representation of loneliness. Ivan Mozzhukhin’s tour de force in
The Late Mathias Pascal
is discussed through a queer failure lens, while Pola Negri’s presence in
Hotel Imperial
is analysed with the aid of texts on wartime anxiety. Harald Kreutzberg’s stunning number in
Paracelsus
is examined in the light of theories of mime and pantomime, arguing for its subversive potential in a Third Reich sound film.