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Quiz about A History of Silent Cinema
Quiz about A History of Silent Cinema

A History of Silent Cinema Trivia Quiz


Here are ten questions about the early days of cinema, both from Europe and America.

A multiple-choice quiz by marienbart. Estimated time: 5 mins.
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Author
marienbart
Time
5 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
163,193
Updated
Dec 03 21
# Qns
10
Difficulty
Average
Avg Score
8 / 10
Plays
682
- -
Question 1 of 10
1. The Kinetograph is regarded as the first true motion-picture camera. The first recordings of the Kinetograph were not shown on a screen, but in a so-called Kinetoscope, which was a sort of coin-operated entertainment machine. Who invented both these machines and many others? Hint


Question 2 of 10
2. The many creative possibilities of cinema were first realised by a French illusionist. He was born in 1861 and died in 1938 and is known as cinema's first narrative artist. He invented the fade-in, the fade-out, the dissolve and stop-motion photography. In 1897 he had constructed a studio on the grounds of his house, in Paris. Here he produced about 500 short movies until 1913, when he was forced out of business, because the movie industry had caught up with him. His most famous and influential film was "Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon)", a fifteen minute adaptation of the well-known Jules Verne novel. What's the name of this magician-cinematographer? Hint


Question 3 of 10
3. Edwin S. Porter was probably the first to realise that the basic unit of film is not a scene, but a shot. He is credited as being the first to develop a concept of continuity editing. In 1903 he made his best-known movie, which may be considered as the first ever Western. The film is 740 feet long, consists of fourteen seperate non-overlapping shots and has a duration of about twelve minutes. The movie ends with a man shooting a pistol into the direction of the camera. What is the name of this movie? Hint


Question 4 of 10
4. One of the greatest and most influential German movies of all time was "Nosferatu", featuring Max Schreck (what an appropriate name!) in the role of the vampire. Who directed this film, based on Stoker's "Dracula"? Hint


Question 5 of 10
5. Who directed "Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potyomkin)" in 1925, the masterpiece of Soviet silent cinema? Hint


Question 6 of 10
6. Which Buster Keaton movie (1927), set in the Civil War, mainly focuses on a train (which has the same name as the movie)? Hint


Question 7 of 10
7. After a number of Hollywood scandals the MPPDA was created, a self-regulatory trade-organization headed by Will Hays. The purpose of the MPPDA was to avoid government censorship by imposing a form of self-censure in Hollywood. What does MPPDA stand for? Hint


Question 8 of 10
8. One of the most important genres in the twenties was comedy. Which one of the following actors is NOT known as a comedian, although he starred in a few short comedies in the very beginning of his career? Hint


Question 9 of 10
9. What is the name of the 1936 movie in which Charlie Chaplin plays a factory worker who is fired when he has a nervous breakdown on the assembly line? Hint


Question 10 of 10
10. One of the last silent movies made in France was a surrealistic short movie by Luis Bunuel in collaboration with painter Salavador Dali. The approximately 17 minute long movie provides a seemingly incoherent stream of brutal, erotic images from the subconscious. The film featured some very gruesome scenes: a woman's eyeball being cut in two with a razor, ants crawling from a hole in a man's hand and the rotting carcasses of two donkeys lying on a piano. What is the name of this extraordinary piece of silent cinema, made in 1929? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. The Kinetograph is regarded as the first true motion-picture camera. The first recordings of the Kinetograph were not shown on a screen, but in a so-called Kinetoscope, which was a sort of coin-operated entertainment machine. Who invented both these machines and many others?

Answer: Thomas Alva Edison

Edison was the first important inventor in film history. The early Kinetoscope showings are not regarded as the genesis of cinema, because they were not projected on a screen. That's why the French Lumière brothers hold the achievement of being the first to have made cinema, in 1895. Edison's production company would become one of the first big film companies in America.
2. The many creative possibilities of cinema were first realised by a French illusionist. He was born in 1861 and died in 1938 and is known as cinema's first narrative artist. He invented the fade-in, the fade-out, the dissolve and stop-motion photography. In 1897 he had constructed a studio on the grounds of his house, in Paris. Here he produced about 500 short movies until 1913, when he was forced out of business, because the movie industry had caught up with him. His most famous and influential film was "Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon)", a fifteen minute adaptation of the well-known Jules Verne novel. What's the name of this magician-cinematographer?

Answer: Georges Méliès

Jean-Luc Godard was one of the main people involved in the French New wave in the fifties. Louis Feuillade was the director of 1914's "Fantomas" and the ten-episode "Les Vampires" in 1915-16. Carl-Theodor Dreyder was a Danish director, who worked in France from the twenties on. With "La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc" he made one of the last silent film masterpieces on the continent in 1928.
3. Edwin S. Porter was probably the first to realise that the basic unit of film is not a scene, but a shot. He is credited as being the first to develop a concept of continuity editing. In 1903 he made his best-known movie, which may be considered as the first ever Western. The film is 740 feet long, consists of fourteen seperate non-overlapping shots and has a duration of about twelve minutes. The movie ends with a man shooting a pistol into the direction of the camera. What is the name of this movie?

Answer: The Great Train Robbery

"Rescued from an Eagle's Nest" was another movie by Porter, which featured D.W. Griffith as an actor. Griffith would later become the greatest innovator in American cinema before Orson Welles. "The Birth of a Nation" was directed by him. "Go West", finally, was a parody of the Western genre, made by Buster Keaton in 1925.
4. One of the greatest and most influential German movies of all time was "Nosferatu", featuring Max Schreck (what an appropriate name!) in the role of the vampire. Who directed this film, based on Stoker's "Dracula"?

Answer: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau

All four of these directors have made movies in the style that is known as German Expressionism. Fritz Lang is the only one who managed to build up a long and successful career in Hollywood. The filming of "Nosferatu" was dramatized in E. Elias Merhige's 2000 movie "Shadow of the Vampire", which featured William Dafoe as Max Schreck and John Malkovich as F.W. Murnau.
5. Who directed "Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potyomkin)" in 1925, the masterpiece of Soviet silent cinema?

Answer: Sergei Eisenstein

"Battleship Potemkin" was shot in memory of the twentieth anniversary of the 1905 Revolution against tsarism, which failed. Dziga Vertov (aka Denis Kaufman) was the inventor of the kino-eye and his major work was "The Man with a Movie Camera", maybe the first meta-cinematographical movie ever made. Pudovkin made, among other movies, a film adaptation of Gorki's novel "Mother". Dovzhenko made the silent movies "Earth" and "Arsenal".
6. Which Buster Keaton movie (1927), set in the Civil War, mainly focuses on a train (which has the same name as the movie)?

Answer: The General

All four are films with Buster Keaton. In my humble opinion, Keaton's humor is more modern than Chaplin's. Both comedians were absolutely brilliant, but Keaton's more sober and dry humor seems to resemble contemporary comedy more than Chaplin's picaresque, vaudeville-like humor.
7. After a number of Hollywood scandals the MPPDA was created, a self-regulatory trade-organization headed by Will Hays. The purpose of the MPPDA was to avoid government censorship by imposing a form of self-censure in Hollywood. What does MPPDA stand for?

Answer: Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America

The MPPDA was also known as the Hays Office (and Hays himself was nicknamed the 'movie tsar'). The MPPDA did not have the power to actually forbid movies, but were content to provide informal advice to the principle of compensating values. The organization also created the so-called 'Purity Code', a list of 'Don'ts and Be Carefuls'.
8. One of the most important genres in the twenties was comedy. Which one of the following actors is NOT known as a comedian, although he starred in a few short comedies in the very beginning of his career?

Answer: Douglas Fairbanks

Fairbanks started as a comedian in a number of movies made for Griffith's Triangle Company, like "Manhattan Madness" (Allan Dwan, 1916) and "The Mollycoddle" (Victor Fleming, 1920), but he became famous as an action hero in costume-adventure spectacles like "The Mark of Zorro" (Fred Niblo, 1920), "The Three Musketeers" (Fred Niblo, 1921), "Robin Hood" (Allan Dwan, 1922) and "The Thief of Bagdad" (Raoul Walsh, 1924). Charles Chaplin and Stan Laurel don't need an explanation, but Fatty Arbuckle may.

He worked Mack Sennet's Keystone company, which also produced the first films of Chaplin, Harry Langdon, Ben Turpin, Gloria Swanson and W.C. Fields. Arbuckle made fifteen two-reel shorts with Buster Keaton. In September 1921 Arbuckle was charged with the rape and murder of Virginia Rappa, a young starlet.

He was acquitted for lack of evidence, but his career was over.
9. What is the name of the 1936 movie in which Charlie Chaplin plays a factory worker who is fired when he has a nervous breakdown on the assembly line?

Answer: Modern Times

The film was made in 1936, about 6 years after the definite breakthrough of the talkie, but Chaplin held on to the silent movie and gained success with it. When I think of Chaplin I always think of two people: the clownesque Charlie in the films and the great director Charles behind the camera.
10. One of the last silent movies made in France was a surrealistic short movie by Luis Bunuel in collaboration with painter Salavador Dali. The approximately 17 minute long movie provides a seemingly incoherent stream of brutal, erotic images from the subconscious. The film featured some very gruesome scenes: a woman's eyeball being cut in two with a razor, ants crawling from a hole in a man's hand and the rotting carcasses of two donkeys lying on a piano. What is the name of this extraordinary piece of silent cinema, made in 1929?

Answer: Un Chien andalou (An Andalusian Dog)

"L'Age d'or" was the second Bunuel-Dali collaboration, which was longer and less surreal that "Un Chien...". "La Sang d'un poète" was the first movie by the poet and playwright Jean Cocteau. "Les Mystères du château du dé" was made by another great modern artist: Man Ray.
Source: Author marienbart

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor rj211 before going online.
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