In 1929 – two years into cinema’s sound era – the days of silent filmmaking were numbered, but as the studios raced to capitalise on the excitement and box-office potential of this new tool, some filmmakers were still producing wonders without it. Dziga Vertov was the Man With a Movie Camera; Buñuel and Dalí collaborated for Un Chien Andalou; Fritz Lang made another pioneering sci-fi film with Woman in the Moon, and Anthony Asquith found time to comment wryly on the phenomenon of the ‘talkie’ in his gripping thriller A Cottage on Dartmoor. GW Pabst, meanwhile, was about to turn a relatively unknown actress into one of cinema’s most iconic and intriguing figures. Why on earth would he need dialogue? He had Louise Brooks.
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