The world was reminded last year of the power and beauty of silent cinema when the Michel Hazanavicius film “The Artist,” done in the style of a silent film, won both the French Cesar and the American Oscar as Best Picture of the Year. This lecture will discuss the thirty-year tradition of silent cinema and give twenty examples of the most interesting films made during that period, by artists such as Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Ernst Lubitsch, King Vidor, F.W. Murnau, and John Ford. Warniers will also discuss the technological progress of cinema from its earliest days as a curiosity in nickelodeons to the artistic upheaval that occurred during the transition to the sound era.