💀 #loisweber 💀 #annapavlova 💀 #shrunkenheads 💀 "Lois Weber, Eloquent Filmmaker of the Silent Screen" by #manohladargis #nytimes 12-15-2016. Photo: Ballerina Anna Pavlova on the set of “The Dumb Girl of Portici” in 1916. Once upon a Hollywood time, one of filmdom’s biggest directors was Lois Weber. Woodrow Wilson was president, and women couldn’t have voted for him even if they had wanted to, but inside the movie industry, women thrived, and Weber thrived above all others. An auteur before that word entered the cinematic lexicon, she wrote, directed and edited films and was admired for her sensitive work with actors, her on-set meticulousness and her stories about women. Her name was invoked alongside the likes of D. W. Griffith, yet, like most female directors of that era, she faded into obscurity. This weekend, the Anthology Film Archives is giving New Yorkers a chance to discover Weber again with the premiere of a beautiful restoration of her 1916 film “The Dumb Girl of Portici.” A lavish historical drama from Universal — with pictorial sweep, revolutionary conflagrations and severed heads bobbing atop spikes — the film was considered to be that studio’s most ambitious production to date. It’s also notable for being the high-profile Hollywood debut of the Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova (“the Incomparable”), though Weber finally seems to have received better reviews than her star did. Some critics deemed Pavlova not camera-ready, but Weber was seen as a titan. @air_rat @mllebishop