The Story of Film examines world cinema in the period of 1918-1932 and looks at places where movie-makers were pushing the boundaries of film. It examines the work of visually daring filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch and the impressionism of French director Abel Gance. It then looks at the work of expressionists filmmakers Robert Wiene, Teinosuke Kinugasa, Fritz Lang, and F. W. Murnau. It discusses the birth of experimental film and the surrealist filmmakers Walter Ruttmann, René Clair, Alberto Cavalcanti, and Luis Bunuel. It travels to the Soviet Union to examine the influential work of Dziga Vertov, Sergei Eisenstein, and Alexander Dovzhenko. It, then, proceeds to Japan and looks at the work of Yasujiro Ozu and Kenji Mizoguchi. Finally, it travels to Shanghai in China to look at its realistic cinema and the work of popular actress Ruan Lingyu.
—Shatterdaymorn