Silent Film: Erotikon

Directed by Mauritz Stiller
(Sweden, 1920, 97 minutes, b/w, silent with live piano accompaniment by Mike Schiffer)
In this Swedish comedy (cited as an important inspiration by Ernst Lubitsch), an entomologist who specializes in the sex life of bugs becomes infatuated with his own niece. Meanwhile, his wife embarks on extramarital affairs with a dashing aviator and a brooding sculptor. Dave Kehr of the NY Times called it, “sublime… one of the screen’s first sophisticated sex comedies.”