Matthew Solomon has taught film history and theory at the University of Michigan since 2011, with special interests in early and silent cinema, classic Hollywood filmmaking, and French film. He brings all that to bear on his five picks for 1900, which contain techniques that have only retroactively been considered early displays of evolving film grammar...and indeed, they are two-fifths French.

Matthew is the author of Disappearing Tricks: Silent Film, Houdini, and the New Magic of the Twentieth Century and Méliès Boots: Footwear and Film Manufacturing in Second Industrial Revolution Paris, among many other books, articles, and publications.

Films and resources mentioned:

• Let Me Dream Again (1900) - George Albert Smith
• Grandma's Reading Glass (1900) - George Albert Smith
• The Enchanted Drawing (1900) - J. Stuart Blackton
• The Magic Book (1900) - Georges Méliès
• The One-Man Band (1900) - Georges Méliès
• The Great Train Robbery (1903) - Edwin S. Porter
• Hugo (2011) - Martin Scorsese
• The Cabbage Fairy (1896) - Alice Guy-Blaché
• The Cabbage Fairy (1900) - Aice Guy-Blaché
• The Playhouse (1921) - Buster Keaton and Edward F. Cline
• The Sprinkler Sprinkled (1895) - Louis Lumière