Silent Film Write-Up

Film, “the seventh art”, was first seen in 1896 - “The Kiss” .  The first films were in fact, silent.  The reason for this was that the technology required to record audio and video at the same time didn’t even exist.  Many theaters got around this by having an orchestra or pianist play during the showing of a movie - often, the music that was shown alongside the films was handpicked by the director - in this case, the music could be considered part of the movie.  From the Lumière Brothers to the latter films of Chaplin, the art of Film was constantly evolving throughout the silent era.  The Silent Era is the era in film history where the conventions of film were established - camera angles were given meaning, the superpositioning of non-diegetic sound onto movies, etc.  Films like Battleship Potemkin would give rise to Michael Bay films, whereas The Cameraman’s Revenge [English Title] would be a precursor to animation, claymation, and other similar methods of creating a film without filming the actual actors.  

Because of the lack of sound, silent films had to place more emphasis on the face.  Whether they were an actor like Renée Falconetti of La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc fame, or an actor like Charlie Chaplin, the Tramp, all they had to use to express themselves was their face.  This led to the introduction of title cards, a piece of text shown between shots that explained what was going on.  After the Silent Era, title cards disappeared, although their influence can still be seen - the intro to all Star Wars films is, in effect, an extended title card.

The Silent Era’s roots can be traced back to photography and theatre.  The first few films made were just to show that they could make moving pictures, such as Employees Leaving the Lumière Factory [English Title].  Soon after, people realized the storytelling power of film.  When creating movies for a story, they used the only style of storytelling-with-actors they knew, theater.  This is evident in films like The Sprinkler Sprinkled.  As time moved on, film severed itself from these roots.  With film, one could enter the scene from any direction, one could edit the footage to create realistic action scenes and remove mistakes, and one could put much more emphasis on the actor (specifically the face) if needed.  In film, a director has the power to control where his audience looks.