Thread: Silent Films
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Old 21st November 2005, 05:22 PM   #12 (permalink)
Foxbat
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Re: Silent Films

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Well, lots of thoughts - mainly agreeing with you! As a keen film fan, I enjoy seeing the "early" growth of cinema and a lot of the groundwork was laid in these movies for the later ones. But, having said that I find early B&W movies hard to watch precisely because they've been pastiched! Intellectually, I understand that these 'were first' but emotionally, you're sitting there wondering why they don't react in 21st century ways.
Very true. A couple of things (I believe) you must keep in mind when watching one of these films

1) The need to convey information without the use of sound - hence the much exageratted expressions, dramatic music etc.

2) You need to detach yourself from all the clutter in this century and look at these (almost) with a historian's eye to get the best out of them. I would recommend anybody starting out to have a look at some early German cinema which (I believe) is some of the finest made....even against much of today's work!

In fact, silent movies is becoming a 'runt of the litter' - with most folk drunk on Dolby Digital and such like. For that reason, I'm gonna give the runt a bit of a helping hand and make this a sticky. Any thoughts or recommendations can be put here
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