Silent films are films that I am not familiar with as I have watched very few of them in the past. That being said, I was very impressed with the films that we watched in Russian Cinema. The short films made by the Lumière brothers from France were incredible. I thought that the quality of the films made by the brothers was outstanding for being the first films ever produced. Going into class, I thought that the silent films would be of terrible quality. The film was actually quite clear, and the motions of the people present in the films were smooth when I thought they would be jumpy. One aspect of the films shot by the Lumière brothers that I found entertaining was not what was being shot, but how the people in the film reacted to the camera. In the Russian film, the passing people seemed extremely puzzled by the camera and what it was filming. What they did not realize was that the camera was filming them, but I thought this made the film even better.
One negative aspect I found in the silent films was that people would try to hard when acting in front of the camera. In the Lumière brothers’ film in which there are the men sitting at the table, the waiter in this film was quite obnoxious to me. His actions were exaggerated, which caused him to be a distraction in the film. This aspect of overacting was also present in the three films we watched. I do acknowledge that it is difficult to express a point in a silent film. Your actions must be able to convey a thought or emotion to the viewer due to the inability to have dialogue, but when actors or actresses try too hard to convey these emotions, was annoyed and unable to focus on the meaning of their actions.
That being said, I was blown away by the quality of the three films we watched in class. I found that the stories in Child of the Big City and The Dying Swan were quite interesting, which is a phenomenal feat for not being able to relate to the viewer all of the dialogue that is in the film. This is one thing that made the silent films enjoyable, it was almost as if the film itself was a background and the viewer had to provide the dialogue themselves. I found that since not all of the dialogue would be revealed to the reader, I would create in my head things that the characters might be saying to explain why they were acting the way they were in the film. This aspect of silent films makes the experience of watching them unique, which helps them be appealing today even among movies that have sound, special effects, and CGI.
I too like the way silent films give us enough dialogue to help us follow what is going on--but (as you point out) they don't shove every spoken word down our throat.
ReplyDeleteAs for overacting--it was a big question back then exactly what sort of acting was best for films. At first many assumed that theater actors could hop right in front of a camera and do what they do best. But it turns out that stage acting has a certain artificiality to it that doesn't always convey well on screen. We'll also find that actors and directors who were masters of the silent film era often had great difficulty carrying their talents into the age of sound film--so different do the mediums end up being.
I also noticed that people would look directly into the camera at moments speaking their lines. I do not know if they were trying to break the fourth wall but I remembered the dying mother in "Child of the Big City" seemed to be staring into the camera the entire time she was dying. I have no idea if that was simply because of angling of the camera or poor acting.
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