I'll give silent films one thing. . .

[TVC15]

I have a love hate thing going on with silent films.  Film and audio generally can't be separated when you are working with narratives.  The proof of this is that silent films died very quickly, to the point of total extinction, once there was an alternative.  So what we are stuck with is like a decade and a half of feature films that are just plain difficult to watch.  You might think you are sharp, but by the very nature of the way they work, grokking the stories of silent films is just HARDER because of how we are programmed.

This kind of forces the films to be watched with an air of unreality, making all silent films seem like strange dreams.  You'll only half remember things that happened a moment ago, because without the context of environmental sound, we can't really grip things.  This is bad for narratives in general, but it is FUCK ALL AWESOME for making surreal flicks.  That's a discussion for another time though.

Anyway, the one thing I'd give silent movies is that they are photographed much more creatively than what's come since.  Basically every frame of Dr. Caligari is a work of art, and you can say the same thing about a number of other silent films.   I mean they sort of had to up the visual ante to make up for the lack of sound, but it's impressive, insanely impressive.  There's not a director going today that can make a movie this good looking, and there have probably only been a handful since the dawn of the talkie that could.

here, I just opened up Caligari, went to a 100% random scene on the slider (I well, avoided intertitles, but even they look cool).  The whole fucking movie looks this insane:

[Eel O'Brian]

I love silent films, but I've always been pretty good about getting myself into the mindset of the era when the movie I'm watching was filmed.  I mostly stick to silent comedy, though.

It's interesting to observe how static most filmmaking became for a couple of years after the introduction of sound.

[TVC15]

I try to stick with directors I can trust.  So much was experimental back then, right down to how long a movie should be, so I err on the side of playing it safe.  German expressionism as a whole gets a pass from me because there will be EYE SEX though, and I legitimately love love love Fritz Lang's silent movies. I might go so far as to say Fritzy is one of my favorite directors, based solely on his silent output and M.

I haven't seen much of his work after he sold out his homeland, the cocksucker.

[Eel O'Brian]

I remember reading somewhere that 85% of all silent films are lost forever.  I wonder how many of those would be held up as classics and studied in film schools today.  Weird how a movie dozens of people invested their money, sweat, blood and tears in, a movie that might have been seen and enjoyed by hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions - can just vanish off the face of the earth, with not even a single still frame to remember it by.

[TVC15]

Yeah, if you look at Fritz Lang's filmography, a significant portion of even his material is either extremely rare or lost.  And he's one of the biggest silent directors ever, and he's been recognized as basically a genius since he started.

I am guessing that film of the era was just more prone to falling apart, and even if it were more resilient than I am thinking, they didn't know a whole hell of a lot about how to preserve things.  Fuck, studios today are letting movies from the 50s-70s fall apart.  The fucking 70s!  That's 30 years ago, and there are already films from then disappearing, falling apart.

[Ichirou]

I love silent films, but I've always been pretty good about getting myself into the mindset of the era when the movie I'm watching was filmed.  I mostly stick to silent comedy, though.

It's interesting to observe how static most filmmaking became for a couple of years after the introduction of sound.

Well, the reason for that is the sound itself...people had to stand close to these huge, unwieldy microphones to capture sound properly, so you couldn't move the camera around like you had during the silent days.  In a lot of ways, the introduction of sound was a huge step back for the visual side of cinema.

[TVC15]

I love silent films, but I've always been pretty good about getting myself into the mindset of the era when the movie I'm watching was filmed.  I mostly stick to silent comedy, though.

It's interesting to observe how static most filmmaking became for a couple of years after the introduction of sound.

In a lot of ways, the introduction of sound was a huge step back for the visual side of cinema.

And it's never recovered!

[Eel O'Brian]

I love silent films, but I've always been pretty good about getting myself into the mindset of the era when the movie I'm watching was filmed.  I mostly stick to silent comedy, though.

It's interesting to observe how static most filmmaking became for a couple of years after the introduction of sound.

Well, the reason for that is the sound itself...people had to stand close to these huge, unwieldy microphones to capture sound properly, so you couldn't move the camera around like you had during the silent days.  In a lot of ways, the introduction of sound was a huge step back for the visual side of cinema.

my favorite method (that I've read about) was the initial attempt to record sound on disc, and individual theaters would have to sync the disc with the film at the start of each showing.  talk about a pain in the ass.

[xnikki118x]

my favorite method (that I've read about) was the initial attempt to record sound on disc, and individual theaters would have to sync the disc with the film at the start of each showing.  talk about a pain in the ass.

I always used to think that was how they did everything in a theatre and on TV. Sometimes the picture would go away but still have sound and vice versa, so I guess that's why I assumed such things.