silent films

I love silent films. I highly recommend any and all Buster Keaton movies. I haven't seen them all but every one I see, is cinematography gold.

 

It is amazing how many ideas from the silent were subsequently "borrowed" by the talkie-makers.

For instance, Harold Lloyd hanging from the hands of Big Ben ... didn't that find its way into one of the adaptations of The 39 Steps?? (Incidentally, why hasn't anyone made a film of The 39 Steps just the way Buchan wrote it?? It doesn't need tampering with ... it's a film-ready story as it stands!!)

As for the over-acting of the emotions - I had always assumed there was a technological reason for that. With the quality of film and projection available at the time, and the risk of being slightly out-of-focus, and with the lack of verbal prompts to accompany them, small gestures would be in danger of simply not being seen. So they over-emphasized their gestures.

I don't think it was "just the way they acted" - I think it was a positive recognition of the limitations of the technology and the genre.

Incidentally ... please don't let's overlook the little silent vignette in Bugsy Malone, when Blousey is daydreaming about going to Hollywood. That has to be a classic of silent film making ...

 

Love them, especially Charlie Chaplin movies. :2thumbsup:

 

There's an homage to Harold Lloyd in Back to the future when Doc is trying to reconnect the extension cords when Marty is set to go back to 1985.

 

I love silent films. Especially La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc. Falconetti is fantastic!! Probably one of the greatest movies ever produced.

 

I want to see The Man Who Laughs. 1928.