Let’s talk silent films

IF YOU GO

Silent Film Festival

What: Screenings accompanied by music composed and performed by local artists, followed by discussions with the musical artists backstage.

When: 7 p.m. Sept. 4, 11, 19 and 25 (see below).

Where: Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre, 508 S. Main St., Moscow.

Tickets: $15-$20 general admission, $10 students for each film, or $50 pass for all performances, at kenworthypac.square.site.

“Sunrise,” 7 p.m Wednesday, Sept. 4. Accompanied by the premiere of a score by composer Isabella Morrill, performed live by the Washington Idaho Symphony orchestra, conducted by Danh Pham.

In 1927, this film won Best Picture for Unique and Artistic Production (a category that no longer exists) while the film “Wings” took the prize for Best Picture (known at the time as Outstanding Picture), which is why the two films often are listed together as the first Best Picture winners. F.W. Murnau, who directed “Sunrise,” also directed “Nosferatu,” a staple of the horror genre.
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“The Unknown,” 7 p.m. Sept. 11. With a hot club jazz score by composer Max Wolpert, performed by musicians from the University of Idaho’ s Lionel Hampton School of Music.

Joan Crawford, who later appeared in films like “Mildred Pierce,” for which she won an Academy Award for best actress, and “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?,” stars in this 1927 film. Her rivalry with Bette Davis became the subject of the 2017 series “FEUD: Bette and Joan” on FX and Hulu.

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“ Page of Madness,” 7 p.m. Sept. 19. Ichiro Kataoka, of Tokyo, a practitioner of the art of Japanese benshi (a form of commentary for silent films), will narrate, alongside local composer Dylan Champagne’s new score for live cello and mixed electronic music.

This 1926 horror film was lost, then rediscovered by its director, Teinosuke Kinugasa, in rice cans in 1971. The screenplay is credited in part to 1968 Nobel Prize in literature winner Yasunari Kawabata.

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“Safety Last!” 7 p.m. Sept 25. Local composer Liam Marchant premieres a new score for live percussion featuring UI professor Dan Bukvich.
“Safety Last!” is known for one of the most iconic images from the silent film era: a man, actor Harold Lloyd, hanging from a clock tower. Although a safety net was in place, the shot makes it look like a death-defying feat. Audiences truly feared for the safety of the character; some even fainted.
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If silent movies seem too archaic for your tastes, just know every movie in the theater or on a streaming service on your phone can thank silent films for laying the foundation of cinema.

Many historians consider Dec. 28, 1895, as the birthdate of cinema, when two French inventors, Louis and Auguste Lumiere, projected a film for an audience in Paris with a new machine called the cinematographe. The brothers’ first films depicted workers leaving a factory and a train leaving the station.

Much of early cinema consisted of brief snippets of life from the era, not the fictional tales often seen today, but it didn’t take long for storytelling to reach the screen. French director George Melies made fantastical productions and in 1902 created “A Trip to the Moon,” considered to be the first science fiction film. Melies used his background as a magician to create special effects using camera trickery and elaborate sets and costumes, much like a theatrical production.

On the other side of the Atlantic, American director Edwin S. Porter also began using storytelling in film with 1903’s “The Great Train Robbery,” one of the first Westerns. Both Porter and Melies created color film by painting each frame individually by hand.

In 1902, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that Thomas Edison, inventor of the early film camera (kinetograph) and projection camera (kinetoscope), wasn’t the sole inventor of the movie camera. The Edison Trust was in charge of distribution, production and showing films until that point, essentially having complete control over the film industry. The ruling allowed more access and eventually led to the creation of film studios.

Starting in the 1910s, films got bigger and more popular. Actors like Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin became stars and household names.

Directors like D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille created more spectacular films, pushing the boundaries of the art and laying the groundwork for modern editing and cinematography. Before their influence, actors moved across the stage like in a play while the camera was static — no cutting to or zooming in.

Just as film started to boom, World War I slowed it down. Silent films had their heyday after the war, with the rise of big stars like Ruldoph Valentino, Pickford and Chaplin. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences began giving out Academy Awards, also known as Oscars, in 1927, at the height of silent films.

Then just like that, it was all gone. The first talking picture, “The Jazz Singer,” arrived in 1927, with the first lines spoken in film: “Wait a minute, wait a minute I tell yer, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet.” After that, audiences only wanted “talkies,” and the studios gave the people what they wanted.

Brewster earned a master’s degree in film and television studies at the University of Glasgow. She can be contacted at kbrewster@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2297.


Movies about the silent film era

“Singin’ in the Rain” (1952): This famous musical tells the story of two stars trying to transition to talking films.

“The Artist” (2011): This (silent) French film is a love letter to the silent film era.

“Hugo” (2011): Explores the early history of cinema in Paris.

“Sunset Boulevard” (1950): Gloria Swanson, a silent film star herself, plays Norma Desmond, an actress trying to hang on to stardom after the sound era begins.

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Silent films in the modern era

Silent film isn’t just a movie technique from a bygone era; some modern films tell stories using little to no dialogue, including:

“All is Lost” (2013) stars Robert Redford as a sailor struggling against the elements.

A more recent example is last year’s “Robot Dreams,” an animated film about a dog and a robot.

Even kids’ movies use this model: The stop-motion animated “Shaun the Sheep” movies have no human dialogue.

Because of the limited dialogue, silent movies can be easily distributed across the world with no need for dubbing or closed captioning.

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Why are silent movies so jerky?

The films in the silent film era look jerky and almost animated to modern viewers because they were often shot at a different speed, about 16 frames per second. That means there are more gaps in the movement as the human eye sees the pictures pass through the camera to create the image of the object moving, because there are only 16 pictures coming across in one second. Today cameras use 24 frames per second, which makes movies look cleaner.

Why are the actors so dramatic?

Acting in early silent films seems over the top compared to how screen actors behave now. Those early film actors weren’t able to convey emotions through their voice or dialogue, so they used exaggerated emotion and hand gestures to show the audience what the characters were thinking, feeling or even saying.

Many actors in the silent film era also were former vaudeville performers, like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, who brought their overstated slapstick humor to the screen.

Were silent films really silent?

While the film itself didn’t have sound, silent films often were shown in theaters where former vaudevillians performed. Often, an orchestra, or even just a piano, would play along with the film from sheet music provided by the production company. Sometimes other instruments or materials were used for sound effects like train whistles, storms or gunshots.