Silent film
Encyclopedia
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue
Dialogue
Dialogue is a literary and theatrical form consisting of a written or spoken conversational exchange between two or more people....
. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime
Pantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
and title cards
Intertitle
In motion pictures, an intertitle is a piece of filmed, printed text edited into the midst of the photographed action, at various points, generally to convey character dialogue, or descriptive narrative material related to, but not necessarily covered by, the material photographed.Intertitles...
. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound
Sound
Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...
is nearly as old as film itself, but because of the technical challenges involved, synchronized dialogue was only made practical in the late 1920s with the perfection of the audion amplifier tube and the introduction of the Vitaphone
Vitaphone
Vitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...
system. After the release of The Jazz Singer
The Jazz Singer (1927 film)
The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. The first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. Produced by Warner Bros. with its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system,...
in 1927, "talkies" became more and more commonplace. Within a decade, popular production of silent films had ceased.
Elements (1894 – 1929)
The first projected sequential proto-movie was made by Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard Muybridge
Eadweard J. Muybridge was an English photographer who spent much of his life in the United States. He is known for his pioneering work on animal locomotion which used multiple cameras to capture motion, and his zoopraxiscope, a device for projecting motion pictures that pre-dated the flexible...
some time between 1877 and 1880. The first narrative film was created by Louis Le Prince
Louis Le Prince
Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince was an inventor who is considered by many film historians as the true father of motion pictures, who shot the first moving pictures on paper film using a single lens camera....
in 1888. It was a two-second film of people walking in Oakwood streets garden, entitled Roundhay Garden Scene
Roundhay Garden Scene
Roundhay Garden Scene is an 1888 short film directed by inventor Louis Le Prince. It was recorded at 12 frames per second, runs for 2.11 seconds and is the oldest surviving film.-Overview:...
. The art of motion pictures grew into full maturity in the "silent era"(1894-1929) before silent films were replaced by "talking pictures
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
" in the late 1920s. Many film scholars and buffs argue that the aesthetic quality of cinema decreased for several years until directors, actors, and production staff adapted to the new "talkies".
The visual quality of silent movies—especially those produced in the 1920s—was often high. However, there is a widely held misconception that these films were primitive and barely watchable by modern standards. This misconception comes as a result of silent films being played back at wrong speed and their deteriorated condition. Many silent films exist only in second- or third-generation copies, often copied from already damaged and neglected film stock.
Intertitles
As motion pictures eventually increased in length, a replacement was needed for the in-house interpreter who would explain parts of the film. Because silent films had no synchronized sound for dialogue, onscreen intertitles were used to narrate story points, present key dialogue and sometimes even comment on the action for the cinemaMovie theater
A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....
audience. The title writer became a key professional in silent film and was often separate from the scenario writer who created the story. Intertitles (or titles as they were generally called at the time) often became graphic elements themselves, featuring illustrations or abstract decoration that commented on the action.
Live music and sound
Showings of silent films almost always featured live music, starting with the pianist at the first public projection of movies by the Lumière Brothers on December 28, 1895 in ParisParis
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. From the beginning, music was recognized as essential, contributing to the atmosphere and giving the audience vital emotional cues. (Musicians sometimes played on film sets during shooting for similar reasons.) Small town and neighborhood movie theatres usually had a pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
. Beginning in the mid-1910s, large city theaters tended to have organists
Organ (music)
The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...
or ensembles of musicians. Massive theater organs were designed to fill a gap between a simple piano soloist and a larger orchestra. Theatre organs had a wide range of special effects; theatrical organs such as the famous "Mighty Wurlitzer" could simulate some orchestral sounds along with a number of percussion effects such as bass drums and cymbals and sound effects ranging from galloping horses to rolling thunder.
Film score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
s for early silent films were either improvised
Improvisation
Improvisation is the practice of acting, singing, talking and reacting, of making and creating, in the moment and in response to the stimulus of one's immediate environment and inner feelings. This can result in the invention of new thought patterns, new practices, new structures or symbols, and/or...
or compiled of classical or theatrical repertory music. Once full features became commonplace, however, music was compiled from photoplay music
Photoplay music
Photoplay music is the term given to music written specifically for the accompaniment of silent films.-Early years:Early films merely relied on classical and popular repertory, mixed usually with improvisation by whatever accompanist was playing .Around 1910, folios of photoplay music began being...
by the pianist, organist, orchestra conductor or the movie studio
Movie studio
A movie studio is a term used to describe a major entertainment company or production company that has its own privately owned studio facility or facilities that are used to film movies...
itself, which included a cue sheet with the film. These sheets were often lengthy, with detailed notes about effects and moods to watch for. Starting with the mostly original score
Film score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
composed by Joseph Carl Breil
Joseph Carl Breil
Joseph Carl Breil was an American lyric tenor, stage director, composer and conductor. He was one of the earliest American composers to compose specific music for motion pictures. His first film was Les amours de la reine Élisabeth starring Sarah Bernhardt...
for D. W. Griffith
D. W. Griffith
David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
's groundbreaking epic The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Griffith also co-wrote the screenplay , and co-produced the film . It was released on February 8, 1915...
(USA, 1915) it became relatively common for the biggest-budgeted films to arrive at the exhibiting theater with original, specially composed scores.
When organists or pianists used sheet music, they still might add improvisatory flourishes to heighten the drama onscreen. Even when special effects were not indicated in the score, if an organist was playing a theater organ capable of an unusual sound effect, such as a "galloping horses" effect, it would be used for dramatic horseback chases.
By the height of the silent era, movies were the single largest source of employment for instrumental musicians (at least in America). But the introduction of talkies, which happened simultaneously with the onset of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
, was devastating to many musicians.
Some countries devised other ways of bringing sound to silent films. The early cinema of Brazil
Cinema of Brazil
Brazilian cinema was introduced early in the 20th century but took some time to consolidate itself as a popular form of entertainment. The film industry of Brazil has gone through periods of ups and downs, a reflection of its dependency on State funding and incentives.- Early days :A couple of...
featured fitas cantatas: filmed operetta
Operetta
Operetta is a genre of light opera, light in terms both of music and subject matter. It is also closely related, in English-language works, to forms of musical theatre.-Origins:...
s with singers performing behind the screen. In Japan
Cinema of Japan
The has a history that spans more than 100 years. Japan has one of the oldest and largest film industries in the world – as of 2009 the fourth largest by number of feature films produced. Movies have been produced in Japan since 1897, when the first foreign cameramen arrived...
, films had not only live music but also the benshi
Benshi
were Japanese performers who provided live narration for silent films . Benshi are sometimes also called or .-Role of the benshi:...
, a live narrator who provided commentary and character voices. The benshi became a central element in Japanese film, as well as providing translation for foreign (mostly American) movies. The popularity of the benshi was one reason why silent films persisted well into the 1930s in Japan.
Few film scores survive intact from this period, and musicologists are still confronted by questions when they attempt to precisely reconstruct those that remain. Scores can be distinguished as complete reconstructions of composed scores, newly composed for the occasion, assembled from already existing music libraries, or even improvised.
Interest in the scoring of silent films fell somewhat out of fashion during the 1960s and 1970s. There was a belief in many college film programs and repertory cinemas that audiences should experience silent film as a pure visual medium, undistracted by music. This belief may have been encouraged by the poor quality of the music tracks found on many silent film reprints of the time. More recently, there has been a revival of interest in presenting silent films with quality musical scores, either reworkings of period scores or cue sheets, or composition of appropriate original scores. A watershed event in this context was Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow
Kevin Brownlow is a filmmaker, film historian, television documentary-maker, author, and Academy Award recipient. Brownlow is best known for his work documenting the history of the silent era. Brownlow became interested in silent film at the age of eleven. This interest grew into a career spent...
's 1980 restoration of Abel Gance
Abel Gance
Abel Gance was a French film director and producer, writer and actor. He is best known for three major silent films: J'accuse , La Roue , and the monumental Napoléon .-Early life:...
's Napoléon (1927) featuring a score by Carl Davis
Carl Davis
Carl Davis CBE is an American born conductor and composer who has made his home in the UK since 1961. In 1970 he married the English actress Jean Boht....
. Brownlow's restoration was later distributed in America re-edited and shortened by Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
with a live orchestral score composed by his father Carmine Coppola
Carmine Coppola
Carmine Coppola was an American composer, flautist, editor, musical director, and songwriter. Coppola was a composer and conductor who contributed to many of the musical scores in The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Godfather Part III, and Apocalypse Now directed by his son Francis Ford...
.
In 1984, a restoration of Metropolis
Metropolis (film)
Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist film in the science-fiction genre directed by Fritz Lang. Produced in Germany during a stable period of the Weimar Republic, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and makes use of this context to explore the social crisis between workers and...
(1927) with new score by producer/composer Giorgio Moroder
Giorgio Moroder
Hansjörg "Giorgio" Moroder is an Italian record producer, songwriter and performer based in Los Angeles. When in Munich in the 1970s, he started his own record label called Oasis Records, which several years later became a subdivision of Casablanca Records...
was another turning point in modern day interest in silent films. Although the contemporary score, which included pop songs by Freddy Mercury of Queen
Queen (band)
Queen are a British rock band formed in London in 1971, originally consisting of Freddie Mercury , Brian May , John Deacon , and Roger Taylor...
, Pat Benatar
Pat Benatar
Pat Benatar is an American singer and four-time Grammy winner. She had considerable commercial success particularly in the United States...
and Jon Anderson
Jon Anderson
Jon Anderson is an English singer-songwriter and musician best known as the former lead vocalist in the progressive rock band Yes...
of Yes
Yes (band)
Yes are an English rock band who achieved worldwide success with their progressive, art, and symphonic style of rock music. Regarded as one of the pioneers of the progressive genre, Yes are known for their lengthy songs, mystical lyrics, elaborate album art, and live stage sets...
was controversial, the door had been opened for a new approach to presentation of classic "silent" films. Perhaps one of the few actors of the silent era still active is Dutch-German movie-star Johannes Heesters
Johannes Heesters
Johan Marius Nicolaas "Johannes" Heesters is a Dutch actor, singer and entertainer with a -year career, almost exclusively in the German-speaking world. In Germany and Austria, Heesters is mainly known for his acting career...
, aged 107.
Music ensembles currently perform traditional and contemporary scores for silent films. Purveyors of the traditional approach include organists and pianists such as Dennis James
Dennis James (musician)
Dennis James is an American musician who has played "a pivotal role in the international revival of silent films presented with live music." Primarily an organist, since 1971 he has presented live accompaniments for silent films, with piano, theatre organ, chamber ensemble and full symphony...
, Rick Friend, Chris Elliott, Dennis Scott, Clark Wilson and Jim Riggs. Orchestral conductors such as Gillian B. Anderson, Carl Davis
Carl Davis
Carl Davis CBE is an American born conductor and composer who has made his home in the UK since 1961. In 1970 he married the English actress Jean Boht....
, Carl Daehler, and Robert Israel have written and compiled scores for numerous silent films. In addition to composing new film scores, Timothy Brock
Timothy Brock
Timothy Brock is an American composer and conductor specializing in concert works of the early 20th century and silent film. His works include Nine Ball Suite , Requiem for the Old St...
has restored many of Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
's scores.
Contemporary music ensembles are helping to introduce classic silent films to a wider audience through a broad range of musical styles and approaches. Some performers create new compositions using traditional musical instruments while others add electronic sounds, modern harmonies, rhythms, improvisation and sound design elements to enhance the film watching experience. Among the contemporary ensembles in this category are Alloy Orchestra
Alloy Orchestra
Alloy Orchestra is a musical ensemble based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, that performs its own accompaniments to silent films of the classic movie era. Percussionists Terry Donahue and Ken Winokur and keyboardist Caleb Sampson founded the group in 1990...
, Club Foot Orchestra
Club Foot Orchestra
The Club Foot Orchestra is a music ensemble founded in 1983 by Richard Marriott. After a brief career playing dramatic, complex music in San Francisco clubs, they became known for their equally dramatic and complex scores for classic silent movies. The ensemble got their name from a performance art...
, Silent Orchestra
Silent Orchestra
Silent Orchestra was formed in 1998 to bring live music and sound design to classic and contemporary silent films. They have performed their own new compositions for classic silent films at art house theaters, film festivals and art galleries since 1999...
, Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra and The Reel Music Ensemble. Alloy Orchestra, which began performing in 1990, is among the first of the new wave of silent film music ensembles.
Acting techniques
Body language
Body language is a form of non-verbal communication, which consists of body posture, gestures, facial expressions, and eye movements. Humans send and interpret such signals almost entirely subconsciously....
and facial expression
Facial expression
A facial expression one or more motions or positions of the muscles in the skin. These movements convey the emotional state of the individual to observers. Facial expressions are a form of nonverbal communication. They are a primary means of conveying social information among humans, but also occur...
so that the audience could better understand what an actor was feeling and portraying on screen. Much silent film acting is apt to strike modern-day audiences as simplistic or campy
Camp (style)
Camp is an aesthetic sensibility that regards something as appealing because of its taste and ironic value. The concept is closely related to kitsch, and things with camp appeal may also be described as being "cheesy"...
. The melodramatic acting style was in some cases a habit actors transferred from their former stage experience. The pervading presence of stage actors in film was the cause of this outburst from director Marshall Neilan
Marshall Neilan
Marshall Ambrose Neilan was an American motion picture actor, screenwriter, film director, and producer.-Early life:...
in 1917: "The sooner the stage people who have come into pictures get out, the better for the pictures." In other cases, directors such as John Griffith Wray required their actors to deliver larger-than-life expressions for emphasis. As early as 1914, American viewers had begun to make known their preference for greater naturalness on screen.
In any case, the large image size and unprecedented intimacy the actor enjoyed with the audience began to affect acting style, making for more subtlety of expression. Actresses such as Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
in all her films, Eleonora Duse
Eleonora Duse
-Life and career:Duse was born in Vigevano, Lombardy, and began acting as a child. Both her father and her grandfather were actors, and she joined the troupe at age four. Due to poverty, she initially worked continually, traveling from city to city with whichever troupe her family was currently...
in the Italian film Cenere (1916), Janet Gaynor
Janet Gaynor
Janet Gaynor was an American actress and painter.One of the most popular actresses of the silent film era, in 1928 Gaynor became the first winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in three films: Seventh Heaven , Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans and Street Angel...
in Sunrise
Sunrise (film)
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, also known as Sunrise, is a 1927 American silent film directed by German film director F. W. Murnau. The story was adapted by Carl Mayer from the short story "Die Reise nach Tilsit" by Hermann Sudermann.Sunrise won an Academy Award for Unique and Artistic Production...
, Priscilla Dean
Priscilla Dean
Priscilla Dean was an American actress popular in movies as well as in theatre.-Life and career:Born in New York to an active theatrical family , Priscilla Dean made her stage debut at the age of four, appearing in plays starring her parents...
in Outside the Law
Outside the Law (1920 film)
Outside the Law is a 1920 crime film directed by Tod Browning. Browning would remake the film in 1930.Outside the Law is considered to be one of the first psychologically driven films in the gangster genre. It was the second film on which Browning worked with Lon Chaney...
and The Dice Woman and Lillian Gish
Lillian Gish
Lillian Diana Gish was an American stage, screen and television actress whose film acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912 to 1987....
and Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
in most of their performances made restraint and easy naturalism in acting a virtue. Directors such as Albert Capellani
Albert Capellani
Albert Capellani was a French film director and screenwriter of the silent era. He directed 168 films between 1940 and 1922...
(a French director who also did work in America directing Alla Nazimova
Alla Nazimova
Alla Nazimova , was a Russian American film and theatre actress, a screenwriter and film producer. She is perhaps best known as simply Nazimova, but also went under the name Alia Nasimoff.-Early life:...
films) and Maurice Tourneur insisted on naturalism in their films; Tourneur had been just such a minimalist in his prior stage productions. By the mid-1920s many American silent films had adopted a more naturalistic acting style, though not all actors and directors accepted naturalistic, low-key acting straight away; as late as 1927 films featuring expressionistic acting styles such as Metropolis
Metropolis (film)
Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist film in the science-fiction genre directed by Fritz Lang. Produced in Germany during a stable period of the Weimar Republic, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and makes use of this context to explore the social crisis between workers and...
were still being released. Some viewers liked the flamboyant acting for its escape value, and some countries were later than the United States in embracing naturalistic style in their films. In fact today the level of naturalism in acting varies from film to film and our favourites may not be the most naturalistic. Just as today, a film's success depended upon the setting, the mood, the script, the skills of the director, and the overall talent of the cast.
Projection speed
Until the standardization of the projection speed of 24 frames per second (fps) for sound films between 1926 and 1930, silent films were shot at variable speeds (or "frame rateFrame rate
Frame rate is the frequency at which an imaging device produces unique consecutive images called frames. The term applies equally well to computer graphics, video cameras, film cameras, and motion capture systems...
s") anywhere from 12 to 26 fps, depending on the year and studio. "Standard silent film speed" is often said to be 16 fps as a result of the Lumière brothers'
Auguste and Louis Lumière
The Lumière brothers, Auguste Marie Louis Nicolas and Louis Jean , were among the earliest filmmakers in history...
Cinematographé, but industry practice varied considerably; there was no actual standard. Cameramen of the era insisted that their cranking technique was exactly 16 fps, but modern examination of the films shows this to be in error, that they often cranked faster. Unless carefully shown at their intended speeds silent films can appear unnaturally fast. However, some scenes were intentionally undercranked during shooting to accelerate the action—particularly for comedies and action films.
Slow projection of a cellulose nitrate base film carried a risk of fire, as each frame was exposed for a longer time to the intense heat of the projection lamp; but there were other reasons to project a film at a greater pace. Often projectionists received general instructions from the distributors on the musical director's cue sheet as to how fast particular reels or scenes should be projected. In rare instances, usually for larger productions, cue sheets specifically for the projectionist provided a detailed guide to presenting the film. Theaters also—to maximize profit—sometimes varied projection speeds depending on the time of day or popularity of a film, and to fit a film into a prescribed time slot.
By using projectors with dual- and triple-blade shutters the projected rate was multiplied two or three times higher than the number of film frames—each frame was flashed two or three times on screen. Early studies by Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. In addition, he created the world’s first industrial...
determined that any rate below 46 images per second "will strain the eye." A three-blade shutter projecting a 16 fps film would slightly surpass this mark, giving the audience 48 images per second. A 35 mm film frame rate of 24 fps translates to a film speed of 456 millimetres (18 in) per second. One 1000 feet (304.8 m) reel requires 11 minutes and 7 seconds to be projected at 24 fps, while a 16 fps projection of the same reel would take 16 minutes and 40 seconds; 304 millimetres (12 in) per second.
In the 1950s, many telecine
Telecine
Telecine is transferring motion picture film into video and is performed in a color suite. The term is also used to refer to the equipment used in the post-production process....
conversions of silent films at grossly incorrect frame rates for broadcast television may have alienated viewers. Film speed is often a vexed issue among scholars and film buffs in the presentation of silents today, especially when it comes to DVD releases of restored films; the 2002 restoration of Metropolis (Germany, 1927) may be the most fiercely debated example.
Tinting
Dye
A dye is a colored substance that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is being applied. The dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution, and requires a mordant to improve the fastness of the dye on the fiber....
stuffs and dyed various shades and hues to signal a mood or represent a time of day. Blue represented night scenes, yellow or amber meant day. Red represented fire and green represented a mysterious mood. Similarly, toning of film (such as the common silent film generalization of sepia-toning) with special solutions replaced the silver particles in the film stock with salts or dyes of various colors. A combination of tinting and toning could be used as an effect that could be striking.
Some films were hand-tinted, such as Annabelle Serpentine Dance (1894), from Edison Studios. In it, Annabelle Whitford, a young dancer from Broadway, is dressed in white veils that appear to change colors as she dances. Hand coloring was often used in the early "trick" and fantasy films of Europe, especially those by Georges Méliès
Georges Méliès
Georges Méliès , full name Marie-Georges-Jean Méliès, was a French filmmaker famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest cinema. He was very innovative in the use of special effects...
.
D. W. Griffith
David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
displayed a constant interest and concern about color, and used tinting as a special effect in many of his films. His 1915 epic, The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Griffith also co-wrote the screenplay , and co-produced the film . It was released on February 8, 1915...
, used a number of colors, including amber, blue, lavender, and a striking red tint for scenes such as the "burning of Atlanta" and the ride of the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
at the climax of the picture. Griffith later invented a color system in which colored lights flashed on areas of the screen to achieve a color effect.
Top grossing silent films in the United States
The following are the silent films that earned the highest ever gross income in film history, as calculated by VarietyVariety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
magazine in 1932. The dollar amounts are not adjusted for inflation.
- The Birth of a NationThe Birth of a NationThe Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Griffith also co-wrote the screenplay , and co-produced the film . It was released on February 8, 1915...
(1915) - $10,000,000 - The Big ParadeThe Big ParadeThe Big Parade is a 1925 silent film. It tells the story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.The film was...
(1925) - $6,400,000 - Ben-HurBen-Hur (1925 film)Ben-Hur is a 1925 silent film directed by Fred Niblo. It was a blockbuster hit for newly merged Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. This was the second film based on the novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace...
(1925) - $5,500,000 - Way Down EastWay Down EastWay Down East is a silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. It is the best known of four film adaptations of the melodramatic 19th century play Way Down East by Lottie Blair Parker...
(1920) - $5,000,000 - The Gold RushThe Gold RushThe Gold Rush is a 1925 silent film comedy written, produced, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin in his Little Tramp role. The film also stars Georgia Hale, Mack Swain, Tom Murray, Henry Bergman, Malcolm Waite....
(1925) - $4,250,000 - The Four Horsemen of the ApocalypseThe Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (film)The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is a 1921 silent movie produced by Metro Pictures Corporation, adapted by June Mathis, directed by Rex Ingram and starring Rudolph Valentino, Pomeroy Cannon, Josef Swickard, Wallace Beery, and Alice Terry...
(1921) - $4,000,000 - The CircusThe Circus (silent film)The Circus is a 1928 silent film written and directed by Charlie Chaplin with Joseph Plunkett as an uncredited writer. The film stars Chaplin, Al Ernest Garcia, Merna Kennedy, Harry Crocker, George Davis and Henry Bergman...
(1928) - $3,800,000 - The Covered WagonThe Covered WagonThe Covered Wagon is an American silent Western film released by Paramount Pictures. The film was directed by James Cruze based on a novel by Emerson Hough about a group of pioneers traveling through the old West from Kansas to Oregon. J...
(1923) - $3,800,000 - The Hunchback of Notre DameThe Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923 film)The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a 1923 American film directed by Wallace Worsley and produced by Carl Laemmle and Irving Thalberg. It stars Lon Chaney, Sr., Patsy Ruth Miller, Norman Kerry, Nigel de Brulier, Brandon Hurst. The film is the second most famous adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel,...
(1923) - $3,500,000 - The Ten CommandmentsThe Ten Commandments (1923 film)The Ten Commandments is a 1923 American epic silent film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, starring Theodore Roberts as Moses, Charles de Rochefort as Pharaoh Ramesses, Estelle Taylor as Miriam the sister of Moses, and James Neill as Aaron, the brother of Moses...
(1923) - $3,400,000 - Orphans of the StormOrphans Of The StormOrphans of the Storm is a drama film by D. W. Griffith set in late 18th century France, before and during the French Revolution.This was the last Griffith film to feature Lillian and Dorothy Gish, and is often considered Griffith's last major commercial success, after boxoffice hits such as Birth...
(1921) - $3,000,000 - For Heaven's SakeFor Heaven's Sake (1926 film)For Heaven's Sake is a 1926 comedy silent film starring Harold Lloyd. It was made just before one of Lloyd's most critically praised films today, The Kid Brother. Commercially, it was one of Lloyd's most successful films and the 12th highest-grossing film of the silent era, pulling in...
(1926) - $2,600,000 - Seventh Heaven (1926) - $2,400,000
- Abie's Irish RoseAbie's Irish Rose (film)Abie's Irish Rose is a 1928 early talking film directed by Victor Fleming, based on the play of the same title by Anne Nichols. It tells the story of a Jewish boy, Abie Levy, who falls in love with and secretly marries Rosemary Murphy, an Irish Catholic girl, but lies to his family, saying that...
(1928) - $1,500,000
Transition
Although attempts to create sync-sound motion pictures go back to the Edison lab in 1896, the technology became well-developed only in the early 1920s. The next few years saw a race to design, implement, and market several rival sound-on-discSound-on-disc
The term Sound-on-disc refers to a class of sound film processes using a phonograph or other disc to record or playback sound in sync with a motion picture...
and sound-on-film
Sound-on-film
Sound-on-film refers to a class of sound film processes where the sound accompanying picture is physically recorded onto photographic film, usually, but not always, the same strip of film carrying the picture. Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog sound track or digital sound track,...
sound formats, such as Photokinema
Photokinema
Photo-Kinema was a sound-on-disc system for motion pictures invented by Orlando Kellum.-1921 introduction:The system was first used for a small number of short films, mostly made in 1921...
(1921), Phonofilm
Phonofilm
In 1919, Lee De Forest, inventor of the audion tube, filed his first patent on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofilm, which recorded sound directly onto film as parallel lines. These parallel lines photographically recorded electrical waveforms from a microphone, which were translated back...
(1923), Vitaphone
Vitaphone
Vitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...
(1926), Fox Movietone
Movietone sound system
The Movietone sound system is a sound-on-film method of recording sound for motion pictures that guarantees synchronization between sound and picture. It achieves this by recording the sound as a variable-density optical track on the same strip of film that records the pictures...
(1927), and RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone
RCA Photophone was the trade name given to one of four major competing technologies that emerged in the American film industry in the late 1920s for synchronizing electrically recorded audio to a motion picture image. RCA Photophone was a sound-on-film, "variable-area" film exposure system, in...
(1928).
Although the release of The Jazz Singer
The Jazz Singer (1927 film)
The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. The first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. Produced by Warner Bros. with its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system,...
(1927) by Warner Brothers marked the first commercially successful sound film
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
, silent films were the majority of features released in both 1927 and 1928, along with so-called goat-glanded
Goat gland (film release)
Goat gland was a term applied c. 1927–1929, during the period of transition from silent films to sound films. It referred to an already completed silent film to which one or more talkie sequences were added in an effort to make the otherwise redundant film more suitable for release in the...
films: silents with a section of sound film inserted. Thus the modern sound film era may be regarded as coming to dominance beginning in 1929.
For a listing of notable silent era films, see list of years in film for the years between the beginning of film and 1928. The following list includes only films produced in the sound era with the specific artistic intention of being silent.
- Un Chien AndalouUn chien andalouUn Chien Andalou is a 1929 silent surrealist short film by the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and artist Salvador Dalí. It was Buñuel's first film and was initially released in 1929 to a limited showing in Paris, but became popular and ran for eight months....
, Salvador DalíSalvador DalíSalvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
/Luis BuñuelLuis BuñuelLuis Buñuel Portolés was a Spanish-born filmmaker — later a naturalized citizen of Mexico — who worked in Spain, Mexico, France and the US..-Early years:...
, 1929 - City GirlCity GirlCity Girl is an American 1930 silent film directed by F.W. Murnau. Along with Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, 4 Devils and Tabu, these mark Murnau's Hollywood productions. The director wanted the film to be called Our Daily Bread....
, F. W. Murnau, 1930 - BorderlineBorderline (1930 film)Borderline is a 1930 film, written and directed by Kenneth Macpherson and produced by the Pool Group in Territet, Switzerland. The silent film, with English inter-titles, is primarily noted for its handling of the contentious issue of inter-racial relationships, using avant-garde experimental...
, Kenneth MacPhersonKenneth MacphersonKenneth Macpherson was born in Scotland, 27 March 1902, the son of Scottish painter, John 'Pop' Macpherson and Clara Macpherson. Descended from 6 generations of artists, Macpherson was a novelist, photographer, critic and film-maker...
, 1930 - EarthEarth (1930 film)Earth is a 1930 Soviet film by Ukrainian director Alexander Dovzhenko, concerning an insurrection by a community of farmers, following a hostile takeover by Kulak landowners...
, Aleksandr Dovzhenko, 1930 - City LightsCity LightsCity Lights is a 1931 American silent film and romantic comedy-drama written by, directed by, and starring Charlie Chaplin. It also has the leads Virginia Cherrill and Harry Myers. Although "talking" pictures were on the rise since 1928, City Lights was immediately popular. Today, it is thought of...
, Charlie ChaplinCharlie ChaplinSir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, 1931 - TabuTabu (film)Tabu is a 1931 film directed by F.W. Murnau. The film is split into two chapters, the first called "Paradise" depicts the lives of two lovers on a South Seas island until they are forced to escape the island when the girl is chosen as a holy maid to the gods...
, F. W. Murnau, Robert Flaherty, 1931 - I Was Born, But...I Was Born, But...is a 1932 black-and-white Japanese silent film directed by Yasujiro Ozu. It became the first of six Ozu films to win the Kinema Junpō Critics' Prize...
, Yasujiro OzuYasujiro Ozuwas a prominent Japanese film director and script writer. He is known for his distinctive technical style, developed during the silent era. Marriage and family, especially the relationships between the generations, are among the most persistent themes in his body of work...
, 1932 - A Story of Floating WeedsA Story of Floating Weedsis a 1934 silent film directed by Yasujiro Ozu which he later remade as Floating Weeds in 1959 in color.-Plot:The film starts with a travelling kabuki troupe arriving by train at a provincial seaside town. Kihachi Ichikawa , the head of the troupe, is a very popular actor...
, Yasujiro OzuYasujiro Ozuwas a prominent Japanese film director and script writer. He is known for his distinctive technical style, developed during the silent era. Marriage and family, especially the relationships between the generations, are among the most persistent themes in his body of work...
, 1934 - The GoddessThe Goddess (1934 film)The Goddess is a 1934 Chinese silent film released by the United Photoplay Service. It starred Ruan Lingyu in one of her final roles, and was directed by Wu Yonggang....
, Wu YonggangWu YonggangWu Yonggang was a prominent Chinese film director during the 1930s. Today Wu is best known for his directorial debut, The Goddess. Wu had a long career with the Lianhua Film Company in the 1930s, in Chongqing during the war, and in the mainland after the 1949 communist revolution...
, 1934 - Modern TimesModern Times (film)Modern Times is a 1936 comedy film by Charlie Chaplin that has his iconic Little Tramp character struggling to survive in the modern, industrialized world. The film is a comment on the desperate employment and fiscal conditions many people faced during the Great Depression, conditions created, in...
, Charlie ChaplinCharlie ChaplinSir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
, 1936
Later homages
Several filmmakers have paid homage to the comedies of the silent era, including Jacques TatiJacques Tati
Jacques Tati was a French filmmaker, working as a comedic actor, writer and director. In a poll conducted by Entertainment Weekly of the Greatest Movie Directors Tati was voted the 46th greatest of all time...
with his Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953) and Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks
Mel Brooks is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows...
with Silent Movie
Silent Movie
Silent Movie is a 1976 satirical comedy film co-written, directed by, and starring Mel Brooks, and released by 20th Century Fox on June 17, 1976...
(1976). Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Hou Hsiao-Hsien
Hou Hsiao-Hsien is an award-winning film director and a leading figure of Taiwan's New Wave cinema movement.-Biography:...
's acclaimed drama Three Times
Three Times
Three Times is a 2005 Taiwanese film directed by Hou Hsiao-Hsien. It features three chronologically separate stories of love between May and Chen, set in 1911, 1966 and 2005, using the same lead actors, Shu Qi and Chang Chen.The film was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 2005 Cannes Film...
(2005) is silent during its middle third, complete with intertitles; Stanley Tucci
Stanley Tucci
Stanley Tucci is an American actor, writer, film producer and film director. He has been nominated for several notable film awards, including an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his performance in The Lovely Bones...
's The Impostors
The Impostors
The Impostors is a 1998 farce motion picture written and directed by Stanley Tucci, starring Oliver Platt, Stanley Tucci, Alfred Molina, Tony Shalhoub, Steve Buscemi, and Billy Connolly....
has an opening silent sequence in the style of early silent comedies. Brazilian filmmaker Renato Falcão's Margarette's Feast (2003) is silent. Writer / Director Michael Pleckaitis puts his own twist on the genre with Silent (2007). While not silent, the Mr. Bean
Mr. Bean
Mr. Bean is a British comedy television programme series of 14 half-hour episodes written by and starring Rowan Atkinson as the title character. Different episodes were also written by Robin Driscoll, Richard Curtis and one by Ben Elton. The pilot episode was broadcast on ITV on 1 January 1990,...
TV show and movies have used the title character's non-talkative nature to create a similar style of humor.
The 1999 German film Tuvalu
Tuvalu (film)
Tuvalu is a 1999 experimental movie from Germany. The style evokes early 20th Century Silent movies and motifs commonly found in German expressionism. The sparse dialog is presented in a mix of European languages...
is mostly silent; the small amount of dialog is an odd mix of European languages, increasing the film's universality. Guy Maddin
Guy Maddin
Guy Maddin, OM is a Canadian screenwriter, director, cinematographer and film editor of both features and short films from Winnipeg, Manitoba...
won awards for his homage to Soviet era silent films with his short The Heart of the World
The Heart of the World
The Heart of the World is a short film written and directed by Guy Maddin, produced for the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival. It is a homage to silent films, and as such, it is black and white, grainy, and without dialogue, and contains many references to styles and movies of the silent era...
after which he made a feature-length silent, Brand Upon the Brain! (2006), incorporating live Foley artist
Foley artist
Foley is the reproduction of everyday sounds for use in filmmaking. These reproduced sounds can be anything from the swishing of clothing and footsteps to squeaky doors and breaking glass. The best foley art is so well integrated into a film that it goes unnoticed by the audience. It helps to...
s, narration and orchestra at select showings. Shadow of the Vampire
Shadow of the Vampire
Shadow of the Vampire is a 2000 horror film directed by E. Elias Merhige and written by Steven Katz, and starring John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, and Udo Kier. The film is a fictionalized account of the making of the classic vampire film Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, directed by F. W....
(2000) is a highly fictionalized depiction of the filming of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau
Friedrich Wilhelm "F. W." Murnau was one of the most influential German film directors of the silent era, and a prominent figure in the expressionist movement in German cinema during the 1920s...
's classic silent vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
movie Nosferatu
Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens
is a classic 1922 German Expressionist horror film, directed by F. W. Murnau, starring Max Schreck as the vampire Count Orlok...
(1922). Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog Stipetić , known as Werner Herzog, is a German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and opera director.He is often considered as one of the greatest figures of the New German Cinema, along with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Margarethe von Trotta, Volker Schlöndorff, Werner...
honored the same film in his own version, Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht
Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht
Nosferatu the Vampyre is a 1979 West German vampire horror film written and directed by Werner Herzog. Its original German title is Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht...
(1979).
Some films draw a direct contrast between the silent film era and the era of talkies. Sunset Boulevard shows the disconnect between the two eras in the character of Norma Desmond, played by silent film star Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...
, and Singin' in the Rain
Singin' in the Rain
Singin' in the Rain is a 1952 American comedy musical film starring Gene Kelly, Donald O'Connor and Debbie Reynolds and directed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, with Kelly also providing the choreography...
deals with the period where the people of Hollywood had to face changing from making silents to talkies. Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich
Peter Bogdanovich is an American film historian, director, writer, actor, producer, and critic. He was part of the wave of "New Hollywood" directors, which included William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola...
's affectionate 1976 film Nickelodeon
Nickelodeon (film)
Nickelodeon is a 1976 comedy film directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring Ryan O'Neal, Burt Reynolds, and Tatum O'Neal. According to Bogdanovich, the film was based on true stories told to him by silent movie directors Alan Dwan and Raoul Walsh...
deals with the turmoil of silent filmmaking in Hollywood during the early 1910s, leading up to the release of D. W. Griffith
D. W. Griffith
David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
's 1915 epic The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation
The Birth of a Nation is a 1915 American silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and based on the novel and play The Clansman, both by Thomas Dixon, Jr. Griffith also co-wrote the screenplay , and co-produced the film . It was released on February 8, 1915...
.
In 1999, the Finnish
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki
Aki Kaurismäki
-Career:After studying Media Studies at the University of Tampere, Aki Kaurismäki started his career as a co-director in the films of his elder brother Mika Kaurismäki. His debut as an independent director was Crime and Punishment , Dostoyevsky's famous crime story set in modern-day Helsinki...
produced Juha, which captures the style of a silent film, using intertitles in place of spoken dialogue. In India, the 1988 film Pushpak
Pushpak
Pushpaka Vimana is a silent black comedy released in 1987. This Indian film was directed by Singeetham Srinivasa Rao and written by Singeetham Srinivasa Rao. Set in a large unnamed Indian city , the film is based on the king-for-a-day story. The film is notable for its inventive re-casting of the...
, starring Kamal Hassan, was a black comedy entirely devoid of dialog. The 2007 Australian film Dr Plonk
Dr Plonk
Dr Plonk is a 2007 Australian film directed by Adelaide-based Australian director Rolf de Heer. It premiered in Australia in March 2007 at the Adelaide Film Festival. It is a silent film and at the premiere had live accompaniment by the Stiletto Sisters. The film was also screened at the launch of...
, was a silent comedy directed by Rolf de Heer. Stage plays have drawn upon silent film styles and sources. Actor/writers Billy Van Zandt & Jane Milmore staged their Off-Broadway slapstick comedy Silent Laughter as a live action tribute to the silent screen era. Geoff Sobelle and Trey Lyford created and starred in All Wear Bowlers (2004), which started as an homage to Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...
then evolved to incorporate life-sized silent film sequences of Sobelle and Lyford who jump back and forth between live action and the silver screen. The 1940 animated film Fantasia
Fantasia (film)
Fantasia is a 1940 American animated film produced by Walt Disney and released by Walt Disney Productions. The third feature in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, the film consists of eight animated segments set to pieces of classical music conducted by Leopold Stokowski, seven of which are...
, which is eight different animation sequences set to music, can be considered a silent film, with only one short scene involving dialogue. The 1952 espionage film The Thief
The Thief (1952 film)
The Thief is a 1952 American black-and white Cold War spy film directed by Russell Rouse. The film is unusual because there is no dialog spoken throughout the film.-Plot:...
has music and sound effects, but no dialogue.
In 2005, the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society produced a silent film version
The Call of Cthulhu (film)
The Call of Cthulhu is a 2005 silent film adaptation of the H. P. Lovecraft short story of the same name, produced by Sean Branney and Andrew Leman and distributed by the HP Lovecraft Historical Society...
of Lovecraft's story The Call of Cthulhu. This film maintained a period-accurate filming style, and was received as both "the best HPL adaptation to date" and, referring to the decision to make it as a silent movie, "a brilliant conceit."
The 2011 French film The Artist
The Artist (film)
The Artist is a 2011 French romance film directed by Michel Hazanavicius, starring Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo. The story takes place in Hollywood between 1927 and 1932 and focuses on a declining male film star and a rising actress, as silent cinema grows out of fashion and is replaced by the...
, directed by Michel Hazanavicius, plays as a silent film and is set in Hollywood during the silent era. It also includes segments of fictitious silent films starring its protagonists.
The feature length silent film Silent Life
Silent Life
Silent Life is an upcoming American silent drama film written and directed by Vlad Kozlov and starring Isabella Rossellini, Galina Jovovich, Monte Markham and Vlad Kozlov...
, starring Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini is an Italian actress, filmmaker, author, philanthropist, and model. Rossellini is noted for her 14-year tenure as a Lancôme model, and for her roles in films such as Blue Velvet and Death Becomes Her.-Background and early life:Rossellini is a...
, will premiere December 2011 in Hollywood. The film, based on a life of Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...
, is a story about the making of a Hollywood movie star, where his leading role turned out to be that of his own death.
Early studios
The early studios were located in the New York City area. In December 1908, Edison led the formation of the Motion Picture Patents CompanyMotion Picture Patents Company
The Motion Picture Patents Company , founded in December 1908, was a trust of all the major American film companies , the leading film distributor and the biggest supplier of raw film stock, Eastman Kodak...
in an attempt to control the industry and shut out smaller producers.[2] The "Edison Trust,” as it was nicknamed, was made up of Edison, Biograph, Essanay Studios, Kalem Company, George Kleine Productions, Lubin Studios, Georges Méliès, Pathé, Selig Studios, and Vitagraph Studios, and dominated distribution through the General Film Company
General Film Company
The General Film Company was a motion picture distribution company in the United States. Between 1909 and 1920, the company distributed almost 12,000 silent era motion pictures....
. The Motion Picture Patents Co. and the General Film Co. were found guilty of antitrust violation in October 1915,[3] and were dissolved.[4] Edison Studios were first in West Orange, New Jersey
West Orange, New Jersey
West Orange is a township in central Essex County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the township population was 46,207...
(1892), they were moved to the Bronx, New York
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...
(1907). Fox (1909) and Biograph (1906) started in Manhattan, with studios in St George Staten Island. Others films were shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey
Fort Lee, New Jersey
Fort Lee is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 35,345. Located atop the Hudson Palisades, the borough is the western terminus of the George Washington Bridge...
. The first westerns were filmed at Scott's Movie Ranch. Cowboys and Indians galloped across Fred Scott's movie ranch in South Beach, Staten Island), which had a frontier main street, a wide selection of stagecoaches and a 56-foot stockade. The island provided a serviceable stand-in for locations as varied as the Sahara desert and a British cricket pitch. War scenes were shot on the plains of Grasmere, Staten Island
Grasmere, Staten Island
Grasmere is the name of a neighborhood located on the East Shore of Staten Island, one of the five boroughs of New York City.Grasmere although crossed by major roads has retained its quiet suburban character. The area and adjoining Concord was dotted with lakes and ponds similar to the English...
. The Perils of Pauline
The Perils of Pauline
The Perils of Pauline may refer to:* The Perils of Pauline , a 1914 silent film serial* The Perils of Pauline , a 1933 film serial from Universal Studios...
and its even more popular sequel The Exploits of Elaine
The Exploits of Elaine
The Exploits of Elaine is a film serial in the genre of The Perils of Pauline.The Exploits of Elaine tells the story of a young woman named Elaine who, with the help of a detective, tries to find the man, known only as "The Clutching Hand", who murdered her father. The Clutching Hand was the first...
were filmed largely on the island. So was the 1906 blockbuster Life of a Cowboy, by Edwin S. Porter
Edwin S. Porter
Edwin Stanton Porter was an American early film pioneer, most famous as a director with Thomas Edison's company...
. Companies and filming moved to the west coast around 1911.
Preservation and lost films
Many early motion pictures are lost because the nitrate film used in that era was extremely unstable and flammable. Additionally, many films were deliberately destroyed because they had little value in the era before home video. It has often been claimed that around 75% of silent films have been lost, though these estimates may be inaccurate due to a lack of numerical data. Major silent films presumed lost include Saved from the TitanicSaved From the Titanic
Saved From the Titanic is a 1912 silent motion picture short starring Dorothy Gibson, an actual survivor of the sinking of the RMS Titanic.The movie was shot in less than two weeks and in black and white, with color scenes...
(1912); The Apostle
El Apóstol
El Apóstol was a 1917 Argentine animated film utilizing cutout animation, and the world's first animated feature film...
, the world's first animated feature film (1917); Cleopatra
Cleopatra (1917 film)
Cleopatra was directed by J. Gordon Edwards and starred Theda Bara in the title role. Fritz Leiber, Sr. played Julius Caesar and Thurston Hall played Mark Antony....
(1917); Arirang
Arirang (1926 film)
Arirang is a 1926 Korean film. One of the earliest feature films to be made in the country, it is named after the traditional song Arirang, which audiences were said to sing at the conclusion of the film. The silent, black and white film was written and directed by Na Un'gyu , and stars Na Un'gyu,...
(1926); Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (lost film)
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes was a silent film directed by Mal St. Clair, co-written by Anita Loos based on her novel, and released by Paramount Pictures. No copies are known to exist, and it is now considered to be a lost film...
(1927); The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby (1926 film)
The Great Gatsby is a silent film adaptation of the novel of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The film was directed by Herbert Brenon, produced by Adolph Zukor and Jesse L. Lasky at Famous Players-Lasky, and released by Paramount Pictures. The film is a famous example of a lost film....
(1926); and London After Midnight
London After Midnight (film)
London After Midnight aka The Hypnotist is a silent mystery film with horror overtones produced and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film stars Lon Chaney, Marceline Day, Conrad Nagel, Henry B. Walthall, and Polly Moran and was directed by Tod Browning. It is also a lost film, quite...
(1927), and portions of Fritz Lang's Metropolis
Metropolis (film)
Metropolis is a 1927 German expressionist film in the science-fiction genre directed by Fritz Lang. Produced in Germany during a stable period of the Weimar Republic, Metropolis is set in a futuristic urban dystopia and makes use of this context to explore the social crisis between workers and...
. Though most lost silent films will never be recovered, some have been discovered in film archives or private collections.
In 1978 in Dawson City, Yukon, a bulldozer uncovered buried reels of nitrate film during excavation of a landfill. Dawson City was once the end of the distribution line for many films. The retired titles were stored at the local library until 1929 when the flammable nitrate was used as landfill in a condemned swimming pool. Stored for 50 years under the permafrost of the Yukon, the films turned out to be extremely well preserved. Included were films by Pearl White
Pearl White
Pearl Fay White was an American film actress, the so-called "Stunt Queen" of silent films, most notably in The Perils of Pauline.-Early life:...
, Harold Lloyd
Harold Lloyd
Harold Clayton Lloyd, Sr. was an American film actor and producer, most famous for his silent comedies....
, Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro....
, and Lon Chaney
Lon Chaney, Sr.
Lon Chaney , nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Faces," was an American actor during the age of silent films. He was one of the most versatile and powerful actors of early cinema...
. These films are now housed at the Library of Congress. The degradation of old film stock can be slowed through proper archiving, or films can be transferred to CD-ROM or other digital media for preservation. Silent film preservation
Film preservation
thumb|300px|Stacked containers filled with reels of [[film stock]]The film preservation, or film restoration, movement is an ongoing project among film historians, archivists, museums, cinematheques, and non-profit organizations to rescue decaying film stock and preserve the images which they contain...
has been a high priority among film historians.
See also
- :Category:Silent films
- :Category:Silent film actors
- Classic ImagesClassic ImagesClassic Images is a monthly American mail-subscription newspaper in tabloid format, founded in 1962 by film collector Sam Rubin, dedicated to film and television of the "Golden Age." Its offices are located in Muscatine, Iowa and it is published by the Muscatine Journal division of Lee Enterprises,...
- Laurel and Hardy filmsLaurel and Hardy filmsThis is the complete list of films which either star or feature the comedy team of Laurel and Hardy. Together, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy appeared in 107 short films and features....
- List of film formats
- German ExpressionismGerman ExpressionismGerman Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s...
- Kammerspielfilm
- List of silent films released on 8 mm or Super 8 mm film
- Lost films
- MelodramaMelodramaThe term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
- Sound filmSound filmA sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
- Sound stageSound stageIn common usage, a sound stage is a soundproof, hangar-like structure, building, or room, used for the production of theatrical filmmaking and television production, usually located on a secure movie studio property.-Overview:...
- Tab showTab showA tab show was a short or 'tabloid' version of various popular musical comedies performed in the United States in the early 20th century.-History:...
- At the Moving Picture BallAt the Moving Picture Ball"At the Moving Picture Ball" is a popular song composed by Joseph H. Santly and recorded by many artists during the silent film era. Today the song is best remembered for its unusually topical lyrics, which mention many celebrities of the time. In fact, by 1920, the lyrics of the song had already...
(Song about silent film stars)