The History of Silent Films and Other Movies

The first film was a two second film of people walking around in a garden, called "Roundhay Garden Scene." This film was created by Louis Le Prince in 1888. Most films up until the 1920's were silent and because of this they had very high visual quality despite what is commonly thought. The reason for this is old damaged film stock being copied and recopied and than digitally scaled down or compressed.

It was hard to portray a thought without sound so a highly talented person called a "title writer" wrote onscreen intertitles to help tell the story or dialog.

Since there wasn't any recorded audio all silent era films had live music such as pianos or organists and sometimes even entire orchestras. This helped to set the mood, theme and setting of the story.

The acting and actors was obviously the most important part of silent films since they were the way of engaging the audience and acting out everything that happened by using body language, mouthing and other facial expressions. To do this took great talent that few could adequately do, most notably were Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin to name two. Most dramas were unsuccessful because the best emotion to portray when overacting was laughter or comedy.

New technology gave way to "talking films" or films with sound. The first successful film with sound to be released was "The Jazz Singer's" witch was publicly released in 1927. Although, they did not take off right away and most films produced in 1927-28 were still silent. The new "era" of film didn't actually start until 1929 or at least thats commonly when it is said to of started.

Several people have tried to relive this past era by coming out with new films or movies including Jacques Tati with his Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (1953) and Mel Brooks with Silent Movie (1976). Taiwanese director Hou Hsiao-Hsien's acclaimed drama Three Times (2005) is silent during a portion and even has intertitles. Stanley Tucci's The Impostors has an opening silent sequence which is in a style to portray an early silent comedy. Writer and Director Michael Pleckaitis created Silent (2007) which is a great variation of the genre. Reminiscent of Pleasantville (1998) was done just like a silent movie from the earliest days of the genre.

The worst part is a majority of old silent era films have been lost due to the nitrate film used during that era was very unstable and even flammable. Plus, many films were destroyed deliberately because they had little, if any value in the era before home video. It has often been siad that around 75% of silent films have been lost forever! However these are only estimates and may be inaccurate due to a lack of numerical data and maybe never even none to exist. Some major silent films that are presumed to be lost include Saved From the Titanic (1912), The Apostle, the world's first animated feature film (1917), Cleopatra (1917);[13] Arirang (1926), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1927), The Great Gatsby (1926), and London After Midnight (1927). Though most lost silent films that have been lost will never be recovered, more and more are being discovered in film archives or private collections.

Although many films have been lost more and more people in newer generations are discovering this lost art and help to keep it alive for future generations to love and enjoy.