The 1920’s and 1930’s was considered the golden age for movie production. In the 1920’s the production code started censoring the film makers. This stated that any movie written had to pass a certain criteria examples included: if containing sex, violence, and killing. Early silent movies were often accompanied by live piano or organ music. Films were black and white. According to A Short Stories of the Movies, D.W Griffith, never had the intention to make movies, accidentally writing and reporting for a Louisville newspaper led him to become a movie producer, and writer. He is known as the inventor of Hollywood for using close-up shots, which tightly frames an object; today is known as “zooming”. He also used cross-cutting, in order to make
This essay will outline an introduction to the premature years of motion pictures and developments that helped shape cinema as we know it today. This paper will explore the roles of the early pioneers and the extent to which their contributions shaped cinema. In particular, it will look at how E.S Porter and D.W Griffith improved on the early years of cinema as result of influences from Louis and Auguste Lumiere and George Melies.
...netti, Louis, and Scott Eyman. “The Talkie Era.” Flashback: A Brief History of Film. Ed. Leah Jewell. 4th ed. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2001. 140-145. Print.
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, and no spoken dialogue. The silent film era was from 1894 to 1929. Even though silent films seemed boring, they were actually quite the popular hit. In the films the actors would use gestures, mime, or title cards to convey to the audience what the plot was about. “The term silent film is therefore a retronym – that is a term created to distinguish something retroactively”, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_film). Since September 2013, it has been announced by the United States Library of Congress that a total of 70% of American silent films are to believed to be lost forever. Some thought out reasons are 1.) The film companies decided to destroy the films once the silent film era ended, 2.) Natural environmental causes that caused the films to degrade over time, and 3.) there could had been fires in the vaults where they kept all the films in. Since actors couldn’t talk during the films they used body language and facial expressions so the audience could better understand what the plot was and how the character felt and portrayed on the screen. Silent films were suppose to attract audiences that were simplistic. Melodramatic acting was common in most films. Vaudeville was a very popular origin in silent films. In mid-1910s though, the vaudeville style soon dies out due to differences
Bergan, Ronald. "A History of Creative Sound in Film (Abridged)." The Guardian. n.p, 17 July 2008. Web. 11 Jan 2014
Today, most movie goers categorize ‘silent films’ into one genre and discard the stark differences that make Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, The Great Train Robbery, and Broken Blossoms vastly dissimilar. In my opinion, these films clearly illustrate the evolution from silent film projection on a cafe wall to the birth of the hollywood that we know today. The profound contrast is most apparent in their stories, their performances, and the emotional response each film invokes. Collectively these films provide viewers with a clear perspective on how early film progressed from silent stills into what we call today, The Classical hollywood “silent” film era.
Even thought the most produced films were silent, film studios were working for a sound film. They managed to do that with The Jazz Singer (1927). However, they discovered that they should deal with the surrounding sound and with the sound of the camera, so at the end of the 1920s films were produced in two version, sometimes with slightly different plot, a silent and a sound
Cinema began as short, silent films, spinning away on cellulose. Audiences would follow the plot through mime and title cards in cramped theaters, projectors clanking loudly. It wasn't until the late 1920's that sound would be introduced to the motion picture experience. With the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927and the new Vitaphone system, “talkies” would replace the silent film. Actors and directors of the Silent Era had to adapt quickly to the new technology but would literally find a voice in their art and use it to speak directly to their audience.
From the beginning of cinema as an art form to cinema today, film has evolved and developed drastically. Each era of film from the Silent Film to the French New Wave was influenced by prior film generations and influenced those films that came after it. The era of Silent Film was very basic as it emerged when motion pictures had only begun. Across the sea, the age of German Expressionism, a film genre with features of the Silent Film era which conveyed the German people's struggle after World War I had started. Afterwards, the Studio Era surfaced and portrayed larger than life heroes in narratives with the gloss of a storybook. During the Studio Era, films like these were produced quickly because of success and began to appear mass produced
The addition of any type of sound to movies was handled mainly by the use of musical instruments, such as the organ or piano, and it wasn’t until the year 1923 that movies actually contained music or voices. After decades of looking into synchronizing sound with movies, a successful way of doing so was founded by Lee De Forest. Contrary to his belief however, the film industry had little interest in his innovation. It was not until “Warner Brothers, a struggling industry newcomer, turned to sound as a way to compete with its larger rivals” (Mintz). A prerecorded musical sound track eliminated the expense of live entertainment. In 1926, Warner Brothers released the film Don Juan and made history. Being the first film with a synchronized...
Hollywood began as a place for musicals – from the release of the first feature length "talkie", The Jazz Singer in 1927, which featured seven songs and very little dialogue, these films were all the rage. Hollywood executives and studios alike prided themselves on the spectacle of the piece, dazzling audiences with elaborate choreography, beautiful scenery, and star studded casts. In 1930 alone Hollywood released over 100 movie musicals including The Vagabond King, The
Sound was first introduced into film by the film The Jazz Singer (1927). The transition for silent films to talkies was an experimental period in film history considering that, “[m]ost of the early talkies were successful at the box-office, but many of them were of poor quality - dialogue-dominated play adaptations, with stilted acting (from inexperienced performers) and an unmoving camera or microphone” (Kirk). When film was transitioning into sound a lot of silent film aspects disappeared. Many of the early talkies lacked in visuals because most of the filmmakers' attention was on sound. Another aspect of silent film making that was lost were the stars. Some stars transitioned into talkies; while others did not transition. The character Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard reflects the struggle many of the silent film actors and actresses faced because of talkies. There are many reasons as to why some silent film actors didn’t transition into talkies. Some reasons actors did not transition include: audiences did not like actor’s voices, actors did not like making talkies, and some actors could not speak english. In Sunset Boulevard, there are many silent film stars who did not transfer into talkies such as, Buster Keaton and Gloria Swanson.
Slapstick enables the beleaguered audience to stay here on earth and have the best good time; with a perfect sense of completeness, the clown’s martyrdom becomes the good time the audience is having. The significance of the silent era in film history cannot be overstated. During the first decades of the twentieth century, a truly commercial popular art emerged bound closely to the image of a modern America. Movie making luminaries such as Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton lead the way of comic cinema with their unforgettable films. Regardless of the development of synchronized sound, the era drew to a close, but the modes of production, distribution, exhibition, and consumption inaugurated during the silent film era persisted, creating the film industry, as we know it
Amongst the numerous great silent film directors, the three that are commonly mentioned surrounding that discussion are Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and Charlie Chaplin. Having seeing a greater amount of Charlie Chaplin’s magnificent work than the others, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd most certainly still got my consideration. In spite of every one of the three delivering awesome pieces of visual artwork, they shared some comparable attributes, however they each had unique differences which contributed to their each distinct style of silent film production. From seeing films produced by all three of these directors, it is evident that comedy works magnificently well with the silent movie format.
The introduction of sound to film started in the 1920’s. By the 1930’s a vast majority of films were now talkies. ‘If you put a sound consistent to visual image and specifically human voice you make a “talkie”’ (Braun 1985 pg. 97). In 1926 Warner Brothers introduced sound to film but, other competing studios such as FOX, didn’t find it necessary to incorporate sound to their motion pictures production, as they were making enough money through their silent movies. Warner Brothers decided to take what was considered a risky move by adding sound to their motion picture, a risk taken, as they weren’t as successful in the silent movie department. But this risk paid off with the hit release of ‘The Jazz Singer’ in 1927. Though sound in films was then acceptable and successful it wasn’t until the 1950’s that it became feasible to the public as sound was introduced to cinema by the invention of Cinerama by Fred Waller. The Cinerama used 35mm film strip and seven channels of audio.