The Art of Silence – Exploring Silent Film

Chaplin and Jackie Coogan in The Kid (1921) - Image via Wikipedia

Silence is golden: A phrase we often hear bandied around, but which has recently rung truer than ever. The Artist – Michel Hazanavicius’ throwback to an era of flappers, jazz, razzle-dazzle and thespian Jack Russells – has already scooped Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture, Best Original Score and Best Performance by an Actor. Now it looks like it’ll clean up at the Academy Awards too. If that happens, The Artist will be the first silent film since 1927’s WWI ménage à trois Wings to pocket an Oscar.

The year 1927 was in fact a watershed in the history of cinema. In Al Jolson vehicle The Jazz Singer, something incredible happened. Seventeen and a half minutes in, nightclub entertainer Jack (played by Jolson) utters the historic line: “Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet”. They were the first spoken words ever committed to celluloid, and with them, the talkie was born. In truth the new medium took another five years to become commonplace, but as Singin’ in the Rain so smartly depicted, actors would soon need to hone their vocal talents as well as their looks.

There are varying findings on the subject, but it is generally agreed that communication between humans is made up of between 60 and 70 percent nonverbal behavior. It’s perhaps surprising then, that it has taken so long for a silent film like The Artist to come along.

In the foreign film market, subtitling and dubbing have undoubtedly played an important role in keeping the silent film at bay, not to mention an ever-increasing demographic of cinemagoers who have studied English from an early age. That said, the silent star hasn’t been altogether absent for the past 85 years.

If you’ve ever got talking to non-native English speakers on the subject of comedy, a fair number are likely to cite Mr Bean as one of their comedy idols. Rowan Atkinson’s blundering clown doesn’t necessarily carry off the balletic wit of Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton, but there’s a reason why this character is welcomed with open arms in 94 different countries and has earned Atkinson an estimated $17m. The universal language of silence can be lucrative, and Atkinson is no fool.

Conjuring up some of film’s most famous moments too, you realize that many are nonverbal; Harry Lime’s unforgettable entrance in The Third Man, the shower scene in Psycho, the half-hour robbery sequence in Rififi, pretty much the entirety of Jacque Tati’s Les vacances de Monsieur Hulot.

Following the snowballing success of The Artist, it will be intriguing to see what lies in store for the future of silent cinema. Will we see the likes of Meryl Streep and Robert De Niro drop the dialogue altogether? Will Jack Black go a whole film without uttering a word? One can only hope. This might just be the beginning of a golden era of silence…

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