Silent film

The silent film is a cinema without words, whose Bande its non-existent - one speaks then about quiet film - or consists of music recorded on the film or played on line.

First film of the brothers Light, in 1895, with the Singer of jazz ( Jazz Singer ), in 1927, the cinema was mainly dumb.

During dialogs, the texts of the actors were written on “paperboards”, which appeared most of the time on all the image, during or after having seen them speaking.

However, very early, of the tests of wiring for sound were tried. Initially by the recording of the sound on a separated support, wax rollers, disc, or second film impressed by a photoelectric process. But each time, the major difficulty was synchronization with the image and amplification still stammering. The process which put an end to these gropings was the optical recording of the sound directly on film itself.

History of the silent film

The invention of the cinematograph

About the middle of the 19th century, certain researchers are interested in the decomposition of the movement. They will take as a starting point toys which give, by the succession of mobile drawings, an illusion of movement.

As of 1863, progress of photography makes it possible to make the instantaneous ones. After work of the American Eadweard Muybridge on the decomposition of the movement, the French Etienne-Jules Marey develops in 1888 the stopwatch photographer, ancestor of the camera, which collects several images a second.

Thomas Edison invents the Kinétoscope, cupboard in which a spectator can follow the recorded spectacle, and in 1895, the brothers Lumière produce the first projector able satisfactorily to ensure the catch of sight like projection, the cinematograph, which will make them, after Edison, the fathers of the cinema.

Beginnings of the silent film

December 28th, 1895, in Paris, in the basement of the Indian Living room, is carried out the first public projection of the cinematograph. The public attends the projection of ten very short films (17 meters length), of which the Exit of the Lumière factory in Lyon (the first film in the world), and the Gardener (later famous the Sprinkler sprinkled ).

During ten years, the Lumières sights are crowned success and are imitated everywhere in the world. In France, in America, in England, in Germany, in Italy and elsewhere, odd handymen and spirits start to turn of the thousands of small films, projecting them with the means of the edge in the coffees or the fairground stalls. Among them is detached Alice Guy, pionnière with the Fairy with the cabbages in 1896, first of a long list of feature films.

Edison films numbers of circus for its kinetoscope, but its settings in scene will not be noticed. Georges Méliès will be the first to successfully integrate the scenography of the variety and the variety hall into the cinematographic technique. Its Voyage in the Moon (1902) will be a world success.

The expansion of the cinema

From 1905 to 1910, the cinema ceases being an impromptu craft industry and becomes an industry. In France, the brothers Pathé and Leon Gaumont produce in series of comic small films, with actors like Rigadin, Boireau and the already promising Leonce Perret.

The first large comic actor, max Linder ( max and its beautiful , 1910), which will be the model of Charlie Chaplin, leaves their school.

In America, Thomas Edison, who wants to impose his technical material and his standards, opposes the attempts independent production, causing a true “war of the patents” which will block the production, but will also support the creation of independent companies (for example: IMP of Carl Laemmle) from which some will leave future “the majors” of Hollywood (Universal de Laemmle).

Thus, since 1908, Vitagraph, which launch Florence Turner, and Biograph develop, where begin David Griffith ( Adventures of Dolly , 1908) and Mack Sennett.

Firms start to settle with Hollywood, which will develop very quickly during 14-18, with the detriment of the European cinema.

Cinema

As of 1908, the cinema ceases being a strictly commercial activity to assert like Article Thanks to the brilliant attempts people such as Georges Méliès to impose this tendency, the passage of documentary to the fiction is rather fast.

the Assassination of the duke of Own way , produced in 1908 in France, will give to Griffith the desire for ennoblir the melodrama ( the Remorse of the alcoholic , 1909) and for turning into to cinema the moral witness of the history ( Naissance of a nation , 1914, whose triumph marks the beginning of the films long life.). The cinematographic language takes shape. The police films with episodes multiply, like Fantômas (1913) of Louis Feuillade, virtuoso of the popular serial, or Doctor Mabuse (1922) of Fritz Lang.

Yevgeni Bauer was the most important Russian scenario writer of before the revolution of October. Most beautiful are morbid melodrama S filmed in decorations refined maniacs. It used already relatively long sequence shots and displacements of camera virtuosos. Denmark will produce tinted films of a local dramatic art, as those of Urban Gad ( the Abyss , 1910).

The Italians take as a starting point their spectacular tradition to put in scene divas such as Lydia Borelli or Francesca Bertini, and carry out ancient tables ( Last Days of Pompéi , Luigi Maggi (1908), and the prestigious Cabiria of Giovanni Pastrone (1914)) who will quickly be imitated by the Americans.

Max Linder is then regarded as being one of the most remunerated personalities cinematograph on the global scales. It is only into 1914 that Charlie Chaplin will begin at Mack Sennett. Max has then more than ten years of career. The influence thus is included/understood that this French artist had on the first steps of Charlie to the cinema. It is enough for that to read again celebrates it dedication of Chaplin with max which does not hesitate to regard it as its Master. Let us not forget only first film of Chaplin: " Making has living" /" To gain its vie" (1914) the character of charlot does not reveal us yet, since this last will be defined only during the year. Chaplin is in this capped film of a " High-of-forme" and vêtu of a frock coat. That points out this " of course to us; Dandy" with the Frenchwoman called " The man with the hat of soie" : our friend max Linder.

The golden age of the dumb man

After one period ostentation due to the war, between 1914 and 1918, during which the cinema discovers new fields and affirms its means of expression as in Intolérance of David Griffith or Lest we forget of the French Leonce Perret and the first feature-length films of Chaplin, one enters since 1919 during one time of blooming.

In Germany, the current expressionnist launched by the Cabinet of Doctor Caligari , Robert Wiene (1920) or by Of the paddle at midnight , of K.H. Martin (1920) will have a great influence abroad, but he is opposed to the realistic tendencies national production.

In France, the films are intellectualized, influenced by Louis Delluc, by privileging in their plastic esthetics it of the image and the rate/rhythm, and by looking further into the psychology of the characters, especially at Germaine Dulac and Jean Epstein ( the red Inn , 1923). This current will be named impressionist, to oppose it to the German Expressionnisme. Also Koenigsmark realized by Leonce Perret in 1923 will remain an outstanding film of this time.

In Soviet Union, the realizers, in majority favorable to the ideology of the Bolsheviks, wish to promote a revolutionary cinema, which, through their research on the assembly, places the individual like motive fluid of a great collective history, the Battleship Potemkine , of S.M Eisenstein (1925). This " révolution" assembly is precursory " révolution" surrealist which will gain Europe with films as ( a Andalusian dog of Luis Bunuel (1928) or Zero for conduct of Jean Vigo, (1932). The surrealist ones want to abolish the limits of the narration.

In the United States, Hollywood becomes the capital of the cinema, and attracts the largest actors and realizers, like Stroheim and Sternberg of Austria, Lubitsch of Germany, or Mauritz Stiller of Sweden. The large American realizers are D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, and King Vidor, which will carry out the Large Parade in 1925 and Crowd in 1928.

The Hollywood, founded system on the budgetary hierarchies, the bulk-heading in kind and especially the worship of the star, the star system, which is very powerful since 1918, will ensure his triumph thanks to Mack Sennett, author of the burlesque cinema, with actors such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd.

The arrival of speaking

Even if certain realizer as Leonce Perret in France had already had the idea to accompany a film by music, it is the firm of the Warner brothers which will launch out the first in the talking film, with Don Juan (1926) where one simply added a music to the image, then with the Singer of jazz (1927), truly speaking.

These two films of Alan Crosland bring back success and benefit, ensuring the supremacy of the American cinema, and radically devaluate silent films hitherto admired.

The arrival of speaking will prove, unfortunately, fatal for the dumb actors, except for some like Chaplin, Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers.

Principal actors of the silent film

alexandroff vhanesky

Principal realizers of the silent film

Principal films of the silent film

See too

Internal bond

External bond

  • silentera.com
  • Festival of Anères: silent film and piano speaking
  • Strade LED Cinema: international festival of the silent film put in music
  • Article: Silent film and music on Runmovies.be

Zh-min-nan: Bô-siaⁿ tiān-iáⁿ

Random links:Spectrophotometer | Offenhauser | Second civil court of the French Court of appeal | Maxime Champel | Yoann Bouchard | Parc_national_d'îles_du_Northumberland