In Praise of Silent Movies

THE STRONG SILENT TYPE 

By Steven Rosen

From The Denver Post
8-6-00

Recently, more than 600 people crowded into Boulder's venerable Chautauqua Auditorium to see an old movie. A really old movie.

   It was a silent movie - Charlie Chaplin's 72-year-old "The 
Circus," with piano accompaniment from Hank Troy.



   There were all ages present. Some were old enough to remember 
when silents were golden; others were toddlers who squealed - 
loudly - when Chaplin's famous, baggy-trousered Tramp character 
was chased by an angry mule or harassed by monkeys on a tightrope.



   And there were even teens, usually phobic about being seen 
near anything old - as black-and-white silent movies most 
certainly are.



   Now in its 14th season, which continues on Wednesday evenings 
through Sept. 6 (with a week off on Aug. 16), Chautauqua's Silent 
Film Series is the best local example of the enduring appeal of 
silent movies. (See accompanying schedule.)



   "Comedies are our staple, but we like to throw people a curve 
every now and then," explains Chautauqua's Ray Tuomey. "We bought 
two new 16-millimeter projectors this year, so what you see on 
screen is bright. And we've been going to collectors to get the 
best prints."



   There is plenty of other evidence, both here and abroad, that 
interest in silent movies is strong. The Colorado Symphony 
Orchestra has had success performing scores to Chaplin's "The Gold 
Rush" and Carl Dreyer's "The Passion of Joan of Arc" as 
accompaniment to showings of restored prints.



   The Telluride Film Festival has a tradition of having a 
musical ensemble perform a new score to a silent classic. In fact, 
the funniest movie I've seen in recent years was Telluride '97's 
"Pass the Gravy," a silent short in which a boy kills his 
neighbor's prize chicken only to discover it will be served at a 
family dinner honoring that neighbor. The Alloy Orchestra 
performed an amusing new score.



   In Pordenone, Italy, there is an entire festival devoted to 
restored or rediscovered silent classics. And there are more Web 
sites devoted to silent-film culture than there are theaters that 
still show the classics of Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, 
etc. Search for a site called Silent Movies Page and find links to 
numerous other pages.



   While none of this is a risk to the gross receipts of "Nutty 
Professor II," "Coyote Ugly" or "Me, Myself & Irene," the ongoing 
viability of silent films raises questions. In 72 years, will 600 
people crowd into Chautauqua, or anywhere, to watch restored 
versions of this year's high-profile Hollywood comedies as they 
still do Chaplin?



   And why do silent movies still appeal to anyone, anyway? In 
this age of megaplexes, IMAX screens and stereo movie sound, 
shouldn't they now be antiquated? Aren't they relics of a long-ago 
past, suitable for framing - pun intended - only in museums?



   Actually, no.



   In fact, a case can be made that they represent the epitome 
of film as a form of modernism. And film, essentially if not 
technically a 20th century creation, certainly is a modern art 
form.



   The pioneering silent filmmakers had to develop a universal 
visual language - just like painters and sculptors. And the 
language came from sources other than speech. Some were adapted 
from the stage - expressive acting, set design, lighting, costumes.



   Others were new and related to cinematography and directorial 
vision - camera angles, montage, experiments with focus, editing, 
closeups and panoramic shots. Films also relied on musical scores, 
usually performed live during the screening, to create mood and 
express emotions.



   All this constituted a great leap forward, especially for 
anyone who believes this key tenet of enlightened modernism - that 
which moves us should not also divide us. Because the silents had 
no spoken dialogue, everyone could understand them.    That's why 
the silent era was far more international than today's movie 
industry, in which the sounds of Hollywood movies - explosions, 
gunfire, car crashes, punchouts, as well as the spoken word - 
dominate the world.



   Before the sound era, filmmakers from France, Great Britain, 
Russia and Scandinavia were as important as Americans, such as 
D.W. Griffith or "The Crowd's" King Vidor. They did not make 
"foreign movies," they made movies. (America's vast population and 
economic power did give it an early edge, especially after Europe 
exhausted many of its resources and joie de vivre on World War I.)



   But where would movies be today without the dark, eerie 
expressionism of such German silents as "The Cabinet of Dr. 
Caligari" or "Nosferatu"? These prefigured - and helped create - 
film noir, suspense and horror. Today, we take for granted that 
film has a right to show a distorted, abstracted reality. This 
happened because silent filmmakers couldn't rely on dialogue.



   Surprisingly, among those who believe the silent era was the 
best is one of cinema's (and theater's) masters of language, David 
Mamet. In a 1997 interview with The Denver Post, he said, "It 
works better without words.



   "What I'm hired to do (as a screenwriter) is describe 
pictures. The question is how to tell the story best at any given 
point. The answer always is to see if I can do it without words, 
because then I know I'm doing it right. But sometimes I'm not 
smart enough. But that's my ideal."



   Of course, there are great talkies. With time, filmmakers 
have found authoritative ways to match the rhythm of words to the 
rhythm of pictures. This can be done with a transfixing 
deliberativeness, as in post-war European art films. Or it can be 
done with spitfire speed and alacrity, as in American screwball 
comedies.    But since the sound era started with Al Jolson's 1927 
"The Jazz Singer," has there been another movie star with such 
emotional, universal appeal as Chaplin? In that regard, the movies 
peaked early.



   In "Charlie Chaplin: Comic Genius," David Robinson asserts 
the Tramp is the most important fictional character created in the 
20th century. "One day in the first week of January 1914, he went 
into the shed ... to select a costume," Robinson writes. "When he 
emerged, he had created the Tramp figure that remains to this day 
the world's best-known fictional representation of a human being."



   In an age of great poverty, Chaplin's Tramp was the 
downtrodden underdog everyone could root for. While the 
British-born actor's creation was an American invention, it spoke 
to the world.



   He wore rags and twirled a cane as frail as his own rail-thin 
body; he was clumsy, insecure and often inept. Yet he also was 
romantic, optimistic, resilient and resourceful - and funny. He 
represented hope and humor.



   As the director of his own features, Chaplin had an 
astoundingly inventive visual sensibility. In "Gold Rush," the 
Tramp cooks his own boot for a Thanksgiving dinner and improvises 
a surreal "dance of the dinner rolls." And funny as "Circus" is, 
the final scene of the Tramp alone in a field of grass is as 
evocative as a quiet sunset.



   Of the few other enduring movie "representations of human 
beings," success has rested more on power and propensity for 
violence than Chaplin's humane poetry. A pessimist could track the 
decline of Western civilization from Chaplin's Tramp to Sylvester 
Stallone's "Rambo."



   James Bond, who first appeared in Ian Fleming's novels but 
became famous from debonair Sean Connery's portrayal in movies, 
had a license to kill. So, too, did Clint Eastwood's Man With No 
Name and Dirty Harry, more or less. And "Rambo" seems more 
superhuman cartoon character than mortal.



   Chaplin, who believed in the power of silent films, tried to 
sustain them long after the sound era began. His pantomime style 
of acting owed everything to silence. In the 1930s, he made the 
essentially silent "City Lights" and "Modern Times." When he 
finally did adopt dialogue, with 1940's "The Great Dictator," he 
retired the Tramp. That wasn't a reactionary action - he was right 
to try to preserve what he knew couldn't be replaced.



   Earlier, I wondered if in 72 years a screening of "Nutty 
Professor II" would be able to draw as many people to Chautauqua 
as "The Circus" did. Maybe it will - the scene of a giant, 
feces-flinging hamster is essentially a sight gag, after all. But 
I doubt it. Somehow, it just lacks the stuff of greatness.    But 
"The Circus" probably will still be drawing big crowds in 72 years 
- and 72 years after that. Silent films will never lose their appeal.



   Steven Rosen's e-mail address is srosenone@aol.com.