I loved the way that having no sound forced the film-makers to
concentrate on the moving image to communicate story. Factoring in
dialog allows the filmmaker to be lazy, enter "exposition man" or
woman whose job it now is to convey the bits of the narrative which
won't be filmed. I think literary adaptions can suffer this way.
I'm also attracted to the way the filmmakers had to "think" in
monochrome and concentrate on value.
Roger
On Sun, Jul 6, 2008 at 1:06 AM, <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> there's nothing quite like silent black & white films to create a sense
> of the numinous. The manner of acting, too, was imported directly from
> the 19the century stage, complete with fixed looks, poses and broad
> gestures that could be seen from the farthest seat in the house.
>
> I think what stays with me, though, are the EYES of the characters--the
> robot's corpse-like stare, the mad, insinuating eyes of Rotwang, the
> come-hither looks of the robot involved in a rather tame (by our
> standards) lascivious dance, clothed in the simulated likeness of the
> heroine, the half-closed eyes of the foolish rich boy as he chases his
> elite playmates around a gated complex, the vatic stare of the "true"
> heroine holding forth to the workers, and the eyes of the industrialist,
> filled with equal portions of intelligence and guilt.
>
> How much could be communicated by those gestures, those poses and those
> eyes! Though it could be argued that modern films have gained in
> subtlety with sound and color, I would argue that a vital language--of
> gesture, interplay of light and shadow, texture and etc.--has been lost.
>
> Jess
>
--
My Stuff: http://www.badstep.net/
"I began to warm and chill
to objects and their fields"
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
|