Aspiring filmmakers learn all about mise-en-scène in film school. You can learn all about different editing techniques, types of camera shots, what makes a good story, and an index of movies to educate yourself with. However, teaching with film can involve starting from the basics. In terms of film, there’s no farther back than the silent film era.
Starting as far back as 1894, silent filmmakers like Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, Lois Weber, and more didn’t have the technology we do now. They just had to use practical special effects with a ton of creativity. In honor of celebrating National Silent Movie Day, here are reasons why aspiring filmmakers will benefit from adding silent movies to their film collections.
Storytelling Education
Filmmakers during the silent film era didn’t have CGI or green screen technology to tell a story. They also didn’t have storylines where they could afford great war scenes or large-scale sets. All they cared about was focusing on the story they were telling.
In movies like Modern Times, a masterpiece that should be included in every movie library, the message Charlie Chaplin was trying to convey was how to survive during the Great Depression. You could wonder why we needed to see a four-minute scene of the Little Tramp’s clumsy mishaps on the assembly line or experimenting with an automatic feeding machine, or getting arrested many times. It’s to show the hardships that people had to endure. Every scene holds meaning.
The Importance of Mise-En-Scène
Mise-en-scène is all about focusing on what is happening within the shot. Before transitioning to sound, lighting was very important in a silent movie in order to present the mood of the shot. Director Cecil B. DeMille's lighting techniques were inspired by classic painters like Rembrandt. The lights were arranged with the actor’s face partly lit and partly shadowed. The innovative lighting techniques used in his film The Cheat made people start to take the film seriously as an art form.
Objects also became important in the film to give audiences a visionary experience. Silent film examples like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari have gothic set pieces that are piercing to the eye. Even objects that silent film actors use in their movies ended up being slapstick comedy gags like The Little Tramp’s cane, Buster Keaton’s hat, or Harold Lloyd’s glasses. Objects also emphasize drama like the straw crown in The Passion of Joan of Arc that she’s forced to wear before burning at the stake. You can use this educational film experience to incorporate important props into your own movies.
Here’s our review of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
The Power of Editing Techniques
The way you edit a movie can create tension in a scene. Not all scenes have to be in chronological order. It’s all about finding the rhythm of the scene and why it’s necessary to have that particular rhythm. The movement would be used whenever there was a big moment in a scene. It could be the introduction of a character, a moment of discovery, a climax, and more.
One of the best examples of film editing in a silent movie would be Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin where the Tsar’s soldiers fire at civilians climbing down the Odessa steps. Using his montage sequence to create the greatest emotional response, we see a large crowd running down the seemingly endless flight of stairs falling down and getting trampled by each other. The most intensifying moment is seeing back-to-back shots of a baby in a carriage rolling rapidly down the stairs with juxtaposition shots of the reaction of the citizens watching. This pacing makes the sequence memorable to this day.
Here’s our review of Battleship Potemkin.
A Piece of Film History
It’s always significant to go back to film’s roots in order to create effective storytelling. We live in a world today where filmmakers think they need the greatest special effects and big budgets to make a box office hit instead of relying on genuine storytelling practices. The silent era provides us with a history of how far we’ve come in translating what we want to show and say on screen.
Without silent-era surrealist filmmakers like Man Ray or Luis Buñuel, director David Lynch wouldn’t have found inspiration for Eraserhead. Without 1928’s Show People, Michel Hazanavicius wouldn’t have been inspired to write the Best Picture winner The Artist.
If you end up creating your own movie based on the innovative filmmakers of the silent era, it will show audiences and critics that you know your cinematography well with the potential to appear on DVD collections everywhere. You can check out this beginner’s guide to the silent film era to start.