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Silent Movies vs. the Invention of Sound

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Silent Movies vs. the Invention of Sound
Kim Battaglin Drama 150 Tu 6:35 – 9:40 PM

Silent movies vs. the invention of sound

Throughout time human have had the necessity to express their emotions as a form of art. The world stopped when they first watched on screen people and objects in movement, but since time changes, so do our minds, interests and traditions. When people thought nothing better than silent films could arrive, the unexpected happened, the first talkie came out. Their movie stars for the first time had a voice and so the public started to be more demanding. They started to pay attention to the screenplay, acting and the production instead of only paying attention to the art that us being expressed. The art in silent movies was determinate by the actor’s abilities, such as dance, the exaggeration of movements and the emotions expressed to the audience. The majority of the actors back then came from the theatre. When they first started acting, they brought a touch of art and passion to the screen without having to use dialogues. It was all about the art expression. However with the arrival of sound that went away on an instant because artist just new one thing “perform” and express ideas through their body movements and they only had the experience from the theatre and movies with sound would require realism. When comparing silent films to “talkies” in terms of their intellectual affect you would think that it would be easier to understand a talkie because of the use of dialogues. However the expression in silent movies is so strong, that the audience does not have to listen to a single word to understand the message. For example on the movie Metropolis the director show us the social crisis between workers and owners and Capitalism and not one word was necessary to perceive the intensity and message of the movie. When comparing in term of the emotional affect I believe that “talkies” evoke a greater emotional response from the audience because

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