Download Silent Film

Silent Film
Melodrama
Origins of
Melodrama
• Literally means “a drama accompanied by music”
• French theater of the late 17oo’s had verbal and nonverbal
theaters
• Original melodramas were non verbal and borrowed from
carnivalesque street theater and mime acts – relied greatly
on non verbal expression
• Silent films borrowed from traditional melodrama
• Demonstrated an extreme amount of nonverbal expression
as the lack of sound necessitated much of the
communication to be presented through body movements
Traits of silent film
Melodrama
• Conventional character types – heroes, heroines, and
villains
• Predictable plot elements – improbably reversals of fortune,
accidents, and last-minute rescues
• Tend to take place in the domestic space of a family or
intimate space of the romantic couple
• Speaks to the viewers in a way that is primarily emotional
rather than logical
• Depends on affective nature of music and images to create
an emotional experience
Traits continued
• Often seen as “domestic tragedy” – concerning normal
people in contrast to the tragedies of the classic
playwrights who focused on lofty people such as kings,
queens, etc.
• Focuses on the fate of the couple, the family, and their
immediate community
• Genre of the “historically voiceless” and so appealed
to the growing middle class of the time
Silent film
Characters
• Reflected values of the middle class
• Virtue empowered the hero and heroine
• Evil fueled the villain
• Virtue was equally attainable by all
• Knowledge, truth, and wisdom were often more easily
obtained by lower classes because simple people were
less burdened by artificial knowledge as were nobility
Silent film and
reform
• Silent films often dealt with ideas and social problems
• Often spoke to the hard life and condition of the poor,
corrupt practices of the rich, social threat of rapid
urbanization, the evil of slavery, and the effects of bad
family upbringing
• Also described the evils of middle and lower class vices
such as gambling and alcohol
• Film in general in the US was seen as the “grand social
worker” because it drew working-class men away from
saloons and other vices
Silent film and fears
of america
• Played many fears of Victorian era America:
• Urbanization and traditional family values
• Fatherless daughters and husbandless wives pursued by
immoral men
• Greedy factory owners and how they ruthlessly exploit
workers
• Technological advances would overwhelm and crush the
average American – symbolized by the locomotive
• Overall, there was a very leery and oftentimes bleak look
at modernization and urban living
Films we will view
• Orphans of the storm
• Two orphaned sisters are caught up in the turmoil of the
French Revolution, encountering misery and love along
the way.
• Phantom of the Opera (1925) 107
• A mad, disfigured composer seeks love with a lovely
young opera singer.