Chapters 4 and 5 of The Silent Clowns’ “Part One” illuminate the two most important elements of what makes silent film Silent Film, a specific entertainment medium of its own. As opposed to seeing it as regular film or video… Read More »One of the Five Senses
Chapter 3, “The Fact in the Fantasy”, reminds us that Silent Film – although silent, monochromatic and slightly faster – is still a capturing of reality on celluloid. Regardless of the aspects of the medium that are either what make… Read More »Reality, Depicted and Altered
A friend of mine once enlikened watching a silent film, especially in a theater, to being in a sort of trance state. An apt distillation of what Walter Kerr discusses in chapter two of The Silent Clowns’ Part One, “The… Read More »Reality, Minus some of the Logic and Consequence
Walter Kerr opens his book The Silent Clowns with five chapters on the core aesthetics of Silent Film itself. Perhaps not an obvious choice for a tome on comedy films from the ‘teens and ‘twenties, but I believe that understanding… Read More »More Logical The Other Way Around
We’ve all heard of or referred to Silent Film as a universal language. It’s not just because the films are wordless, although that certainly levels the playing field. But it’s true. But it’s because of that same leaving-out that is… Read More »A Universal Non-Spoken Language
We use our imagination to fill in the elements left out, with Silent Film. As obvious as this may be to adults who’ve seen silent film, it’s ironic that there’s an assumption that kids won’t go for silents. Ironic, because… Read More »That’s Not a Real Car
People who haven’t seen Silent Film — or experienced it — are always surprised to know there’s an interest in it. When I tell people kids eat it up when I show Keaton in schools they are amazed. They shouldn’t… Read More »The Reason Silent Film “Still Works”: Your Brain
I wasn’t sure when I first heard about Patreon, but a recent NPR piece about it that interviews its founders Jack Conte and Sam Yam mentions their launch year of 2013. So, this was during the time in the early… Read More »Brandy Snifter on the Cocktail Bar Piano
Over the last several months of doing live-accompanied live-streams of silent films, I’ve noticed the validity of something I’d read that Charley Chase once said. That he’d learned from his years in vaudeville that every seven years you get a… Read More »Re-release Everything
“Adventures In Sound!” – Ben tracks his own journey to find the digital devices that best re-create or at least evoke the classic theater pipe organ experience under modern screening conditions. Topics Ben discusses the “temporary” theme for the podcast,… Read More »ep. 39: “Adventures in Sound!”