The futility of everything that comes to us from the media is the inescapable consequence of the absolute inability of that particular stage to remain silent. Jean Baudrillard
The Sound of Silence, my Summer class dedicated to the lesson of silent cinema and its influence on sound movies ended last Friday, and I was really surprised to receive so many enthusiastic emails about the films we watched. Most students mentioned that they were pleasantly surprised by the unexpected narrative complexity of silent cinema. Our last screening (Ernst Lubitsch’s silent adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan) perfectly exemplifies the creative work behind such complexity, as Wilde’s verbal text is turned into a visual performance where off-screen space, indirect narration, and other sophisticated narrative techniques make up for the lack of dialogue. Since the original trailer of Lady Windermere’s Fan doesn’t exist anymore, here’s the trailer for another favorite film of the series (F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise) as a Thank You note for sharing your thoughts with me. It was a real pleasure sharing my passion with you.