How long will silents have a fanbase?

[Tintin]

Do you think silent films will always have a small contingent of fans of the same size there is now, or will it steadily decrease through time? Has it already decreased a lot since, say, the 60's, or has it held steady?

I was thinking about this, because I found to my dismay the other day that my 17-year old niece had never heard of Clark Gable before. I quizzed some of the younger people in my office and they knew Charlie Chaplin, but most had not heard of Mary Pickford or any of the other silent stars I mentioned. And my brother says he can't get his kids to even sit still through any movies anymore - they fidget and just want to go play their video games. The kids have told me they definitely don't want to watch anything in black and white (much less silent).

So, as silent films will all be seeing their 100th anniversary in the next two decades, will they become part of the distant past? I'm thinking like stage actors of the 19th century might seem to me now - not particularly interesting. Soon there won't be any eyewitnesses to the era still living, so that will also make it seem even more remote.

Another aspect of this I've wondered about is, will people still be willing to pay (much) to see them? Now that we're seeing 50 film DVD packs at Best Buy for $9.99 - I know they're mostly B-movies, but still. I've been really amazed that the Warners releases have been priced at $20 or more each, for, say, just an average film from 1930 like "Son of the Gods". I'd like to see that one, but I'm not going to pay that price for it. It's an 80 year old movie! People have said that the silent DVD's only sell a few hundred (or was it thousand) copies - will it soon be difficult to practically give them away?

I guess I'm just wondering how long silents will keep their special magic. Always, or will they just become the obscure interest of a VERY few (and thus leave the archives with no funding to work with at all)?

[Jim Reid]

If you want to get kids to sit through black & white, the best thing to start with is Our Gang films. Especially the ones when Spanky was a baby. Once you get them comfortable with B&W, you can move on to silents.

[Gagman 66]

I've seen this, young people would rather poke around with their Cell-Phones, and I-pads, rather than watch a movie or even a TV show. They are constantly distracted by them. It's all they know or want to know. Even worse when they do watch a movie more often than not it's Porn. Pretty disgusting.

[Harold Aherne]

It takes a peculiar kind of devotion to become intimately aware of previous eras' show-business personalities. I'm 27 and can easily pick out Harry MacDonough or Henry Burr on Victor choral records from 1915, but I don't expect most people to have that ability--and for that matter, not knowing about Clark Gable is not the first thing I'd be concerned about when talking to someone who was never exposed to his work.

Such lack of exposure is not new. To members of a certain generation, I suspect it was equally astonishing that young people wouldn't know who Marguerite Clark, Dustin Farnum, Margarita Fischer, Ruth Roland or J. Warren Kerrigan were--yet to most teenagers in the 40s and 50s, they were indeed unknown quantities or at best, merely names from their parents' reminisces. Even someone as iconic as Garbo hasn't been immune to the indifference of later generations: in early 1955, LIFE magazine featured her in a series of essays and photo spreads over the course of a few weeks. One letter came from a teenage girl grateful to learn about Garbo--but another reader said "Her day is done! Her vogue of screen star is passé! Why are we expected to accept the aging woman at present for something she once was?" Assuming that published letters represented a rough sample of those actually received, the unimpressed reader probably wasn't alone.

The best one can hope for is to let people know that various films, directors and stars do exist and are usually available for them to enjoy if they wish. But the choices are much more varied, or bewildering, now than they were half a century ago. The more "old" movies, recordings, broadcasts and whatnot become available, the harder it is for any particular artist to stand out unless they're a particular darling of critics.

-Harold

[Brianruns10]

I think it all depends on what we do. We are the stewards of the silent cinema, and it is up to us to keep interest alive in whatever way we can: writing, screening films, sharing DVDs and Blu-rays. We have all the tools at our fingertips. We can reached many through the internet, and digital media has enabled these films to be disseminated far more, arguably, than they were when they were brand new. It's up to us. If we don't try to make younger people care, they won't care.

For example, I've been a long time collector of coins, and I fear the hobby is on the brink of collapse, because of poor youth outreach. When I go to shows, it's the same people year after year, getting older and older. And these older people looked at young collectors like me with suspicion and disdain, with a few exceptions. Even today, as a 26 year old, I still have to deal with curmudgeons who are curt when I speak to them, and just don't seem very pleased to be dealing with me. They should realize that to keep their hobby alive, they're going to have to treat youths with more respect and open arms.

The same applies to lovers of the classic cinema. We can choose to complain about those young kids having no attentions spans and being ignorant and content to play with their gadgets. Or we can figure out how to bridge the gap.

And believe me, young people are out there to keep the torch ablaze. I taught classes for several years as a grad student, screening all manner of documentaries, silents and golden age films. We'd have lively discussions about the films. I encouraged them criticize the films, positively or negatively, and disabused them of the idea that any film was perfect, that they'd be wrong if they said something negative, that they'd hurt my feelings if they didn't like the film. I took them seriously, and they in turn took the films seriously.

So it's all up to us.

[Einar the Lonely]

I seriously think today there are more silent movie fans than ever, especially because the films are available as never before. So I am optimistic about the flame being kept alive in the future.

[Penfold]

Likewise, I'm fairly optimistic; Pordenone, and the BSFF, have a good age balance, with many under 30, and getting into positions in education, programming and archiving where they will be able to make a difference in the future.

[moviepas]

I found, when I had my shop, certain observations. My father found a large print of Chaplin & Coogan in that famous shot from The Kid. I think he got it at a garage sale with a few silverfish feeds. He stuck it in a prominent spot in the shop & most people who came him knew what it was & I got the impression that they had never seen the film but poster shops sold this print. This was a help. But I did get young guys who heard Glenn Miller on the radio & came in looking for some but they were horrified at the surface noise. Over the radio it was filtered out. I even had people older than me in the 1960s at work thinking Fred & Ginger were in color, but there was only one & that was not the RKO series. My dad was born the year Al Jolson opened his mouth in a feature film but at the end of his life he did not like silents & was a movie buff, not to mention an avid TV fan as well, mostly cop shows & British TV drama & many Aussie ones.

I have tried them with people as a gift but I never get any answers as to what they thought. Sure some are not up to it as a film but so many are great & I have watched them over & over. I have a friend born in 1932(I'm nearing 62 now) who is a film & theatre buff and was taken to many films & shows by an ant during the 1930s & he lived close to downtown making this easier for all concerned. But mention a silent picture & he gets violent. I avoid mention of them at all times now.

What will be the story in a few years time is anyone's guess. I a happy to collect what I can & do buy Grapevine's monthly issues as a matter of course but if my funds change so will my collecting but not my viewing.

[Mazamette]

I really believe that interest in silents is just starting to pick up steam again. They were neglected for a long while, once the Norma Desmond effect wore off and especially when repertory houses started to close in serious numbers in the mid- to late-70s. For awhile they had few defenders, and we owe those few a lot for their work in preservation and restoration. Without them working through the fifties, sixties, seventies and beyond, even more of the estimated 80% of that have been lost would have been been gone forever.

For the first time in human history, we have a pictorial record of people in motion, stretching back a hundred years and more. It might be an Edison actuality of a car parade in New York in the snow in 1902, or whatever. I know I'm blown away watching Anna Nielsen doing her gaucho-vamp dance in 1910, from a distance of a hundred years, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

There seems to be a certain magic about the century mark, and watching people now long gone, telling stories or just going about their lives 100 years ago -- or 90 -- or 80 -- is to look into a world completely vanished. This is something new to human experience.

I think that as the years go by and the century drags us along, the ability to look back at that lost world in which today's technology couldn't even have been even imagined fully (though it's that technology that's given us unprecedented availability of filmed images to watch at home or pretty much wherever we want them) is likely to become much more interesting to many more people. Add to that the growing availability of silents to watch online, along with (relatively) high-profile events such as the live webcast of the showing of the restored "Metropolis" at the Brandenburg Gate last winter, and I'm really quite sure that interest in silents is bound to grow.

Personally, I can't wait to see the squabbles that take place over silents versus sound in 2027-2028. Because, y'know, who the hell wants to hear actors talk?!

[Jim Reid]

It's all exposure. People my age (54) were exposed to classic films on television. They were on just about every channel at one point. Now, with hundreds of channels available, classic films are pretty much on just one. I've found that if you can get people to watch, they (sometimes) get interested. Not sure how to get films as wide an exposure as they had 30-40 years ago.

[Wm. Charles Morrow]

I seriously think today there are more silent movie fans than ever, especially because the films are available as never before. So I am optimistic about the flame being kept alive in the future.

I agree with this sentiment. Just last weekend I went to a screening of The Duchess of Buffalo starring Constance Talmadge at the Performing Arts Library in NYC, and the auditorium (which holds about 200) was packed. The film, which I'd never seen before, was delightful, and was very well received. At the end there was a genuine buzz of excitement. People wanted to know more about the leading lady, and wanted to see more of her work. One young woman, who appeared to be around 25, said she'd never seen a silent movie before and admitted that she didn't expect to enjoy it all that much, but instead found herself deeply absorbed in the story. She also said it was the best movie she'd seen in a long time.

Interest in silent cinema may never be widespread, but as long as the surviving films are well maintained and properly presented as on this occasion, there will always be an appreciative audience.

[Einar the Lonely]

This summer there was a big silent movie festival in Berlin, with all the classics being shown: Maciste, Chaplin, Dreyer, Lang, Pabst, Murnau, Lubitsch, Wegener, Griffith, Eisenstein, Stroheim... you name it. At the opening night there was an open-air-screening of "Nosferatu" at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in front of the famous Volksbühne theatre, the whole area was covered all over with people, you could hardly find a place even to stand. The majority consisting of young people in their twenties and thirties. Likewise I have been told that the rest of the festival was a huge success... watching silents has become quite fashionable in Berlin since the premiere of the restored "Metropolis", which received huge publicity.

[westegg]

What a great topic.

I was an adjunct film instructor at a college this past spring and I had to endure the shock of students having never seen THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN before, much less a silent, so I gingerly would show a spectrum of clips from the '20s and beyond, suggesting that they give such films a chance. Generally the response was positive.

I too am 54, and I grew up immersed with "classic movies" on TV. My parents knew them firsthand when new, so it was effortless sharing their own memories (my mother even recalled silent movies).

I don't know if anyone my age had this experience, but I was extremely influenced as a kid by Daniel Blum's Pictorial History of the Silent Screen (I think it was called). Even in 1965, when I read the book, the early silent days already looked like a century before, but I was hooked. Ironically, everything from the '20s onwards seemed like yesterday. It was so familiar after awhile!

I do think that the 100 year-mark is a way of revitalizing interest in silent film history. So many milestone anniversaries ahead!

Beyond that, I'm still bracing myself for the 100th anniversary of GONE WITH THE WIND, when I'll be 83.

[Arndt]

But please, people, let's not forget here to thank the people that are probably doing more than anybody to propagate classic film: those wonderful people behind all the current Hollywood output, who - quite deliberately, I presume - make most contemporary films so sub-standard that people cannot but turn to the classics in disgust.
Keep those stinkers coming!

[kndy]

Do you think silent films will always have a small contingent of fans of the same size there is now, or will it steadily decrease through time? Has it already decreased a lot since, say, the 60's, or has it held steady

I believe that its going to be contingent on how much access these people can get of these silents.

Part of the problem is that there is a mindset that something old is not good. The Gen Y and whichever Generation that is next are being brought up in this age of technology that older things are inferior. They want everything that is new and modern... the new iPhone, the newest video game consoles, the newest release from Apple, a Kindle to read digital books, they want 3D in their films, they want 1080p TV's and very soon TV's with 3D to be a standard.

And although I am seeing those who are willing to watch classics and silent films, only if it's on a new format - Blu-ray or digital streaming - Netflix.

And if there are classics they are familiar with, they know of Audrey Hepburn, many have never watched her films but they see big paintings at Target or hear about her elegance on television.

Right now people are just starting to learn about Buster Keaton because it's on Blu-ray and some are discovering Charlie Chaplin because it's a Criterion release.

Even for animation, people may be familiar with the latest releases from Disney/Pixar but when it comes to older classic animation, do you think a lot of these people will want to watch the old Mickey Mouse cartoons. I'm sure if it's on Blu-ray, they would be the first to pick it up but if it's on DVD, this generation will pass.

With that being said, it all comes down to how you as parents or educators let this young generation know about the classics. With my seven-year-old, he has watched Buster Keaton films with me and he knows his face and will ask me if I got anything new with Buster Keaton. And like how I was raised watching Little Rascals, I also have him watching these episodes. And my friend tells me the same with his 10-year-old, how he exposed him to classics and his son absolutely loves Abbot & Costello.

As for silent films, for me, I am seeing more young people purchasing them on Blu-ray. As many people have cheered for "The General and "Battleship Potemkin" and "Modern Times", I am seeing posts on many threads of people getting ready to buy "Metropolis" and how this film will be their first silent film.

But right now, the ones who have been smart about their releases are Criterion and Eureka!/Masters of Cinema. They know what this generation wants... They want steelbook cases, they want t-shirts, they want their releases numbered and part of a collection. They want the inclusion of books with their releases. They want special features.

They have been spoiled and these two companies know this and now know their growing fanbase expects nothing less and problem is, this growing fanbase are hearing about KINO, the Flicker Alley and are expecting the same treatment.

"Metropolis is being released with a steelbook and it comes with a 56-page booklet", but KINO only comes with an 8-page booklet and a slipcase. The smartest thing that KINO probably did was request MoC to region block their release. Because otherwise, people would have ordered this from Amazon UK.

This is a generation that if classics and silent films are going to thrive, they will need to know how to cater to this generation. They have been spoiled to the point where silents need to be on Blu-ray and come with bells and whistles and classics will not only need to be released on Blu-ray but in collector's box sets for this young generation to buy into it.

While many of us see as Warner, Universal and Sony are doing video in demand ala DVD-R, this new generation looks at these as inferior releases. Now put it on Netflix or hulu.com and remove the DVD-R stigma, they're fine because they can watch it on their iPad, Sony PSP or watch it on their PS3, XBOX360 or Nintendo Wii.

I can go on and on...but things are different with this generation folks.

[Murnau]

Excellent thread, I have had same thoughts lately.

I think it all depends on what we do. We are the stewards of the silent cinema, and it is up to us to keep interest alive in whatever way we can: writing, screening films, sharing DVDs and Blu-rays. We have all the tools at our fingertips. We can reached many through the internet, and digital media has enabled these films to be disseminated far more, arguably, than they were when they were brand new. It's up to us. If we don't try to make younger people care, they won't care.

That’s what I think too. And like Einar said, there are more silent movie fans than ever because of blu-ray and DVD. All of the most famous classics are available and more are coming (I personally hope that there would be more releases in Europe too, especially European directors and stars).

But I live in Finland and things aren’t going that well here. It is true that Forssa Silent Movie Festival and Midnight Sun Film Festival in Sodankylä are very popular places to visit (especially latter) but I guess that’s all. People may be interested in silents but it’s very hard to explore them here. DVD releases are easy to count with two hands’ fingers. There are max. 5 silent movies in television per year and when there are, they are just Keaton and Lloyd. If you want to see silents you have to do like I do: buy a movie from USA although you maybe know nothing about it and hope that you won’t buy crap. Finnish Movie Archive shows some silents but mainly in Helsinki and although they have a very beautiful and charming cinema, the shows are rarely full packed. There is just one respectful movie magazine and they write about silents only occasionally. I guess that my own website (Mykkäelokuvasivusto) is the only Finnish internet site that introduces silent movies regularly.

That’s the situation in Finland. Sad but true. I’m very glad that things are better somewhere else and I’m sure that if we’ll keep the interest alive, silent movies will have quite bright future. But not in my country.

[Chris Snowden]

I think there will still be a niche audience for silent films 50-100 years from now, at least in the United States.

The acid test for silents' viability is already behind us: it was the period from 1970-1990, when revival houses disappeared, and elderly folks who'd grown up with silents died out. Since then, the only audience for silents has been us: we who discovered them on our own somehow, and found them to be fun and interesting (for the most part).

Likewise, rodeos, square dancing and bluegrass music still have a niche audience. They all came about in an era that's now passed, but we can still see it in the rearview mirror. We can still relate to it.

But will anyone care about silents in the 22nd Century and beyond? Apart from a handful of films like Metropolis and The Birth of a Nation, I don't think so, and even those few will be seen as museum pieces. But I hope I'm wrong.

[R Michael Pyle]

Whenever this topic comes up, I am always reminded of William Shakespeare. He was enormously popular in his writing days - and acting days - but his plays faded after about 75 years. The poet laureate, Colley Cibber (anybody remember this guy??!!), re-wrote many of his plays about 100 years later, as did Nicholas Rowe (how about this guy??). They kept his themes alive during the eighteenth century to the point that editors of the day re-visited Shakespeare and finally revived him, so to speak. Today he's just about the best known author of all time. But there was a 100 year lapse, if you will, in between. I always think the same thing will happen with silent film: There'll be a lapse of several years, and I think we're in it now, then a re-discovery through schools and scholars teaching the subject, and eventually film history will be taught much like literature - as it already is in colleges. Silents will find lovers, just like Chaucer, Milton, and Shakespeare. I'm pretty sure this is the evolution lurking around the corner...

[bobfells]

Great thread and excellent points from all. I produced silent films series locally in No. Va. back in the 70s through the early 80s. The films that impressed younger people the most were not the established "classics" that afficiandos drool over. As one poster here observed, THE DUCHESS OF BUFFALO was a big hit at a recent screening but that title would not turn up on most lists of the top 10 or 25 or 100 silent films. In my experience, Barrymore's TEMPEST did more to win fans to the genre than the biggies. I think film courses may have done more to turn people off to silents with their emphasis on works of art than just good stories.

I think that opera is an analagous situation. It seems to be coming back in popularity after a number of lackluster years thanks to new outlets of live HD broadcasts in neighborhood movie theaters, The Met Player where you can watch complete operas on your laptop, not to mention dvd and yes, even blu-ray. Shameless plug - the Met's DON PASQUALE will be broadcast live in HD in movie theaters this Saturday at 1 PM eastern.

John Dillinger was once asked why he robbed banks. He said because that's where they money is. Can this same approach be applied to attracting new fans of silents? Go where the people are.

[sepiatone]

Watching silent movies is an acquired taste. Once you settle in and spend many years watching a plethora of silent movies , the acting and mannerisms become normal, just like the original audiences were accustomed to. The kids today just have too many distractions. When you look at people like Kevin Brownlow, Roger Ebert or even Martin Scorsese they were brought up on the old films. But look at the careers these guys chose. What would make Kevin Brownlow, born in the late 1930s, take an interest in silent film stars and movies in the 1960s and get up the nerve to even approach an Allan Dwan, Henry King or Al Parker and many others for interview? that's a fascinating question. And just as fascinating that these now elderly legends would placate a young Kevin by granting him interviews and opening up about their careers. Im sure there are young people out there today who would become interested in old pics if they had the exposure. I remember reading about the The Beloved Rogue(1927) and it's discovery in 1970 after decades of being a lost film. A screening took place in 1970 and a teenage girl in the audience, 17 , was enamored of the acting of John Barrymore in that film. So by whatever the circumstance, this girl was exposed to another art form and film that had matured and disappeared before she was born. As more and more films are found we get a better understanding of the era. I think many people are waiting for that LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT, GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDS, THE GREAT GATSBY or THE DEVIL'S PASS KEY to be found then I think they'd bail out watching silents. But even if one or all of these showed up , I'd still watch silents for a long time to come.
In viewing the 2-disc dvd set of Merian Cooper's SHE, I learned the film is marketed in black&white and colorized version. Ray Harryhausen, a colleague of Cooper's , stated (in the dvd commentary/extras) that young people today refuse to watch anything in b&w. So Harryhausen spearheaded a group to colorize the movie to catch the eye of that young guy or gal who never even heard of this film. Im not going to get into a debate on colorization here, but I believe color or no color you either like a film or you don't.

[Mike Gebert]

The acid test for silents' viability is already behind us: it was the period from 1970-1990, when revival houses disappeared, and elderly folks who'd grown up with silents died out. Since then, the only audience for silents has been us: we who discovered them on our own somehow, and found them to be fun and interesting (for the most part).

The thing that has saved silents is that presentation quality has gone up so drastically, on the whole. I often think that I couldn't stand today most of my earliest experiences with silents in the late 60s and 70s— would I be able to watch even a Killiam print on a 20" TV, or the typical 16mm print of Hunchback of Notre Dame or Nosferatu that we saw back in the day? A Metropolis that looked more like the Buenos Aires insert shots than the rest?

Like opera, silent film can be a wonderful mass audience experience when it's done well. The Silent Film Society of Chicago shows that every year, it's no Pordenone in terms of obscure films, mostly familiar warhorses— but when they show them to a thousand people with booming organ, they go over like no modern movie has in decades. (Maybe the first time we all saw Star Wars. If we were the right age. That's a mere 35 years ago...)

If that kind of experience still exists, the best of the films will survive for, well, as long as I can contemplate. Will the cyborgs of 3010 still find Keaton funny, who knows, that could be Al Joy's moment at long last. I don't know if they'll read Dickens, listen to Gilbert and Sullivan or The Beatles, or play Texas Hold 'Em, either. That's their problem.

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3Z2vU8M6CYI?fs ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3Z2vU8M6CYI?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

[ben7778]

Mike, that YouTube video is absolutely one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time.

Anyway, as for the endurance of the silents--unless there is some sort of great mainstream reappraisal (largely courtesy of the media), I think silents will remain something of a niche. However, with all the info flying around out there and all the stuff for people to stumble onto via TV and (especially) the internet, I think we'll see modest gains in fans. I doubt the popularity of or interest in silents (or classic film in general) is going to go down anytime soon.

[westegg]

This may sound like an odd angle, but with their alternate universe appearance by this point in time, silent movies are incredibly unique sights to behold to modern eyes--kind of like entertainment from a close cousin of Earth. Familiar, but then again maybe not. However, able to potentially connect emotionally, create laughter etc. with regular people today. Silent movies occupy a rather unworldly look and feel now--just try and duplicate that whole mood nowadays! They offer an experience that I wish younger people could embrace because of their very different quality from films today.

Thus I dream.

[Mazamette]

westegg, that's just what I was trying to suggest in my post above. Any old film can suggest days gone past, but particularly with silents we're looking at a world that no longer exists -- both through viewing the physical settings and witnessing the early years and development of a medium that's become all-pervasive today.

And that's saying nothing about the remarkable value of these films as pure entertainment, which is of course itself a good reason to want to see them.

But the fact that these are moving images of rapidly receding times and a world long and longer gone every day is really a big draw to me, and something that makes me believe that interest in silents is only going to grow over time.

It'll be a niche forever, I'm sure -- I can't even imagine these things penetrating the consciousness of the mainstream for long -- but I really do think that what with the greater dissemination of 'em via home video and internet and who knows what else is to come, silents will always have a sizeable audience. Or so I hope...

[Ann Harding]

Over here in France, the situation of silent pictures is fairly uneven. On the one hand, if you live in Paris -like me- you have access to many silent screenings in various institutions, cinemas and at the Cinémathèque. On TV, the Franco-German channel Arte shows one silent every month. Most of the time, it's a German silent. That's another paradox, French film lovers are not into French silents. They are mostly ignored in favour of American, German and Russian silents. But, apparently the budget for silent has shrunk so much that Arte can only show repeats of films...
TCM France does not show regularly silents unlike TCM US.

It may sound as if silent pictures have a great future over here. But, alas, it's more complex than you think it is. Our main institution, La Cinémathèque Française, has still not produced a single DVD of any French silent. You can compare that with the work of the Danish Film Institute, the BFI, the German Film Museum, etc. Funnily, the main supplier of French silents is Flicker Alley!

On the brighter side, the public at the Cinémathèque Française is now younger than before. Obviously, they prefer talkies. But silents by Lubitsch -for example- attracted a good crowd. The average (knowledgeable) French film lover under 30 will probably know of the main big classics: Nosferatu, Metropolis, Intolerance, etc. But I doubt he will have the curiosity to investigate any further.

Another serious problem we encounter is the lack of good music to accompany our films. The French Cinémathèque shows nearly all its silents without any music (according to Langlois' golden rule). It's putting off many people. On the other hand, other places offer such awful music that I can't be bothered to go.

[barbarolli]

Silent films are indeed an acquired taste, but then again so to are the early talkies and even the later ones, but to a much lesser extent.
I am 30, and I reember buying my first silent film, the general with Buster Keaton when i was 17 after I saw a documentary on him here in Australia.

Silent film is a bit like gilbert and sullivan either youll love it or hate it. There are certianly not that many screenings of silent films in australia in Theatres, although now and then the local tv station ABC does screen them but very rarely.

The main issue here I beleive, is public consciousness. Many people of my generation, older and younger don't even knwo who rudolph valentinto was.

Therefore documentaries can serve as a good medium, as people are more visual these days, prefereing to see things than read them.
Additionally, main stream film festivals in local areas could also include a section fo silents starting of with the better "known" ones.

It is important as well that the older people, who have an amazing knowledge of these movies are eager to pass this information on to the younger generation to presereve the past, and that collections eventually pass into hands that will actively use the collections or informaitons within them, rather than just storing them away to continue being forgotten.

Theres a lot that all of us can do, and each little bit helps.

One last note is yes a lot of people don't like black and white, however I have found that some peopel are attracted to the colour tint in the silent films that encourages them to watch it such as 4 hoursemen of the apocalype, Ben Hur and the like

[westegg]

Yes, Mazamette, my thoughts too.

On another level, I find it difficult wrapping my mind around the reality of most people today not having any awareness whatsoever of early cinema, and of icons such as Keaton etc. That's my own admission to being so steeped in such history since I was a young kid that it seems inconceivable such long absorbed film culture actually ends up being the equivalent of some obscure scroll in an abbey! Unthinkable! It's so part of my DNA that it's unsettling to have such things looked at like some unknown curiosity object. Then too, as a kid I doubt if many others my age were into this stuff, but at least there were plenty of people still around who easily recalled these films.

The up side is that these are proving interesting times in digging out previously missing silents, making them available, and of the unprecedented global interworkings of archives, and of forums such as these to keep the the awareness going. I'm good to maybe 2040!

[daveh]

I wonder if there's anyone or any organization that would want to develop an iPhone/iPad app for silent films, if they don't already exist. I don't know much about how apps work, but maybe include some basic info and clips, just to introduce someone to the genre, with links to more information/places to buy films. Maybe that's a way to reach younger people.

Just an "in the brain, out the mouth" idea.

Thanks,
David Hawksworth

[westegg]

Great idea. Maybe at last I'd buy an app!

[Rick Lanham]

I wonder if there's anyone or any organization that would want to develop an iPhone/iPad app for silent films, if they don't already exist. I don't know much about how apps work, but maybe include some basic info and clips, just to introduce someone to the genre, with links to more information/places to buy films. Maybe that's a way to reach younger people.

Just an "in the brain, out the mouth" idea.

Thanks,
David Hawksworth

There is a company doing something with films or clips, but it does not
appear to be as high-minded as your thoughts.

On my iPod Touch, similar to an iPhone, I can search for "b. i. a. films" and a number of classics will appear.
Each one is 99 cents.
I don't know if they are legal. I don't know if any are full-length, because I have not purchased any.

There is Nosferatu, The Lost World, M, Reefer Madness, Metropolis, The Birth of a Nation, Dracula, Haxan, etc.

Rick