Whenever I sit down to a silent film or short, I know it’s going to feel like absolutely nothing else in the world of cinema, regardless of whether it’s a comedy, drama, horror, et al. Silent film is something completely unique. It’s long felt to me like a dreamworld of a kind, a doorway into another world of sensory sensation. There’s a fairly obvious difference between silent film and its sound-synced descendant, but it’s much more than just that. Finding a way to articulate this other than just using words like ‘dreamworld’ has been the hard part, because they don’t even begin to do the experience justice.
Fortunately, for this piece I don’t have to rummage through my trusty bag of adjective clichés, because Ben Model has written what is already, in my opinion, one of the foundational texts for understanding cinema, and in this case, silent film. Model has been a silent film fan since his childhood. He turned this into a career as accompanist to thousands of showings of films and shorts across the world in the last four-plus decades, as well as introducing, lecturing on, and writing about silent film. Model is also a committed preserver of a huge range of silent film, too, with his label Undercrank Productions crowdfunding and producing invaluable releases of restored gems.
In his new book, The Silent Film Universe, Model doesn’t want to give us a history of silent film or its performers and directors. After all, there are several classic books already out there on almost any aspect of the first few decades of film, should you want to explore. Instead, Model uses The Silent Film Universe to go into detail on just what it is that makes this form of the moving image so uniquely beguiling and enjoyable. It has been said that you cannot experience silent film in the way you might a talking picture, simply because it requires your full attention. Look away from the screen for a minute or two and you will have missed something vital. There will never be a silent film made for Netflix. It demands our investment.
Model unpicks this relationship between viewer and film, what it asks of us as an audience, and the way it rewards us. The book covers how the lack of synced sound, the use of intertitles, the style of acting and performing, and the ways in which films are presented are essential elements that create something that stands completely on its own. These are not to be dismissed as just ‘old films’, they are vital and alive a century or more after they were made. Model’s biggest focus throughout is on cranking for shooting and frame speeds for performance and how this created an alchemy that is remarkable and not replicated anywhere else in the world of cinema. It is as deeply thought out and passionately argued a revelation on the process of creating – from production to the experience the audience has – as you will find in writing on film.
Something that is clear from Model’s career and work is his love of silent film and also his belief that it is no thing of the past, but an art form that offers something to every successive generation that discovers it. It’s because of this that The Silent Film Universe is no dusty dissertation given a nice cover and put out for a narrow audience. Instead, the book is written in a knowledgeable but conversational way, as if Model is sitting across from you in a bar somewhere telling you how exciting and interesting silent film is in a way that sweeps you happily along. He’s also done the experimentation and research to support his theories on how silent film works and why it works. This is a book that expertly balances learning and love for its topic. He wants you to love and appreciate this wonderful universe as much as he does.
If you have an interest in silent film or film in general and want to learn something revelatory about this beautiful, special art form, get this book. If you just enjoy reading something on a topic by someone who knows and loves what they are writing about, get this book. Ah, just get this book.
You can buy The Silent Film Universe here: https://undercrankproductions.com/the-silent-film-universe/
Writing by Jamie Evans 