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Cinema

By the mid-1920-s,
the silent cinema had
become a serious type
of art,

in 1982; and, finally, “Best Animated Feature” in 2002 [1]. The expanded its video at the expanse of the film editing
same criteria are followed by the European Film Academy, set applying, the development of pantomime as a specific kind
up in 1988, and the Russian Academy of the Cinematographic of acting technique, and the introduction of text insertions –
Sciences “Nika” while granting their annual cinema awards. intersubtitles.
However, if the assessment criteria of separate film elements By the mid-1920-s, the silent cinema had become a serious
can be somehow denoted, the best film choice is always type of art, among the distinguished works of which one
subjective and, in most cases, unpredictable. While evaluating should note films such as David Griffith’s “The Birth of a
a literary work of one or several authors, a reader estimates Nation”, Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid”, “The Gold Rush”, “The
intangible components: an idea, style, and writing skills. This Circus”, Buster Keaton’s “Sherlock Jr.”, “The Navigator”, “The
very assessment is decisive. The material component (a type General”, Sergey Eisenstein’s and Gregory Aleksandrov’s
size, typography, and a cover) has a minimum impact on “The Strike”, “The Battleship ‘Potemkin’”, “October”, and
recognising a text as a work of culture. While evaluating a Vsevolod Pudovkin’s “Mother”.
film, the material component is of equal importance: costumes, Despite the heyday and popularity of silent cinema, the
props, scenography, so each element can influence the technology development of the optical sound recording led
perception and outcome. A film with a professionally written to the unavoidable sound emergence in the cinema. In “The
screenplay, a distinguished actor’s work, and genius music Application”, composed by Sergey Eisenstein, Vsevolod
can fail, owing to a wrong choice of a shooting location, poor Pudovkin, and Gregory Aleksandrov in 1928 and related to
lightening or film editing. the sound film future, it was said: “The desires of the sound
The very co-dependence of the intangible and material cinematograph are coming true. The Americans having
components in the motion-picture process has entailed the invented the sound motion picture technology made the
speedy cinematographic industry development, an initial first step towards its real and fast implementation. Germany
target of which was to provide the true embodiment of creative is intensively working in this direction. The whole world is
ideas on the screen. From the invention of Thomas Edison’s speaking about the talking Silent cinema now [2]”.
Kinetoscope and Lumiere Brothers’ Cinematograph at the turn At the same time, directors warned: “The sound is a double-
of XIX-XX centuries to the mass introduction of computer edged invention and its usage will more likely take a line of the
technologies into the current cinema process, cinematograph least resistance that is to satisfy curiosity. In the first place,
has undergone the evolution of the form and content that is there will be the commercial use of the most saleable goods,
incomparable with any type of visual art, according to its scale. i.e. sound films. In them, the sound recording will be fulfilled
In general, the first mute films demonstrated the abilities in a naturalistic way, precisely coinciding with a movement
to master a new technology: subjects, brought from fair on the screen and creating an “illusion” of talking people,
performances, were based on expressive life scenes; acting was sounding objects, and so on [2]”. Partially, these words became
primitive; film editing and artificial lighting were absent; and prophetic. The appearance of the sound in the cinema caused
the usage of the orthochromatic film that is insensitive to the visual stylistic degradation. To reach the sound and image
red light caused the typical image distortion. With time and synchronisation, the dynamic film editing had to be rejected.
the technology development, silent cinema has significantly Besides, the microphones imperfection limited actors’

50 Arctic Art & Culture • №1 (3) • 2018 Arctic Art & Culture • №1 (3) • 2018 51