A Pigment of My Imagination

(Essay written for History of Cinema class…)

I have really enjoyed this class, and especially getting to not only read and study about, but also watch a variety of classic silent films. I have been a lover of films since I was a young child, and have always loved to read and study. For years now, I have tried to get my hands on any kind of film history or production book I could find, and all of them would attest to the groundbreaking power of silent films. However, up till a few years back, I had virtually never actually seen any of these much-praised films, and my knowledge had only been theoretical, limited to words on a page or small images in a book. This class has been a great gift, a chance to dive headfirst into such a rich world. It has been fun to sit down and study the topic more systematically and fully. To mix my fan-boy passions for the subject, with a higher academic knowledge, and ending up both better educated, and all the more excited about film history and filmmaking.

Having watched some of these films now, it is clear what a direct impact silent cinema has had on modern filmmaking. In fact, silent films are not just some relic of the past, and even though film has moved on in some areas, the power of silent films is still seen strongly every day. It is not only something that is nostalgically remembered, but forms the very core of what we today know film to be. They are not only the birthplace of modern film, but part of the very definition of film grammar itself.

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