I’ve been a silent film junkie for almost as long as I’ve been...

I’ve been a silent film junkie for almost as long as I’ve been watching movies. My mom introduced me to some slapstick comics from the 1910s and 20s, and I discovered I didn’t need sound to make me laugh. (Plus, Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin know how to make a person a little bit sad, too.)

But when I was in college, a friend introduced me to Metropolis, the first “serious” silent movie I’d ever seen. My boyfriend at the time, of course, commented that the men were “wearing too much lipstick” and should “kiss each other.” I waved at him to shut up and kept watching.

I found more silent horror movies, and that’s where I found the sweet spot. Especially the German ones. Nosferatu, The Golem, The Man Who Laughs, The Hands of Orlac – brilliant and subtly creepy. For me, watching a silent movie is almost like reading a book (maybe because there’s reading involved) – you have to watch. You have to pay attention, and it gets to you.

But when I saw The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, I was floored. Nothing about this movie is realistic from the sets and costumes to the story itself. It’s got an unreliable narrator, a twist ending (or is it??), and the whole thing is stylized to death.

But the whole thing is, you don’t watch a silent movie to see something real. You watch for the story, and for a certain style. The actors pull faces and flail their arms because the movies have taken out an essential part of real life: sound.

One great example of this (and one of my favorite scenes in a silent movie (at about the 39:00 mark) is when Cesare (the sleepwalker) goes to kidnap Jane (the damsel in distress). He doesn’t hide and sneak into her house. No. He gracefully slides around the outside wall with his arm extended like he’s getting set to do a contemporary dance piece. It’s slow and creepy and you know he’s about to kill her. The good guy is looking in the wrong direction and that’s it for the heroine (or is it??).

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