Going Silent

Recently I saw Asta Nielsen, Denmark’s leading silent screen star, in a 1921 version of Hamlet, in which she played the title role as a woman dressed as a man, a fiction created by her mother, the nefarious Queen Gertrude, to ensure the throne and her own position. A brilliant, perfectly apt piano score was created in the moment by Indiana University professor Larry Schanker. It all proved to be a delightful evening at the new IU Cinema.

As in most silent screen dramas, there were moments of unintended hilarity, which served as a reminder that viewers of historical film need what Northrup Frye termed, to enjoy fiction, “a willing suspension of disbelief.” This suspension is necessary to enter into the world of fiction, a world in many cases quite unlike the “real” world in which we live at this moment.

To watch a silent film from the Teens or Twenties—a century ago—we also need a willing suspension of modernity, or modern sensibilities. We must mentally turn back our internal calendars to a time before color and talking motion pictures, before television, before airplanes, before the Internet, and all that.

In short, we must put ourselves, as best we can, into the 1920s, in this case, so that we not only understand but also are immersed in the ethos of that bygone era. Otherwise, our understanding of the film—and our enjoyment of what today seems naiveté—will be utterly diminished.

It also must always be remembered that what seems hackneyed in a silent film often was brand new at the time and now is hackneyed only because it has been used subsequently over and over. To understand and appreciate fully the films of any bygone era requires that we learn anew an old vocabulary, much like learning a language no longer spoken and known only by the cognescenti.

Hamlet, in which she played the title role as a woman dressed as a man, a fiction created by her mother, the nefarious Queen Gertrude, to ensure the throne and her own position. A brilliant, perfectly apt piano score was created in the moment by Indiana University professor Larry Schanker. It all proved to be a delightful evening at the new IU Cinema.

As in most silent screen dramas, there were moments of unintended hilarity, which served as a reminder that viewers of historical film need what Northrup Frye termed, to enjoy fiction, “a willing suspension of disbelief.” This suspension is necessary to enter into the world of fiction, a world in many cases quite unlike the “real” world in which we live at this moment.

To watch a silent film from the Teens or Twenties—a century ago—we also need a willing suspension of modernity, or modern sensibilities. We must mentally turn back our internal calendars to a time before color and talking motion pictures, before television, before airplanes, before the Internet, and all that.

In short, we must put ourselves, as best we can, into the 1920s, in this case, so that we not only understand but also are immersed in the ethos of that bygone era. Otherwise, our understanding of the film—and our enjoyment of what today seems naiveté—will be utterly diminished.

It also must always be remembered that what seems hackneyed in a silent film often was brand new at the time and now is hackneyed only because it has been used subsequently over and over. To understand and appreciate fully the films of any bygone era requires that we learn anew an old vocabulary, much like learning a language no longer spoken and known only by the cognescenti.

Hamlet, in which she played the title role as a woman dressed as a man, a fiction created by her mother, the nefarious Queen Gertrude, to ensure the throne and her own position. A brilliant, perfectly apt piano score was created in the moment by Indiana University professor Larry Schanker. It all proved to be a delightful evening at the new IU Cinema.

As in most silent screen dramas, there were moments of unintended hilarity, which served as a reminder that viewers of historical film need what Northrup Frye termed, to enjoy fiction, “a willing suspension of disbelief.” This suspension is necessary to enter into the world of fiction, a world in many cases quite unlike the “real” world in which we live at this moment.

To watch a silent film from the Teens or Twenties—a century ago—we also need a willing suspension of modernity, or modern sensibilities. We must mentally turn back our internal calendars to a time before color and talking motion pictures, before television, before airplanes, before the Internet, and all that.

In short, we must put ourselves, as best we can, into the 1920s, in this case, so that we not only understand but also are immersed in the ethos of that bygone era. Otherwise, our understanding of the film—and our enjoyment of what today seems naiveté—will be utterly diminished.

It also must always be remembered that what seems hackneyed in a silent film often was brand new at the time and now is hackneyed only because it has been used subsequently over and over. To understand and appreciate fully the films of any bygone era requires that we learn anew an old vocabulary, much like learning a language no longer spoken and known only by the cognescenti.

Hamlet, in which she played the title role as a woman dressed as a man, a fiction created by her mother, the nefarious Queen Gertrude, to ensure the throne and her own position. A brilliant, perfectly apt piano score was created in the moment by Indiana University professor Larry Schanker. It all proved to be a delightful evening at the new IU Cinema.

As in most silent screen dramas, there were moments of unintended hilarity, which served as a reminder that viewers of historical film need what Northrup Frye termed, to enjoy fiction, “a willing suspension of disbelief.” This suspension is necessary to enter into the world of fiction, a world in many cases quite unlike the “real” world in which we live at this moment.

To watch a silent film from the Teens or Twenties—a century ago—we also need a willing suspension of modernity, or modern sensibilities. We must mentally turn back our internal calendars to a time before color and talking motion pictures, before television, before airplanes, before the Internet, and all that.

In short, we must put ourselves, as best we can, into the 1920s, in this case, so that we not only understand but also are immersed in the ethos of that bygone era. Otherwise, our understanding of the film—and our enjoyment of what today seems naiveté—will be utterly diminished.

It also must always be remembered that what seems hackneyed in a silent film often was brand new at the time and now is hackneyed only because it has been used subsequently over and over. To understand and appreciate fully the films of any bygone era requires that we learn anew an old vocabulary, much like learning a language no longer spoken and known only by the cognescenti.

Hamlet, in which she played the title role as a woman dressed as a man, a fiction created by her mother, the nefarious Queen Gertrude, to ensure the throne and her own position. A brilliant, perfectly apt piano score was created in the moment by Indiana University professor Larry Schanker. It all proved to be a delightful evening at the new IU Cinema.

As in most silent screen dramas, there were moments of unintended hilarity, which served as a reminder that viewers of historical film need what Northrup Frye termed, to enjoy fiction, “a willing suspension of disbelief.” This suspension is necessary to enter into the world of fiction, a world in many cases quite unlike the “real” world in which we live at this moment.

To watch a silent film from the Teens or Twenties—a century ago—we also need a willing suspension of modernity, or modern sensibilities. We must mentally turn back our internal calendars to a time before color and talking motion pictures, before television, before airplanes, before the Internet, and all that.

In short, we must put ourselves, as best we can, into the 1920s, in this case, so that we not only understand but also are immersed in the ethos of that bygone era. Otherwise, our understanding of the film—and our enjoyment of what today seems naiveté—will be utterly diminished.

It also must always be remembered that what seems hackneyed in a silent film often was brand new at the time and now is hackneyed only because it has been used subsequently over and over. To understand and appreciate fully the films of any bygone era requires that we learn anew an old vocabulary, much like learning a language no longer spoken and known only by the cognescenti.

Hamlet, in which she played the title role as a woman dressed as a man, a fiction created by her mother, the nefarious Queen Gertrude, to ensure the throne and her own position. A brilliant, perfectly apt piano score was created in the moment by Indiana University professor Larry Schanker. It all proved to be a delightful evening at the new IU Cinema.

As in most silent screen dramas, there were moments of unintended hilarity, which served as a reminder that viewers of historical film need what Northrup Frye termed, to enjoy fiction, “a willing suspension of disbelief.” This suspension is necessary to enter into the world of fiction, a world in many cases quite unlike the “real” world in which we live at this moment.

To watch a silent film from the Teens or Twenties—a century ago—we also need a willing suspension of modernity, or modern sensibilities. We must mentally turn back our internal calendars to a time before color and talking motion pictures, before television, before airplanes, before the Internet, and all that.

In short, we must put ourselves, as best we can, into the 1920s, in this case, so that we not only understand but also are immersed in the ethos of that bygone era. Otherwise, our understanding of the film—and our enjoyment of what today seems naiveté—will be utterly diminished.

It also must always be remembered that what seems hackneyed in a silent film often was brand new at the time and now is hackneyed only because it has been used subsequently over and over. To understand and appreciate fully the films of any bygone era requires that we learn anew an old vocabulary, much like learning a language no longer spoken and known only by the cognescenti.