• About

Tim Cawkwell

~ currently publishing my poetry and verse. Blog entries on film and painting going back to 2014. My main website is www.timcawkwell.co.uk

Tim Cawkwell

Category Archives: Zweite Heimat

SILENT CINEMA AND THE IDEA OF OBSOLESCENCE

25 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by Tim Cawkwell in Hitchcock, silent cinema, talkies, Topaz, White Ribbon, Zweite Heimat

≈ Leave a comment

In a review of the book, ‘Faxed: the rise and fall of the fax machine’, Conor Farrington (in the ‘Times Literary Supplement’) writes: “the history of fax echoes those of other technologies which reached their zenith shortly before obsolescence, including steam locomotives, piston-engined aircraft and (more recently) the iPod.” In my mind I immediately thought of silent cinema made obsolescent by the technology of the talkies just as silent film narrative attained an unprecedented fluency and expressiveness that makes many cinéphiles lament its passing, including myself in maudlin moments.

Of course it was not a technology that was made obsolete but a form of artistic expression, which entails a different set of reflections. Email replaced fax, and we all applauded this as progress. Sound cinema superseded silent cinema but this was not necessarily to be applauded as progress. In our own time digital has replaced analogue but one can legitimately regret that so few films are made now with pre-digital technology. And then colour superseded black and white, except there is still a place for black and white: The White Ribbon, for example, and indeed Edgar Reitz’s Die Zweite Heimat mixes colour and black and white sections to striking narrative effect.

There is a history to be written of how the sound cinema makes use of silent narrative techniques, in which the fact that they come in the context of sound makes them all the more arresting. I have just been reminded of that watching Hitchcock’s Topaz in which for the sequence of the theft of some documents Hitchcock gives the audience two conversations of exposition behind glass so that they are silent. The effect is electric, for since we don’t know what has been said we are drawn into finding out with our eyes in the action that follows.

Just as with the silent cinema audiences were crying out for sound, so nowadays we should be crying out for images accompanied only by sound effects, if that, and certainly not words and coercive music.

Recent Posts

  • RICH MAN, POOR MAN, DEAD MAN – a Covid ode
  • VERSE EPISTLE TO Mr DOMINIC CUMMINGS . . .
  • EMPIRE – WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS
  • yearning for the sixties
  • FILM PORTRAITURE 4: Bob Fleischner Dying

Recent Comments

Sarah Cawkwell on FILM PORTRAITS 2: TACITA …
Antonioni: more De C… on Antonioni’s Metaphysical…
Tim Cawkwell on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…
Donato Totaro on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…
Tim Cawkwell on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…

Archives

  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • May 2019
  • January 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014

Categories

  • Antonioni
  • artists' film
  • avant garde
  • Bible on film
  • biopics
  • Brakhage
  • Bresson
  • British cinema
  • cinema and culture
  • cinema of hyperbole
  • costume narratives
  • courtroom dramas
  • Creation
  • crucifixion films
  • crucifixion on film
  • diary films
  • disaster movies
  • documentaries
  • Doubt
  • film noir
  • film portraiture
  • gangster films
  • God
  • Hitchcock
  • humanism
  • Ireland
  • Italian gardens
  • Italy
  • John Ford
  • Kieslowski reflection
  • Kieslowski reflections
  • literature and film
  • metaphysical film
  • monastery films
  • Nativity
  • nuns on film
  • opera and film
  • painting and photography
  • Pascalian cinema
  • Pasolini
  • poetry & verse
  • Polish history
  • predestination
  • redemption
  • resurrection
  • revivalism
  • Rohmer
  • Russian cinema
  • self-publishing
  • sewer films
  • silent cinema
  • spiritual cinema
  • surrealism
  • talkies
  • Tim's poems 2020
  • time puzzles
  • Topaz
  • travel
  • Uncategorized
  • underground film
  • War
  • White Ribbon
  • Zweite Heimat

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Recent Posts

  • RICH MAN, POOR MAN, DEAD MAN – a Covid ode
  • VERSE EPISTLE TO Mr DOMINIC CUMMINGS . . .
  • EMPIRE – WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS
  • yearning for the sixties
  • FILM PORTRAITURE 4: Bob Fleischner Dying

Recent Comments

Sarah Cawkwell on FILM PORTRAITS 2: TACITA …
Antonioni: more De C… on Antonioni’s Metaphysical…
Tim Cawkwell on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…
Donato Totaro on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…
Tim Cawkwell on Ferrara made me (1): Anto…

Archives

  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • May 2019
  • January 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014

Categories

  • Antonioni
  • artists' film
  • avant garde
  • Bible on film
  • biopics
  • Brakhage
  • Bresson
  • British cinema
  • cinema and culture
  • cinema of hyperbole
  • costume narratives
  • courtroom dramas
  • Creation
  • crucifixion films
  • crucifixion on film
  • diary films
  • disaster movies
  • documentaries
  • Doubt
  • film noir
  • film portraiture
  • gangster films
  • God
  • Hitchcock
  • humanism
  • Ireland
  • Italian gardens
  • Italy
  • John Ford
  • Kieslowski reflection
  • Kieslowski reflections
  • literature and film
  • metaphysical film
  • monastery films
  • Nativity
  • nuns on film
  • opera and film
  • painting and photography
  • Pascalian cinema
  • Pasolini
  • poetry & verse
  • Polish history
  • predestination
  • redemption
  • resurrection
  • revivalism
  • Rohmer
  • Russian cinema
  • self-publishing
  • sewer films
  • silent cinema
  • spiritual cinema
  • surrealism
  • talkies
  • Tim's poems 2020
  • time puzzles
  • Topaz
  • travel
  • Uncategorized
  • underground film
  • War
  • White Ribbon
  • Zweite Heimat

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy