silent era
Intertitle card days
The silent era is the period of filmmaking before synchronized recorded sound, roughly from the 1890s through the late 1920s.
Films weren't truly silent—they were accompanied by live music, sound effects, and sometimes narrators—but the actors' dialogue appeared as intertitles rather than spoken words.
Chaplin and Keaton were giants of the silent era.
- early cinemaMotion pictures' first decades
- German ExpressionismDistorted, emotionally intense art movement
- intertitlesText frames in silent films
- nickelodeonCoin-fed entertainment machine
- movie palacesOpulent vintage cinemas
Charlie Chaplin · Buster Keaton · Mary Pickford · Lon Chaney · nitrate · film stock · Lumière brothers · cross-cutting · film preservation · orchestral scores · slapstick · exaggerated acting · black and white · artistic experimentation · flickering · piano · organ music · melodrama
- cinemafilm, films, film studios, movies, movie
- Silent FilmCharlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, intertitle, title cards, title card
- Animation HistoryWalt Disney, Mickey Mouse, Steamboat Willie, Looney Tunes, golden age
- German Expressionismchiaroscuro, Fritz Lang, Nosferatu, Metropolis, visual distortion
- Our GangBuckwheat, Darla, Petey, Butch, clubhouse
- body languagegestures, facial expressions, hand gestures, posture, nodding