ENTRY #4

Third lecture, part 3 of 5.

This lecture was about the movie Street Angel (1928) of the director Frank Borzage, because he characterized what was great and strange in Silent Cinema. Firstly, it is important to know that this director was truly in charge of his films; he took care of every little detail involved in the creation of his movies. He was a great artist, and an excellent representative of this genre. In addition, he is known for have made very simple stories. However, he used to record more scenes than the needed in order to have a good amount of material to work with and to select the most accurate shots when editing.  Hence, he inverted a lot of money, time and dedication in the elaboration of each film. He was so powerful that he could oversee his screenplays. Not only he knew how to give actors and characters situations they could visualize to capture the true emotion in the screen, but he had a great use of visual motifs to tell the story by visual means only. His philosophy consisted on showing externalized emotions before showing title cards. He achieved people to get attached to specific characters before the distinction between good and bad roles were made. People were not touched by the logic causes of the story but by the form, which is the image herself. The most upstanding motifs in this film were paintings; they served as repetitive symbols carriers of meaning across the story. Images were allowed to speak. Although he externalized emotion, he was not always too explicit; he let viewers imagine some facts by using poetic imaginary; he attempted to manipulate them. His world was charged with melodrama. Instead of giving what was physically right in a way, he gave what was emotionally right; what the audience needed. Both contrast between black and white, and hard light and shadow were used as significant elements that expressed messages by means of abstract composition. The casting was a vital part of Borzage’s development of ideas; he succeeded in making a very good contrast between internal and external characteristics. There was the small and thin woman which personality was strong and the big and stocky man who was humble and fragile.

Related to the general terms of this course, the teacher clarified Silent Film made in Hollywood is abstract and emotional, in contrast Sounded Film is totally the opposite. Silent film set up the coming of sound in that the former had to be the contrary of the first. Silent Cinema is about turning a world into a different one through abstracted and lifted images, and Sounded Cinema aims to generate more realistic stimulus.

The information I found the most interesting was about the actress performance on this film, which was determinant in its quality. She used the Italian way to perform, which involves lots of expressions by dint of her hand expressionistic movement. Provided that the actress controlled the scene, she had to know how to work in the screen, find the correct light and stand in it to glow.