Every Work of Art Is Either a Scream or a Move to Silence
Art
The Artist and Munch'south Silent Scream
Vague glimpses of terrifying visions undulate in the stifling air, terrified, haunted eyes stare out of a pale face. The face is contorted in a desperate, anguished scream – a silent scream that fades without an echo, the mute cry of a tormented soul on the brink of an abyss… But whose is the scream? Is the strange, primeval creature imagined by Edvard Munch, illuminated past the sickly glow of a bloodstained sky? Or is it the soundless cry of fallen silent moving-picture show star George Valentin, crushed past the decease-throes of a perishing era, as the jarring reality of sound invades his perfect silent globe?
Anyone with fifty-fifty a passing involvement in film this twelvemonth has probably heard of The Artist – a new, fully silent, black-and-white pic that happens to be one of the well-nigh Oscar-nominated films of 2012, with 10 nominations including Best Flick, All-time Actor, and Best Director. Set in the late 1920s and early 1930s, The Creative person is both an homage to the silent era and a record of its demise. The difficult and harsh transition of the picture manufacture into the sound era is shown through the eyes of George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) – a talented and successful silent film star both unable and unwilling to accept the sharp transformation of his art grade. Fighting frantically against this threat to the world he knows, George soon discovers that neither his talent, his popularity, nor his personal charm can relieve him from sinking into oblivion before the inexorable onslaught of technology.
Unswervingly faithful to its subject, The Creative person is almost entirely silent and beard with stylistic, compositional, and thematic references to Silent Era film. Less oft noted, however, is the straight visual debt it owes to Expressionism, which had such a profound bear upon on the early on 20th-century film. Emerging in pre-WWI Deutschland and impacting multiple forms of creative expression from literature to painting, Expressionism sought to create a subjectivized reality and express pure emotional states unveiled by the constraints of naturalism and rationality. Sweeping curves and discordant value contrasts evoked feelings of fear, isolation, and feet, and energetic, diagonal lines and distorted perspectives created a sense of tension and urgency. Though still a young art form, the moving-picture show quickly joined into the Expressionist move in its ain way, with such films as the sanity-bending Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene 1919), F.W. Murnau's iconic Dracula adaptation Nosferatu (1922), and even subsequently Hollywood films such as Paul Leni'due south The Man Who Laughs (1928). The dramatic shadows, sharp camera angles, and emotive settings developed by Expressionist film went on to influence such legendary filmmakers as Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Baton Wilder, and in fact the unabridged genre of Moving picture Noir.
The Artist makes bright use of this rich legacy, creating dramatic tension and suspense through the employ of depression-angle shots, and employing soft rim lights, projecting rays of light, and exaggerated shadows to convey its characters' emotional states. These techniques are especially potent in a nightmarish dream sequence in which George is accosted by an increasingly aggressive barrage of sound. Starting small, with the jarring clink of glass on the tabular array, the sequence seems almost comical at first as George surveys the offending glass in indignant anaesthesia. As the layers of audio build overwhelming George'south comfortable, reassuring silence an oppressive feeling of menace begins to take hold. Accelerated images flash earlier our eyes as the dissonance builds to a crashing crescendo, turning into an abstract map of psychological disintegration. Running out into the street, George tries to block out the horrifying bedlam by shutting his ears, just he cannot escape his own fear. His face fills the frame as it forms into a scream, merely he is incapable of producing a sound. Embodying Munch'south anguished vision, he screams in silence…
Well-nigh the Writer Katherine Blakeney
Katherine Blakeney is an independent filmmaker/finish movement animator and author. She is currently studying for her PhD in Picture Studies at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, researching silent pic adaptations of Victorian Gothic novels with a special accent on aesthetic and psychological representations of the monster figure. As a filmmaker she is inspired by Gothic art, Expressionism, and Silent Era moving picture. She creates, designs, animates, and shoots her own blithe short films in her studio in Edinburgh.
Source: https://www.overstockart.com/blog/the-artist-and-munchs-silent-scream/
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