Obviously the first films were silent and had no sound to accompany them. The music that we hear in them was added on later after the advent of sound or played lived in the theater. Silent films resonated with audiences at the time and became a phenomenon. Since the first silent films, there have been numerous changes and developments with them, both in formal elements and plot elements. The very first films were meant for experimental purposes as kind of a technology demonstrator to show the new capabilities of video cameras. As expected, many of these “films” were short and lacked elaborate and drawn-out plots and storylines. Some did not even have storylines what so ever. As people saw potential in the film industry, mainly through the interest of monopoly, like Thomas Edison, the popularity of films exploded. Films became part of American culture and life. Many film makers ventured out to a place in California called Hollywood where the very name of the town in the years to come would become synonymous with the movie industry.
Hollywood really changed the silent film industry radically. Film stars were born and big name directors were too. Early stars like Mary Pickford and directors like D.W. Griffith made silent film popularity skyrocket. Film studios also started moving here to produce and make movies, such as Universal, Warner, and others.
Hollywood at the time was on the literally edge of civilization, as California was pretty underdeveloped and not really that urbanized at the time. This move to a remote location was an odd choice by film producers and studios, but it was one that certainly benefited them greatly. Big budget films became very popular. The form and function of the silent film also changed too in the 1910s. Many silent films would now have an elaborate story line and detailed characters that the early experimental films and the nickelodeon ones lacked. Movies became a form of art, kind of like a novel or piece of music, and it started being treated as such. With the American entry into World War I, propaganda films started being produced to inspire people to join the war effort and vilify the enemy, which were the Germans.
Hollywood collaborated with the government and were eager to make propagandas films supporting the allies in the war. The added another form and function for the silent film: it could be a piece of propaganda.
The post-World War I era brought with it a new age in cinema. However, the 1920’s started with a dark time for the film industry. Scandals plagued Hollywood when the decade started. From rapes to murders to extravagant lifestyles, the stars of the silver screen were finding themselves in trouble. Some of this reflected over the big screen itself and the question of what is allowed in movies and what isn’t began to be asked. Film attendance hit all time lows and it seemed liked the film industry would collapse. To fix these problems, more regulation was introduced into films, and a wide list of “do’s”, “don’t”, and “be carefuls”. Morality became more prevalent in silent cinema and changed it. The end of the 1920s would see the invention of sound for movies that would effectively kill the silent film genre in the 1930s, but the legacy of silent films live on.
Silent films said a lot about the contemporary world. As stated above, propaganda films were produced during World War One. These films demonized the enemies, like 1918’s To Hell with the Kaiser, which depicted him as the devil and an evil enemy, when in reality he was not really that bad. Other wartime films hoped to increase the number of soldiers to sign up and fight in the war. The 1920’s saw the rise of comedy stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Harold Lloyd. These two stars in particular would define the silent-era comedy. These two actors were also extremely relatable in their roles. They were ordinary people who faced hardships in their films, but they shrugged it off and kept on going despite everything not agreeing with them. This attitude resonated well with a lot of Americans and added to their popularity. Slapstick humor had to be relied on for these silent films for obvious reasons and it contributed to the popularity of the genre and films in general.
The silent film entertained the audiences of America. Going to the theater became a regular thing to do for American citizens and became a part of the culture of the nation. Immigrants watched them frequently despite not knowing a lot of English, because silent films do not require language to understand. This is part of the reason why they became so big and why the film industry in general became huge.
American history through film 