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<Zyhe World's Leading Moving ^idiure (lA^a^azine
PHOTOPLAY
Vol. XIX cJ^aY^, 1921 No. 6
^Uhe Glovy^ of Silence
WE talk of the woJ'th, the service, the entertaiyitng power, the community value^ the recreative force, the educational influence, the civilizing and commercial possibilities of the motion picture. And everyone has, singularly enough, neglected to mention its rarest and subtlest beautx :
Silence.
In its silence it more nearly approximates nature than an\ arts save painting and sculpture. The greatest processes of the universe are those of silence. Out of the silence one is born, and into the silence one goes at the end. All groivth is silent. The majestic caravan of the stars is forever silent. The flaming passion of sunset whispers nothing to the ear. Half the beautx of a summer afternoon lies in its languor, and all the beauty of dawn is treasured in the chalice of that breathless quiet before the common clangor of full day. The deepest love is most eloquent in that transcendent silence of the communion of souls. The most heartfelt prayers are never uttered.
The old proverb of the wood which could not be seen for the trees, is applicable co life, much of the charm of which is lost in the clatter and chatter that men make of it. The mental and material machinery which moves the modern world was conceived in the silence of reflection. With good hearing, Edison might never have been an inventor. No great thought ever came out of a cabaret. No one expects wisdom from a parrot. Man has learned to go to the quiet earth to renew his strength for further encounters with a noisy world.
The value of silence in art is its stimulation to the imagination, and the imaginative quality is arf s highest appeal. The really excellent motion picture, the really great photoplay, are never mere photography. Continually they cause the beholder to hear things which they suggest — the murmurs of the summer night, the pounding of the surf, the sigh of the wind in the trees, the babel of crowded streets, the whisperings of love.
The "talking picture'' will be made practical, but it will never supersede the motion picture without sound. It will lack the subtlety and suggestion of vision — that vision which, deprived of voice to ears of flesh, intones undisturbed the symphonies of the soul.