What are Talkies?

Talkies, or movies with spoken language, can sometimes leave out some integral points of interest.

Sometimes it seems that we are beginning to rely less and less on the quality of the script and the plot and so forth, and more and more on just being told what is going on.

It is a little disturbing to me sometimes when I see the things that we find to be entertaining. So much of it is mindless and quite low level humor that actually has no real valid point or inspiration.

Although talkies are great for many different venues, I think that relying too much on any one communication tool is a major mistake that makes us all a little lazier and less thoughtful.

Some things are better left unsaid, and that is true in more than one way.

I used to teach theatre, and one of my favorite things that we ever did was to go from working with silent film to talkies. Yes, I actually made my students explore silent film.

The fact is that there are a lot of hidden gems masked within these silent films that can help students who are just blossoming into actors and actresses allow their imaginations to run wild.

So there first major assignment of our second unit was to first watch some old Buster Keaton films and observe how communication obstacles were handled and so forth.

Then, I would arrange to bring in several different video cameras at once and separate them into groups. They had to write, act, direct and film their own silent films, complete with sets and costumes.

Of course, these were great fun. They also chose their music for the background which was always cool.

Then, our next humongous project was doing a talkie. This allowed the students to learn their history and bridge the gap between the old and new kinds of film.

Of course, when talkies came along, the stories could be much more complex. They could now use narrative,and dialogue with all its subtleties. In addition, body language, music and instant change of scene to tell a story could be used. They could take great books and make movies about them.

In the time of the early talkies, the whole family could enjoy the humor of the greats, like the Marx Brothers. There's not a whole lot of films today with the kind of humor that everyone, including kids, can enjoy. Early talkies had that appeal.

@geekish - I would suggest watching a silent film with music (so you can guess by my suggestion that there is such a thing)! What I have heard is that silent films with recorded music but no dialogue are considered sound films.

Maybe you can find out which came first the sound film or the talkie and see if you can best your husband on that trivia or maybe who was a famous silent film actor (hint: The name starts with An 'ita' and ends with a Hill!)

While I knew silent pictures existed, I didn't realize that our modern movies were considered talkies! I love that name, will have to use it

My husband and I were just talking about silent movies! We have both never seen one, and were discussing watching one for the first time together.

But we have a disagreement; however: I thought that silent movies were only made with live orchestras so I figured we would just be watching the silent movie.

My husband thinks that before talkies there were silent movies with music recorded with them before talkies were created (kind of the in between of silent movies and talkies).

Does anybody know if this is true?

@popcorn - Both talkies and silent movies have their appeal. But I agree with you that the silent movies gave the actors an opportunity to develop skills in using body language and facial expression to portray emotion and intention. And the audience could enjoy trying to interpret the body language and facial expressions of the actors as they told a story.

I remember seeing some silent films on television. I remember my eyes being riveted to the face and body movements of Charlie Chaplin. He was wonderful!

Movies are greatly enhanced by conversation. Consider all the plays on words that could not be made in silent movies. Also, little ironies and subtle sarcasm would have been impossible.

Consider also how small vocal inflections can determine the meaning of certain words. While one sentence could be spoken one way and taken literally, if spoken in another tone, it could mean the opposite. You lose all of these subtleties when you remove sound.

When I watch movies, I do so to see the emotional interaction and wit. I’m not into action movies or violence, and my particular preference of film could not occur as anything but a talkie.

@popcorn- I was talking about this with someone recently who felt the same way. While I think there are some really great actors out there, I do agree there are some, and a few of them are very famous, who seem to be always cast in the same sort of role. What bothers me most about that, though, is that people will still happily pay to see them.

My college did a few events where one of the chief organists (it was a religious college) would play his organ in the church while, on a huge projector screen, the audience watched a silent movie. It was a really cool revival of silent film to me, and made me wish that the music was richer in today's "talkies".

The advent of talkies was a necessary step in the development of cinema to make it a serious art form capable of telling stories as complex as any novel. I can appreciate popcorn's explanation of the appeal and opinion of silent films, but I think they have really opened up a whole new avenue for filmmakers to exploit.

The Marx Brothers made the most famous of the early talkie comedies and Groucho's clever wordplay was absolutely essential to what makes those comedies so beloved. I find that watching these old movies really takes you back to storytelling in its rawest form. Plus, if Frankenstein wasn't a talkie we'd never have the classic movie line "IT'S ALIVE! IT'S ALIVE!!!!!"

As much as I enjoy movies today, I can't help but feel like a little bit of something was lost during the transition from silent movies to talkies. Prior to talkies, there was little to no dialogue in a movie and stories had to be kept very simple as a result. This meant there was no language barrier and today audiences all over the world can laugh at Charlie Chaplin since he told stories almost completely through body language.

It seems to me that the more dialogue we have added to movies the less filmmakers have started to rely on genuine acting ability to get their emotions across. So many films today seem to forget that old adage, show don't tell.