No great point to this post; I occasionally grab this book and read a few pages, as I’m an avid film-fan and interested how they are made. This piece, where Alfred Hitchcock talks about silent films and what was lost after sound was introduced, reminded me a little of the experimentation that has been happening on the web and whether or not that is a good or bad thing. I think that those that were masters of the previous mediums, in this case print and all kinds of analog media, will certainly have a strong opinion about what is happening today, just like Hitchcock did, after silent pictures, which he started with, were displaced by the more noisy kind.

Here goes:

Alfred Hitchcock: The silent pictures were the purest form of cinema; the only thing they lacked was the sound of people talking and the noises. But this slight imperfection did not warrant the major changes that sound brought in. In other words, since all that was missing was the simple natural sound, there was no need to go to the other extreme and completely abandon the technique of the pure motion picture, the way they did when sound came in.

François Truffaut: I agree. In the final era of silent movies, the great film-makers—in fact, almost the whole production—had reached something near perfection. The introduction of sound, in a way, jeopardized that perfection. I mean that this was precisely the time when the high screen standards of so many brilliant directors showed up the woeful inadequacy of the others, and the lesser talents were gradually being eliminated from the field. In this sense one might say that mediocrity came back into its own with the advent of sound.

Alfred Hitchcock: I agree absolutely. In my opinion, that’s true even today. In many of the films now being made, there is very little cinema: they are mostly what I call “photographs of people talking.” When we tell a story in cinema, we should resort to dialogue only when it’s impossible to do otherwise. I always try to first to tell a story in the cinematic way, though a succession of shots and bits of film in between.
……
In writing a screenplay, it is essential to separate clearly the dialogue from the visual elements and whenever possible, to rely more on the visual than on the dialogue. Whichever way you may choose to stage the action, you main concern is to hold the audience’s fullest attention.
Summing it up, one might say that the screen rectangle must be charged with emotion.

While I’m on this wavelength, this piece also reminds me of another essay, I read recently, this time on making solid investment decisions. The piece, by Andy Kessler, was on the concept of elasticity, which is not only used in evaluating customer decision making under different conditions, but is also relevant when shifts in technology occur, allowing for drastic development on that new platform. From semiconductors, to phones-that-are-computers, each allowed for explosive innovation to happen, displacing the masters of the previous era. But there is still a place for masterdom, I feel, as the example of Hitchcock, a director that will likely never be forgotten, clearly illustrates.

Taking opportunity of opening markets makes a lot of sense; becoming the master of your medium, gives meaning to what you do.
Vincent

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