theloudestvoice:

“For, as the late silent historian William K. Everson insisted, “this was not a shoddy little flickering art medium, not the primitive forerunner of anything. This deserves to be seen as a completely separate art, something unique and full blown.” Added Kevin Brownlow, one of the great living authorities on the medium, “they were the movies until sound came in; calling them silent suggests they were lacking something.”

Key to appreciating vintage silents on their own terms is the realization that the absence of spoken dialogue is not a handicap to endure but a virtue to enjoy. For the hidden, unexpected pleasure of silent films is the way they seduce audiences into becoming, in the most modern way, full, interactive participants in the movie experience.

“You’re not told what to think or feel,” said Michael Friend, an archivist for Sony. “A kind of emotional space is produced which is open for you to enter, a space for reflection between the film and the music.”

For while sound particularizes, silence turns out to universalize, allowing an audience to share completely in the on-screen dream. No one spending quality time with silent films could fail to agree with Mary Pickford’s famous statement that “it would have been more logical if silent pictures had grown out of the talking instead of the other way around.”“

(full article at the link)