Oct 6, 2026 · 38 min · 15 segments
In its 45 edition, we're at *Le Giornate del Cinema Muto*, the international silent film festival in Pordenone, with Mark Fuller -- expert and enthusiast in equal measure. Hosted by Simplecast, an…
John BleasdaleHost
We were talking about something a little bit earlier off mic that I think is really interesting, which is how watching a silent film is slightly different to watching a sound film.
It asks a certain, I'm not saying more or less concentration, but a certain different type of concentration perhaps.
I mean, I'm not a fan of opera or ballet specifically, but I'd imagine that if, you know, by lesser names understand more about ballet than I would and it does take a little bit of learning how to watch a silent film what some of the gestures mean especially in the earlier pre First World War silence gestures are very specific and they come from the theatrical tradition You learn to lip-read after a while.
Which can be off-putting because sometimes the actors are acting the lines and saying the lines, but sometimes they'll use the actors' names, the characters' names, and sometimes they'll say something completely off-script.
I remember reading somewhere that there was like a subgenre of watching silent films at the time, contemporary to them being made, which was people would sit in the audience and try to find the cuss words.
Yes, I remember in the 1970s, an awful lot of complaints from deaf viewers about Match of the Day and the terrible language on them.
that's coming back around because on the internet you have like lip readers checking out what celebrities are saying at award shows and things like that.
And the, well, it's become a thing also, and people are, have been lit reading, first of all, the Autochrome Insurances, actually voicing them again.
We were talking about something a little bit earlier off mic that I think is really interesting, which is how watching a silent film is slightly different to watching a sound film.
It asks a certain, I'm not saying more or less concentration, but a certain different type of concentration perhaps.
I mean, I'm not a fan of opera or ballet specifically, but I'd imagine that if, you know, by lesser names understand more about ballet than I would and it does take a little bit of learning how to watch a silent film what some of the gestures mean especially in the earlier pre First World War silence gestures are very specific and they come from the theatrical tradition You learn to lip-read after a while.
Which can be off-putting because sometimes the actors are acting the lines and saying the lines, but sometimes they'll use the actors' names, the characters' names, and sometimes they'll say something completely off-script.
I remember reading somewhere that there was like a subgenre of watching silent films at the time, contemporary to them being made, which was people would sit in the audience and try to find the cuss words.
Yes, I remember in the 1970s, an awful lot of complaints from deaf viewers about Match of the Day and the terrible language on them.
that's coming back around because on the internet you have like lip readers checking out what celebrities are saying at award shows and things like that.
And the, well, it's become a thing also, and people are, have been lit reading, first of all, the Autochrome Insurances, actually voicing them again.
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