The pioneering ‘Silents Now’ project, led by Professor of Film and Literature Judith Buchanan, has breathed new life into Shakespearean screen adaptations, slap stick comedies, dark dramas and engaging romantic tales, many dating from the early 1900s.
The films have been screened in art house cinemas as well as theatres, community festivals and schools across the UK introducing silent cinema to a wide and diverse audience.
Often the films are screened with live musical accompaniment composed ahead of time or improvised by talented musicians. Some films are given a ‘voice’ with scripts developed by Professor Buchanan and delivered by professional actors in perfect synchronicity with the onscreen action.
Professor Buchanan said: “Many of these films had disappeared not only from public consciousness but also from scholarly view. Silents Now aims to put many of these culturally rooted films back on the map. They are an important part of our cultural heritage offering opportunities for increased public participation in this important art form while also opening up new artistic insights for scholars and academics.”
Richard III at Middleham
One recent ambitious project involved a rare silent film of the celebrated 1911 British stage production of Shakespeare’s play Richard III. It was voiced by professional actors and screened in the atmospheric ruins of Middleham Castle in North Yorkshire, where Richard Plantagenet lived as a child.
“The screening at Middleham offered an opportunity to forge a new and interesting relationship between the performance then and the performance now, the on screen and offscreen, the long gone and the contemporary actor – only this time in a space with very special historical and topical resonance,” said Professor Buchanan.
American silent films
Another project introduced audiences in London and Leeds to the remarkable film legacy of leading American silent film studios Thanhouser. Professor Buchanan was joined at the screenings by Ned Thanhouser, grandson of the studio founder who talked to audiences about his efforts to rediscover and preserve some of the best examples of early silent films produced by one of the industry pioneers.
Silents Now also runs workshops in schools bringing silent film versions of Shakespeare classics into the classroom.
York International Shakespeare Festival
The project also screened the famous Asta Nielsen Hamlet film of 1920. The film’s striking German expressionist aesthetic and bravura performance by Danish film star Asta Nielsen - known as ‘Die Asta’- opened the inaugural York International Shakespeare Festival.
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