silent

Blackmail (1929), Alfred Hitchcock.


"Silent films remains the poor relation of its sophisticated offspring for many, particulary those in the media who should realise the difference. Perhaps one day soon silent cinema, to the broad mass of even the culturally aware, will at last come to be recognised for what it is - not sound film with the sound turned down but a theatrically vibrant form of cinema in its own right. As opera is to theatre, silent film is cinema with the emotions musically engaged - not a negation of reality but an emotionally enhanced version of it".

Neil Brand, "Working with Hitch", Sight & Sound, July 12, Volume 22, Issue 7, p. 36.