why WE should all watch old films

With Hollywood fixated on franchises, remakes and superheroes, writers need to look beyond the present era for inspiration.

'flesh and the devil', 1926

By Ian Long

A top film editor recently told me that he routinely removes the dialogue from the first assemblies of feature films he's working on.

He does this to see where speech can be cut and the storytelling left solely to the images.

In effect, he converts the films he's editing into silent movies.

This made me ponder the other things writers and filmmakers can learn from the earlier days of cinema. 

Later in this article we'll see how one silent drama brilliantly uses images to create its First Act Turning Point - ideas which can definitely be applied to contemporary scripts.

But in the meantime . . . where should we look for inspiration?

​Ideally, writers are interested in all kinds of stories. A varied intake of films, plays, novels, short fiction and poetry (not forgetting real life) has always been their staple diet.

But a surprising number of would-be screenwriters have a problem with older films (which can mean 'ones released before 2000'), black and white films, and silent films. Films with subtitles can also pose a challenge.

​Which is a shame. Because as well as a truckload of cultural heritage and plenty of interest and entertainment, these writers are missing out on a treasure-house of cinematic know-how. 

a tale told in images: Murnau's 'The Last Laugh', 1924

​Why should we watch older films?

The genres we work in stretch way back into cinema history (and, in many cases, far beyond it). This is because stories are mostly about the human experience, which hasn’t changed radically over tens of thousands of years.

Myths and folktales still provide the basis of stories, but because the narratives of films have been configured into visual forms of a certain duration, usually by very clever and talented people, they merit special study.

Film history provides a range of models for tackling subjects, and a wealth of characters, plotlines and settings to draw on, many more pointed and radical than those of contemporary cinema.

Would we have seen the pitch-black satire of journalism in 'Nightcrawler' (2014), for instance, without its (even inkier) precursor 'Ace in the Hole' (1951)?

the dark stuff: billy wilder's 'ace in the hole'

​What stops people from appreciating older films?

Many things have changed over cinema’s century-plus existence: fashions, customs, speech and vocabulary, acting styles, special effects, approaches to cinematography and technical processes.

​But it’s worth remembering that some of our current conventions will seem alien to future generations, who'll need to make an imaginative effort to get past them.

This effort brings its own rewards. As well as enjoying a story, we get the cognitive benefits of engaging with a reality that's somewhat different to our own.

The exercise can also spur us to ask ourselves which elements of contemporary film are redundant or cliched - and perhaps look for ways to sidestep them, in order to avoid our own work seeming stilted in the coming years.

more daring than modern films: fritz lang's 'M', 1931

​Silent films

Many people equate silent cinema with comedy and jerky, sped-up movements (a technical issue now being addressed; people didn’t really walk like that before 1930).

But silent cinema also produced some great dramas. 

And it forced filmmakers to become adept at communicating ideas and emotions visually – still a crucial tool in the screenwriter's box.

So let’s look at the micro-beats in the First Act Turning Point from Clarence Brown's 'Flesh and the Devil', to see what they can teach us.

​Flesh and the Devil (1926)

In pre-WWI Prussia, army officer Leo (John Gilbert) falls in love with Felicitas, a mysterious woman played by Greta Garbo.

The first act tells us a lot about Leo, but very little about Felicitas.

Without fully realising it, we see her through Leo’s smitten eyes: charming, witty, beautiful, but lacking a real context - something of a fantasy-woman.

Then, along with Leo, we make the shocking discovery that she’s married to a wealthy and vengeful Count, who immediately challenges Leo to a "duel of honour".

The duel and its immediate aftermath constitute the Turning Point of the film's First Act. 

In just two minutes of screen time, director Clarence Brown and cinematographer William H. Daniels convey a lot of information with great economy and maximum emotional impact.

'Flesh and the Devil' - First Act Turning Point - Beats
​
1. The duel scene has no establishing shot. We cut straight from Felicitas' boudoir, where the Count has discovered Leo, to the torso of a man whose face we never see. 

2. Two hands reach into frame, taking pistols from the man, who we now realise must be the referee of the duel.

3. The next shot gives us a sense of the location. But it's more like a diagram of a duel than a standard movie shot.

High-contrast lighting evokes early dawn. A symmetrical composition emphasises the formality of the occasion. 

The Count (on the left of the referee) and Leo (on his right) are recognisable only from their silhouettes, flanked by their seconds.

4. Leo's friend Ulrich tries to dissuade him from the duel, but Leo is resolute.

​5. The seconds withdraw from the firing area.

6. ​With the seconds out of sight, the two duellists walk away from the referee.

And in a surprising moment, they keep going until they are out of frame.

7. Only the referee is visible when he gives the signal and the duellists fire at each other from off-screen.

​​It's a very unusual way to stage a showdown. We don’t know if either man has been hit; we only see the puffs of smoke from their guns.

8. The screen fades to black, giving us a few moments to wonder what has happened.

​9. The next shot gives us Felicitas’ face enclosed by a frame. She wears a dark hat.

10. A man’s hand comes into shot and pulls a veil from the hat, over her face. We realise that Felicitas is dressed in mourning, and is looking at herself in a mirror. 

​We deduce that her husband the Count must have been killed in the duel.

11. ​A wider shot shows Felicitas taking off the hat and veil. A smiling assistant shows her another set.

​12. Felicitas puts on the other hat and veil.

And as she does, she tries out a coquettish smile in the mirror.

What do we learn?

Leo's killing of the Count fully commits him to the story - and to Felicitas.

​Until now she has been an enigma, but her demeanour when trying on her mourning outfit tells us everything we need to know about her true character.

It’s all conveyed in a momentary expression, without a word of dialogue, and it gives us far more information about Felicitas than Leo has learned in over half an hour.

We now know that Leo has killed a man over a woman so shallow and vain that she sees her husband’s death as a fun opportunity to dress up.

It also sets up huge suspense; we are now projecting forwards in the story, wondering what will happen when Leo (if we presume he survives the duel) learns the truth about Felicitas. Will he also be subject to her lack of concern for human life?

And in conclusion . . .

No matter how hard we work on our descriptions and dialogue, we should rejoice if someone finds a way to replace a chunk of it with a glance or a gesture.

In the end, it will make us - the screenwriter - look good. Because . . .

"Show, don't tell" is the ultimate movie maxim. And the sequence outlined above is a great illustration of it. 

The narrative deliberately feeds us partial information (the faceless referee, the sketchy locale, the knowledge about who is killed in the duel, and just what is happening in the scene with Felicitas).

By doing this, it invites us to join up the dots ourselves, and achieves the ultimate goal of the filmmaker: to make the audience feel that it is taking part in the process of creating the story. 

“When the present has given up on the future, we must listen for the relics of the future in the unactivated potentials of the past.” - Mark Fisher

Deep Narrative Design
​
This article represents one small section of my DEEP NARRATIVE DESIGN workshop.

If you want to know more, or if you need help with a script, email me here.

Share your thoughts!

• Do you agree or disagree that we can/should learn from older films?
  
  
• Are you a fan of cinema from previous eras, and if so, what attracts you to it?
  
  
• Do you have any special recommendations? If so, tell us why you like them!
  
  
• Or do you have  some other thoughts?

Please let us know in the comments below!

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