Looking at the significance of silent film and how a museum on Niles Blvd. is working to preserve the antique art form
Staff Writer
It’s hard to imagine a time when movies lacked what we now often consider a fundamental element in dialogue. But less than a century ago, this was how films were, and despite that archaic characteristic, the significance of these films in modern media is profound. The Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont was established in 2001 to preserve this “ancient” art form, documenting silent film’s impact on the world over the last century.
“[The introduction of silent film] was a huge change for society,” says David Kiehn, a founding member and historian at the museum. “For entertainment [before film], the choices were pretty limited. Movies started to really take off in 1905, 1906. People were going to the movies all the time.”
The impacts did not end in the early 1900s, however. The ripples of significance from the silent film era can still be felt today in movies in various ways.
“[So] much stuff that we take as part of the visual DNA of our pop culture is rooted in movies that were made 100 years ago,” says Jeff Rapsis, a seasoned piano accompanist based in New Hampshire who performs at the museum a few times every year. “The whole Batman franchise is rooted in The Tale of Zorro. The original Caped Crusader was a story that came out of Spanish California. The Joker himself, the makeup that Cesar Romero did in the old Batman series was taken from a film called The Man Who Laughs starring Conrad Veidt. Hidden behind what we see today is stuff that people did 100 years ago.”
This effect is not solely felt in movies, however. The silent film era has shown influence beyond that and into platforms such as social media.
“So much of TikTok and Instagram stories are being produced with the assumption that people aren’t listening, they’re just looking,” says Jason Jakaitis, an associate professor of Communications at St. Mary’s College. “People are rediscovering this language and coming up with new ways to use these tools that people 150 years ago were trying to figure out.”
Preserving silent film is important to the Niles Film Museum and many film enthusiasts for several reasons, one of which is because it acts as a means to see into the past.
“[Silent film] is kind of a window on history. You can see people [from] 100 years ago and more,” explains Kiehn. “Just looking at films as a historical artifact is interesting as well. For instance, films that were made here in Niles; it’s pretty remarkable that Niles Canyon looks so much like it did back then.”
Given that film is a relatively recent form of art, its documentation has been significantly easier than that of more primitive art forms.
“We have this fantastic opportunity to actually preserve this entire artistic history from its very beginning, as opposed to [things like] cave paintings,” says Jakaitis.
Silent film has also managed to trickle its way into classrooms here at American. Drama students recently watched The Artist—a silent film made in 2011 with heavy influence drawn from the silent film era—in order to study the art of miming and acting without sound. Rehan Mohammad (11), a student in the class, remarks on what he learned during this unit, saying,
“For acting in silent film, it’s really based on mime techniques since you don’t have any voice. All you’ll have is slapstick or sound effects or some music that accompanies, [and] that’s really what mim[ing] is about.”
The Niles Silent Film Museum elaborates on these ideas and has several exhibits and gift shop items showcasing prolific silent actors such as Charlie Chaplin and Broncho Billy Anderson.
“We have original hand-cranked projectors that we’ve collected over the years, over 60 Essanay original posters in our collection and about a dozen of them on display. We show silent films [every Saturday] from our collection that now numbers over 13,000 film prints. We have so many rare films, and we’re excited to be able to present these films every week to anyone willing to listen,” says Kiehn.
Caption: The Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, located in the historic Edison Theater on Niles Blvd., has been upholding the lost art of silent film since 2001. (PC: Muhammed A. Ali)
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