Most movies are loud. Soundtracks swell, explosions boom, and Will Ferrell screams. What’s harder is silence, which is curious in itself since the earliest filmmakers had no choice but to film without sound. But “silence” in modern film can take on myriad forms, whether that be silence in its purest definition—an absence of all sound—or silence in more abstract forms, whether that be a reinterpretation of speech (such as in 2014’s The Tribe) or a score that serves as the story’s only sound (like Disney’s Fantasia).
A new video from the film buffs at Cinefix seeks to explore these nuances, using a list of its favorite uses of silence as a means to break down how silence has manifested throughout the entire history of film.
Examples run the gamut from 1929’s The Man With The Movie Camera to 2016’s The Red Turtle, with iconic directors like Jean-Luc Godard, Luc Besson, Kim Ki-Duk, and F.W. Murnau making an appearance. Honestly, this is more a lesson than it is a list, and a damn good way to beef up your “must watch” list.