I dream of silence

Hi All,

This is my very first blog post. Each week I will be posting a topic or two that holds some relevance to the cinema class I'm currently attending. Now to the meat of this post, the silent film. Broken down to its core elements a silent film is just what it sounds, a film lacking any synchronized sound or music. Up until the mid 1920s the ability to synch sound with film was nearly impossible. Technology had not developed to a point where audio amplification was readily available. Another aspect of note during the silent movie era was that of dyeing film. Frequently a filmmaker would dye a strip of film a color to signify a specific mood or feeling that the film was trying to convey. Below is a list of the highest grossing silent films of the given time period, between 1894 - 1929

1. The Birth of a Nation (1915) - $10,000,000
2. The Big Parade (1925) - $6,400,000
3. Ben-Hur (1925) - $5,500,000
4. Way Down East (1920) - $5,000,000
5. The Gold Rush (1925) - $4,250,000
6. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921) - $4,000,000
7. The Circus (1928) - $3,800,000
8. The Covered Wagon (1923) - $3,800,000
9. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) - $3,500,000
10. The Ten Commandments (1923) - $3,400,000
11. Orphans of the Storm (1921) - $3,000,000
12. For Heaven's Sake (1926) - $2,600,000
13. Seventh Heaven (1926) - $2,400,000
14. Abie's Irish Rose (1928) - $1,500,000

* above list taken from wiki article on silent films