"The cruellest legacy of the cinema is the silence it was born with. It took decades—until 1927—for the movies to find their voice, by which point even the best filmmakers seemed to have forgotten that they, or their characters, had anything to say."
"The result was that, unlike novels and plays, movies became more or less synonymous with bowdlerizations so ingrained and so drastic that even most ostensible masterworks of realism come off like Candyland to viewers unindoctrinated by studio standards."
"Hermetically sealed stories may also be fruitfully streamlined, stripping characters down to a handful of traits that, in the absence of digressions and interjections, focus attention on psychological consistency."
"More interesting than movies that are industrially silenced, though, are those made by original filmmakers working relatively freely and personally, who've smoothed out and glazed over their artistry of their own accord."
'Two Pianos' by Arnaud Desplechin presents a narrative centered on a pianist's return to a mentor and an ex-lover. The film emphasizes character traits, aligning them like dominoes, while largely ignoring the surrounding world. The historical context of cinema's evolution from silence to sound is explored, highlighting how early restrictions shaped storytelling. Despite these limitations, the film showcases how self-censorship can lead to psychological depth and artistic expression, reflecting the director's understanding of classic Hollywood norms.
Read at The New Yorker
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