Mary Pickford Quotes

I never approved of talkies. Silent movies were well on their way to developing an entirely new art form. It was not just pantomine, but something wonderfully expressive.

My father had been an avid fan of Chaplin during the silent film days, but when the talkies came along, my father lost all interest in movies.

I've been in on the beginning, the rise, peak, collapse and end of the talking picture.

For film at the beginning of the 20th century, they didn't even know what editing was yet. Actors didn't know how to perform in front of the camera. There wasn't sound.

John Gilbert was perfectly willing to jump into talkies. He had as good a voice as Clark Gable. There was such a divide between the silent and talkies. There was no logic to who survived and who didn't.

Silent films were, I think, more different than we know to sound films. We think of it as simply that we added dialogue and in actual fact I think it was an entirely different art form.

When I was a little boy, there was no sound in the movies.

When I was twelve, the passage from silent film to the talkies had an impact on me-I still watch silent films. I don't think that there is any such thing as an old film; you don't say, 'I read an old book by Flaubert,' or 'I saw an old play by Moliere.'

I'm obsessed with those old romance films. I also would love to venture into the silent film world. I think that's extremely compelling and interesting and really relies on the acting, even more so than when you have an actor speaking.

Alfred Hitchcock had to find ways to create tension without showing it, but now with computer-generated effects you can show anything.

The technology is really where all of the changes have taken place, but the fundamentals of a good story being the basis of every good picture, and really the only basis still remains the rule, more so today, I think, because we've unfortunately weaned an audience from birth to kind of mindless movies.

Now, what does an actor who can't talk do? Wait for silent pictures to come back?

There will never be talking pictures.

Novelty is always welcome but talking pictures are just a fad.

Film has lost something in the translation to high tech. It's become so super-real. It's with digital this and stereo that, and everything's like a CD.

The silent film has a lot of meanings. The first part of the film is comic. It represents the burlesque feel of those silent films. But I think that the second part of the film is full of tenderness and emotion.

I've always been a follower of silent movies. I see film as a visual medium with a musical accompaniment, and dialogue is a raft that goes on with it.

We had to get past the mechanical film age to be able to explore other things, but it will be interesting.

Silent pictures show us how we lived and what our attitudes were. And as an art form, they can be wonderfully entertaining and often inspirational.

I'm one of those people who says, 'yes, cinema died when they invented sound.'

I love silent cinema but don't hold it sacred. Like any branch of film there are some very boring films alongside the masterpieces.

We were asked to believe that the variety and the novelty of even the crude films of the early days would provide a means of entertainment which would cut out the stage.

Film is a very young art that is still evolving. Soon, we shall reach a balance between content and technology.

My father comes from a generation of film that actors my age don't even know about, which is really sad.

I watched every single Charlie Chaplin film.