Peter Weir Quotes

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.

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.

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

In a silent film, you speak but the audience does not hear you.

I watched a lot of silent movies. It's a very specific way of writing, which is more of a challenge than the directing. You have to describe images. It's easier to shoot them.

In silent films, quite complex plots are built around action, setting, and the actors' gestures and facial expressions, with a very few storyboards to nail down specific plot points.

I like some of the early silent films because I love to watch how actors had to play then. What would interest me today is to do a silent film.

I'm a big fan of silent cinema and I think that before I got into the canon of European arthouse cinema, the first interesting films I liked as a kid were German expressionist silent films.

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

Friends told me not to bother with the silents - they're jerky, poorly photographed and ludicrously badly acted. But I was immediately struck by the freshness and vitality of these films.

I always loved silent movies. I was not a specialist, but I loved them. And when I started directing, I became really fascinated by the format - how it works, the device of the silent movie.

Do you know anything about silent films?" "Sure," I said. "The first ones were developed in the late nineteenth century and sometimes had live musical accompaniment, though it wasn't until the 1920s that sound became truly incorporated into films, eventually making silent ones obsolete in cinema.

There will never be talking pictures.

When you speak of silent movies, everyone thinks of Charlie Chaplin first.

I used to watch movies - silent movies - and stock companies and theater whenever I could.

You could say that it's in talking movies that inner life begins to appear. You can see things happen to the faces of people that were neither planned nor rehearsed.

I love some films with very silent characters, people who don't speak, but I wouldn't be able to do that.

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.

It would have been more logical if silent pictures had grown out of the talkies instead of the other way around.

I always loved silent movies. I was not a specialist, but I loved them. And when I started directing, I became really fascinated by the format - how it works, the device of the silent movie. It's not the same form of expression as a talkie. The lack of sounds makes you participate in the storytelling.

I was always a big fan of Charlie Chaplin movies. I love 'The Great Dictator' and 'City Lights.'

In silent movies, they tended to put the camera down, and everybody walked in front of it and acted, and then they all walked off. Cutting was quite infrequent.

When you see a silent movie, you understand everything that's going on from the images because the images are so strong.

I saw 'The Artist.' It's really beautiful and it's all done to the letter with all the silent film techniques. The costumes were amazing and the dog is so good.

Personally, I think the silent films were more effective for L&H, but the sound was of great value in enhancing the effects - dialog eliminated a lot of action & sight gags - I always feel that 'action' speaks louder than words.