If you want to support the Peacherine Ragtime Society Orchestra, check out their site (and kickstarter) at peacherineragtime.com/

Have you ever watched Tom & Jerry Cartoons? It's basically a silent cartoon because there is little to no Dialogue but we will never call it a 'silent film'. Cartoons even with dialogue is heavily dependant on the sound track and sound effects to present the performance to the audience.

I'm the trombone player in this video. Glad you enjoyed the unique experience, Austin! OH and great video!!

If you have a proper sound system and a large screen, silent films can be easily enjoyed at home if they are accompanied by an appropriate soundtrack. I recently watched the restored HD version of Metropolis and watching it with surround sound was an awesome experience. I felt like a 1920s moviegoer.

When I was a kid my parents would take me to a pizza place called the Organ Grinder. This was back in the 60's and 70's. They would play silent movies with, you guessed it, an old, humungous organ, with sound effects. It made the experience so much fun. We would watch movies of Charlie Chaplin and Keystone Cops. It was wonderful! Such nice memories and it also gave me an appreciation for silent movies. I agree, to experience the true magic of silent movies you must have live music to go along with the show. Sadly the place closed years ago, derelict, run down then demolished. My memories of family, good pizza and fun times live on within me forever...

Ha! I didn’t think anybody actually thought silent movies were meant to be watched entirely silent? My friend’s grandfather who just died in his 90’s used to play the piano for the movie theater here in town. Pretty cool stuff.

Additionally, early film theorists differentiate film from theatre by writing that the audience is supposed to talk during the showing. Back in the day people would just walk into a movie theatre halfway through the film and sit through the first half of the next showing until they saw the scene that was playing when they walked in

"a piano player would sit off to the side" *shows piano player smack dab in the middle*

So THIS is why cinemas are called Movie “theatres”

Thanks for sharing! I'm the flutist/piccoloist with the group in the video. Glad you enjoyed the show!

This was great. Never knew this about silent films, puts them in a whole new light

So silent films are basically live music videos, neat

My great grandparents were silent film pianists and I never really understood how talented they were and I really loved this video, thank you so much!

In Britain some screenings of Interstellar had full orchestras conducted by Hans Zimmer himself. They were playing the soundtrack live while Interstellar was playing, and it was awesome. That's the only modern movie I can think of which combined a film and orchestra in one performance :( Edit: people from the comments say there are still many venues that perform live soundtracks while a movie is playing, like at the Hollywood Bowl. I need to check some out one of these days :)

Your thumbnail looks like your vid is from Vox

Seeing and hearing people still laughing at these films literally warms my heart like nothing else. Absolutely timeless

In the future, people will be like "I don't like 2D movies. I don't get it. Now I know there's big stars like..."

Silent films used to just be called films.

Nothing more nostalgic than THX making my ears bleed

I love silent films! When I was young, instead of animated cartoons, my parents would show me them and I guess it just stuck.

I'm genuinely surprised that this isn't common knowledge. My secondary school taught us this in pretty much the very first term of year seven, and then we had to act out our own plays in the same style!

Watching this on mute.

Why do I get a Vox vibe from the thumbnail

I've had the pleasure of watching a pristine print of Chaney's "Phantom of the Opera" accompanied by a full symphony orchestra and live opera singers, using the film's original score.

They should do livestreams of orchestra live when they play silent films. It’d be brilliant of they recorded a film soundtrack live, with all their instruments, filming a video with accompanying audio preferably as a high-quality FLAC file, so someone at home could watch a film properly with the orchestra, and the sound and music. But this does seem like something I’d enjoy, if only there was something like this in the UK.

Got to see nosfetatu with the music done by a drummer making the various sound effects and a guitarist with a load of pedals to be able to mimic organs and other instruments, was incredible

This makes a lot of sense. This art was made for a platform that no longer exists - a movie theater with live music. We're butchering these films by watching them the way we do. Ironically, it takes a new modern piece of technology to recapture this. VR can put you directly into a filled theater with live music and the film playing. 1930's limited tech needs 2018's tech to be re-experienced properly. Or of course, this amazing orchestra. The show looked amazing!

this is so good! I'm so tired of silent films on KZfaq being accompanied by a modern soundtrack that doesn't emphasize the film for this same reason. These films need a soundtrack to really experience them :)

Now I really want to watch Nosferatu like this. That is the only silent film I have ever seen that still hit the mark for me. Like watching it I was like you know, that is genuinely scary. I wonder what it would be like if it was watched the way it was meant to be originally.

You did not know that silent movies were never silent? Send a note to your teachers so that they know they missed conveying that. One of the reasons why Metropolis is as complete as we can make it is because we had the original score and could look for missing scenes.

Right and what are the rest of us supposed to do?

My grandfather took me to a series of screenings like this when I was very young in the early 1980s, it was a seriously magical event... I’m really glad people are keeping the tradition alive as I’d really like to experience it again !!

Is there a way to get the silent films on DVD with the original score being played? I don't have a theater like this around me.

Take a shot everytime Austin says *A U T H E N T I C*

So many folks won't try to expand their aesthetic criteria once they're set (in stone so it would seem) As a serious Jazz Pianist/composer I am greatful that a few like you still exist.

I've never experienced a silent film in complete silence... Who did that to you? Did you find the original film reels with no context and just try to watch them unaccompanied?

I don't think it's the suspense that's the impactful part of live music. It's that you can see it being made. Recorded music just plays and over time you become desensitized to it because it feels like an abstract concept that has no real world origins. But when you watch people play live you are in the moment and experiencing the physicality of music. Humans are tactile creatures. We need to see and feel with our own eyes to get the actual feel for the emotion especially in this age of streaming where music is detached from the physicality of the past. That's why the live music improves 'silent' films so much.

YES. I saw one of my state's university bands perform some live music to silent film scenes last year, and the reaction of the audience and the timing of the music is what really brought it to life! Then I sort of forgot about silent films until I was reintroducrd to them this summer. My library had a showing with live music - just a piano, but it was really cool. I've been watching a lot of them on my own with recorded music, and I still find them enjoyable and I get really invested in them, but nothing beats seeing them live, how they were intended to be viewed! I was so excited when I got notified of this video. Like, my favorite youtuber talking about my favorite thing? Made my day.

One of the most fascinating things to me about music in the silent era was that oftentimes at smaller theatres there was no sheet music! Pianists were given a lead sheet which listed the times they had to play music that evoked a certain mood. Like "1:04 Emotional, sad." A lot of what made 1920's musicians that worked in film great was their ability to improvise!!

My child (a college music major) and I were discussing musicals last night, and suddenly the realization hit me that LIVE MUSICIANS WERE PERFORMING AT EVERY SILENT FILM SHOWING ACROSS THE COUNTRY!! What a wonderful thing that was. Thank you for posting this. Now I want to see those films in that setting.

Funny you say that because Le Voyage dans la Lune was the first film I read about and watched that got me into film making. Seeing that huge face in the moon the moment you open 1001 movies to see before you die just did it for me.

More great things that I'd never have known but not for your KZfaq channel.

Wonderful!

I was lucky enough to attend an International Silent Film Festival here in the Philippines. Some had orchestras, others had modern rock bands. Even the choice of music interpretation was an art, I loved it.

wow, funny, I'm actually in the middle of a French film course, so I've been watching a whole bunch of The Lumiere, Melies, Feulliade, early impressionist films, etc. I started thinking silent films were boring, but I've come to see there are some fantastic works without sound. Le Voyage de la lune is a great example of just fun and Whimsy on the screen.

*Why are Squarespace sponsorship ads so boring to watch?*

What's great about this idea is that anyone can score these movies. Many silent greats can have a dozen scores to their names, of wildly varying era and genre. I watched Man with a Movie Camera with the electronic jazz soundtrack released in 2003 by the Cinematic Orchestra, and as a jazz fusion fan, I thorougly enjoyed the experience.

It's great to know people are still preserving this form of entertainment and bringing it back. My primary school was steadily losing money every year and we could never hold a music teacher for more than a year, so it's only by fluke that I learned that "silent" films were always accompanied by live music as our teacher demonstrated with an old film reel and school projector while she played the piano. But this makes sense. Even today, the biggest, most expensive movie showings happen with this set up. Like when Hans Zimmer actually did a live accompaniment to a showing of Interstellar. We forget that some things don't go out of style for a reason.

Tbh I clicked it because I thought it was a vox video. Both the title and thumbnail are very Vox-y. Nevertheless the video lived up to my expectations and I didn’t notice it wasn’t vox for at least 2 minutes *ILLUSION 100*

"I watched a silent film... it stunk"

Glad you've come round. 😀 I have had the wonderful opportunity to see "Napoleon", "The Crowd", "Ben Hur" and "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" accompanied by an eighty piece orchestra. Other films I have seen accompanied by a Wurlitzer organ. An absolutely amazing experience! I notice though that you concentrate on the comedy films - the dramas were great too. (I don't know about the orchestra being on stage where you were, with the sheet behind them? I would have found this distracting.)

Thank you! I've always felt like i was missing out by not being able to appreciate these old movies. You're the best!

7:38 - Ah, so that's where the "lampshading" scene comes from!

I must admit that, because of Hugo Cabret and my artsy friend, I once sat down on a Friday night and watched A Voyage to the Moon and An Andalusian Dog.

I've been watching silent films since I was a teenager. Every time I watched one I imagined being in a theater with a live orchestra or with love piano accompaniment. Maybe it's because I'm a musician or because I love History so much. It wasn't until I was in my early 20s that I finally saw a silent with live musical accompaniment. I'm happy you finally get why these films are so wonderful!

Loved this video, the way it was edited and, of course, the messaage. Well done, Austin!

You know what I want to see? A modern day silent film with modern style music, I don't think I would like it, but I just want to see how it would look like

Wow, what a revelation. It puts The Jazz Singer, that early non-silent film, in fresh perspective knowing how vital the off-screen musicians were to the expectations of a good movie.

As someone who's into historically informed performance, I raised an eyebrow at 4:30 when you called them authentic period instrument. Maybe I missed something, but from what I can see those are modern instruments (not that there's a huge difference). For example, I can see that the clarinet has a left hand E flat lever, which is a more recent development. Still, this is really cool.

Wow, it's so great to grow and learn with/from this channel!

I think that more people should watch "The Unknown" (1927). That 50-minutes-long movie usually changes a lot of people's ideas about silent movies.

I mean... Mr Bean is kinda like a silent film in a way... or a much better term, a TV show... and with addition of audiences laughing in the background :v This is just my opinion though...

No matter what music is played with the movie "The General" by Buster Keaton it's still one of the best movies I've ever seen.

Chaplin never made a “talkie” until The Great Dictator, but his movies did have audio. Chaplin would often conduct an orchestra and dub it over his pictures, and he would compose his own music for his films. An excellent example of this is The Gold Rush, the first film he ever wrote a soundtrack for.

Is mayonnaise a silent film

I love silent films! They’re awesome! Metropolis is one of my favourite movies! I definitely recommend the Giorgio Moroder version. It has an original score of 80s music and I think it’s easier for modern audiences to get into. It’s great, and it’s also short.

Just ran across your channel and I LOVE IT!!!

I watched citylights, it had background piano music and i loved the film. I have watched it twice

The Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline, MA does this occasionally! I actually unfortunately have never attended though, and my ex works there so I can't go again 😕. I actually do enjoy watching silent films at home by myself though lol. But it is always better with a crowd.

Still more exciting than my social life

I loved this presentation! What a beautiful case for historical presentations. I could say lots more but I’ll leave a simple THANK YOU!

It's actually really hard for me to imagine watching Buster Keaton's The General and finding it boring, in theater or on couch or otherwise. I've watched quite a number of silent films recreationally, not just out of a snobbish sense of elitism but genuinely. On the other hand, many many films on netflix I've sat down and watched and found too boring or too bad to finish. Of course, the reason why is obvious. It is a lot easier to know which silent films are good than it is to know which modern movies on some streaming service are good. Silent films are filtered through time. But point being, I've pretty much had opposite experience as this video. Not saying there's anything wrong with that. Different strokes for different folks.

Charlie Chaplin will be angry if you think silent films are boring :-0

Great video Austin, very interesting! Never looked at it this way... and Thanks... Now I NEED to experience this for myself. :)

Thank you for this video! I never knew silent movies could be so full & rich. I'll need to keep an eye out to see if the old theater nearby will ever do anything like this.

Our local cinema did this on Thursday nights with a four piece group in the 70's. But the band were off to the side of the screen so they would'nt distract you from the film. Great days. I saw so many Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd films.

Where did you get your prints? Silent movies and shorts on DVD always come with a soundtrack

Yes, KZfaq, I watched it and I liked it and yes, you know me better than I know myself.

Nice and well produced video, but it doesn’t sound (no pun intended) like you really gave silent film a chance. Watching four of the most obvious and copied silent films isn’t really giving 30 years of silent film history from around the world a fair shot. There are many other kinds of silent films that are just as fun and compelling as today’s film-some of the creepiest and most suspenseful films I’ve seen have been silent. There’s more to silent film than the American slapstick/ragtime shows, many of those were just simple programmers for kids. That’d be like thinking Pixar is the epitome of modern cinema. The gripping hysteria of “The Passion of Joan of Arc,” the melancholic horror of “The Phantom Carriage;” one of Hitchcock’s favorites of his own movies was his early silent thriller, “The Lodger.” Also recommend some King Vidor, Victor Sjöström, early Yosujirō Ozu, Carl Theodor Dreyer, F.W. Murnau. Many silent films do great at home, especially with how many good silent horror films there are. Though of course all movie are better in theaters. Again, nice video, but silent films can still be just as entertaining and great as Interstellar, they just might be harder to find!

So awesome you shifted your perspective! You are welcome to come back to Springfield anytime!

As a kid the THX logo scared me. Since that day I am scared for life...

"Watch them like this!" You're telling us to see a specific orchestra, on tour in a specific area of the US? Not very helpful - slightly misleading title.

What a marvellous video! Thank you, it’s precious! 🖤

They showed this in my Music exploration class! Love your videos btw!

Beautiful. I enjoyed so much watching this.

at @3:10 you know you about to have your mind blown.

Thank you so much in “enlightening” me as to the splendor of silent movies !! Other than watching and enjoying Metropolis and Nosferatu, I firmly and adamantly refused to watch any other silent films no matter how famous and/or well done they were. I think one reason is that I’m a very detailed oriented person and I was “annoyed” with the few printed words as opposed to the sometimes lengthy conversation I was seeing. I wanted a more descriptive narrative. After watching your interesting video I now realize my thinking about watching silent movies was all wrong. As an aside -- years ago, in Prospect Park in Brooklyn, I attended a Halloween evening’s performance of a horror silent movie with music accompaniment by Philip Glass. It came to a sudden end when thunder sounded in the distance followed by lightning. Again -- thanks a lot for awakening my new found love of silent movies.

I've tried watching B&W films with Spotify open, but my choice of music in real time (when I have not seen the film before) is less than wonderful- and often accidentally comical). This recreated theater experience is amazing! So cool that people do this! Great video. I learned a lot. Thank you!

buster keatons stuff is worth a watch with or without sound dosnt matter

I never thought about silent films like this... Wow.

I still maintain my best experience with a movie was in a crowded lecture hall watching the 1930s version of To Be Or Not to Be, the movie was one of the funniest I'd ever seen watching it with a crowd. We also watched some Chaplin shorts too and it really added to the experience

Man the intro about how you feel about silent films is like you...well, you movied me. You made a video that told me exactly how I feel without me even knowing that it was how I felt. Haven't watched the rest of the vid at the time of this comment so I hope I get as much from the rest of it as you seem to have gotten from the concept!

Silent movies were never ment to be watched by itself without the music, that's like watching a movie without sound they teach you this in cinema class

Sounds like an amazing show!

When the heck did this channel blew up? I was subscribed under the 10,000k sub group and when on "a month" long hiatus from KZfaq and returned to the channel like this. AWESOME!!!

I would love to go to a show like that, you're so lucky! Great video.

I always wondered if they had someone reading out the title cards or description cards to the audience. Certainly in the 1920s literacy was lower around the world and they are often written like theatrical lines for a narrator.

Funnily enough, this reminds me of the now famous scene in Doom Eternal trailer. Music and almost completely silent charachters, yet already heralded by some as one of the most powerful cutscene ever.

austin it seems to me you are an adventurer type that get bored so quick unless something spectacular happening the great old news that you figure it out . great video i enjoy your perspective

OMG!! You are so right! I ❤️the silents but there is something missing without the music. I wonder if anyone else is providing the music as you showed? Gonna look into that. Thanks so much!