CHAPTER 12
FILM LANGUAGE
As children, we learn to speak because language is a tool to accomplish things. My eldest daughter’s first sentence was, “Meat, I like it”—effective, if a little shaky in syntax. All languages operate under conventions, and screen language began developing in the 1890s when camera operators and actors competed to put elementary stories before paying audiences. Soon movies became big business, and the actors and camera operators were joined by directors and editors. A production line had evolved needing greater division of labor.
Most of today’s screen language emerged in the first two decades of silent cinema. Separately, through trial and error in each world film center, filmmakers felt their way toward ...
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