Activity

It is not necessary to watch the whole film through, a short excerpt of around 2 or 3 minutes should be sufficient as the basis of an opening discussion about the challenges facing actors in silent film. What do students notice about the way the actors in the film move and react to each other? Can they identify any challenges peculiar to actors of silent comedy?

Ask students to think about a situation with comic potential; a brief scene for which they can write the 'stage directions'. For example: someone biting into a rotten apple without realising, someone walking into a street bollard. Ask them to write their scene down on a small piece of paper and share the paper out among the class.

Students should improvise around these scenes, working individually or in pairs, with some being performed in front of the whole group. Can students guess what is happening in each scene? Encourage students in the 'audience' to respond constructively to each performance, making suggestions about how to improve a scene but also identifying elements that worked well etc.

Some more ideas

• Can students develop these silent scenes to include basic dialogue? How does that change their physical approach to the scene? Does dialogue improve or enhance the scene?
• Compare and contrast the performances in this clip with other examples of silent film from different genres; for example, Hitchcock's The Lodger (1926).