Silent Film

I went to a film showing at the Orsay museum with my colleague Katheryn Wright. This was not the sort of thing I'd normally go to, but it related to my research. They were showing a series of short films linked by the theme of "reportage," some old ones in black and white, others more recent. It was a strange mixture of things, but there were several minutes of footage of the 1910 flood, the subject of my research. That's why I went.

The selection seemed even stranger given the audience: schoolchildren. We had to make special arrangements to get into this viewing since everyone else in the audience was about 7 years old (with a few parents and teachers scattered throughout the auditorium). In many ways, the kids' responses to the films were as interesting as the films themselves. At times, they laughed, at times they applauded. When the person from the museum finished his introduction at the beginning, they all yelled out "Merci!"

One of the shorts was an interview with the photographer Robert Doisneau who is famous for his pictures of Paris, including one of a man and woman kissing by the river. The kids had been pretty quiet up to this point (although it took lots of shushing to keep them that way). When Doisneau's kissing image came on the screen, though, they all started whispering and chatting. They seemed to know what the picture was about.

The flood footage was interesting, especially getting to see the moving water. But in some ways it wasn't much of a surprise. The film looked pretty much like all of the photographs I have seen of the flood -- scenes of rescue, of flooded streets, of water up to the decks of bridges. Photographers and filmmakers probably stood in the same locations and took the same shots. And the film was silent, giving me no voices from the moment.

Interestingly, the kids in the audience were (relatively) quiet too during that portion of the presentation, the only silent film in the bunch. I don't know if they were really watching, but a film with no sound made for an audience with very little noise, even when that audience was about 7 years old.