Jenny Ajderian explores why less can be more when it comes to film dialogue.

Watch any western, any black-and-white adventure film, any rags-to-riches adaptation, and you’ll realise you’ve seen this all before. The guy gets the girl, the evil tyrant falls and the true king rises, be it in Middle Earth or the Mid-West. We’ve seen these scenes repeated across the eras, and we know how it goes. Without the speech, the scene still goes the same way. New film The Artist proves this, without saying a word. Aside from the picture-perfect cast and a dog that will reach cult celebrity status any day now, the film addresses the transition between ‘20s movies and ‘30s talkies, and demonstrates sparse use of sound which offers a challenge to the film makers.

In one scene, uncharacteristically static, a pair of old friends meet and greet, swap stories, laugh – the details, irrelevant, are replaced by an emotive score and some close camera work, all of which makes us feel no less connected to the characters as we would have done had they been talking.

Every now and then, of course, the black screen descends and a few lines are spelled out for us, but even this isn’t entirely necessary. Far from the big screen, ballet productions do something similar, though often considered a very serious, almost old-fashioned art form. By replacing words entirely with movement and interaction between characters, emotions are expanded, felt deeper, and seen clearer. The effect is stunning – as in Michael Bourne’s Nutcracker!, which swayed its way onto the Festival Theatre’s stage last December, and whose audience was so young that they would have lost interest in anything that was any less than captivating.

One scene in particular saw the Prince Nutcracker, released from inside an ugly doll, remove his mask and his shirt to reveal why all men should take up ballet. Our heroine skims towards him, and timidly lays her head on his bare chest. As she sighs, the audience laughs knowingly, reminded of a feeling which could have been lost if it were tangled up in scripting.

It seems that certain stories, be they filmed or danced out for our entertainment, are older than words. They exist somewhere in the back of the mind and inevitably come to the fore; shaping our expectations and our judgements of right and wrong. The guy should get the girl, the dance will play out perfectly, the director will yell ‘Cut!’ and everyone goes home happy. Why use words at all?

In removing spoken language, do we gain something else? The ways in which we seek to perceive and understand the events unfolding in front of us come to rely more on our universal instincts, experience and emotions. The highly choreographed, somewhat contrived movements of ballet become an obvious expression of emotion and meaning; the shaking head of a scolded schoolboy is a challenge to authority; the long lingering look from a washed-up moustachio’d actor is a cry for help.

Certainly, words add depth to performance (or, so I like to tell myself when I try to justify my choice of degree). But with the oldest, best-known tales of good-versus-evil, running off with a knight in shining armour, or simply a Jack Russell saving a man’s life, perhaps the words could say nothing at all.

It’s plain to see the heyday of silent film is behind us – as recording technologies continue to improve and film becomes ever more advanced, it’s less and less likely that films like The Artist will continue to be made at all. We can call the choice not to use sound a gimmick, a throwback or pure nostalgia, but the critical response to the film shines a light on its own merits. As in ballet, the lack of natural sound is not a handicap but a challenge, a potentially powerful tool which the directors can play with to dazzling effect.