It would have been more logical if silent pictures had grown out of the talkie instead of the other way around.
By picking the word “logical” Mary Pickford throws us into the limits of a paradox. Beneath her phrase lies the possibility of conceiving silent cinema as a door towards abstraction, given its concentration on visuals that escape the restrictions of dialogue-centered narration… Pickford envisions silent films as a reaction against the constraints of sound cinema, as an attempt to open more space for visual imagination (silence, motion, tempo) and less for the impression of realism. But what if we applied the Pickford Paradox to think about the evolution of new media, looking backwards to move forward in terms of developing an expressive language for games.
Nowadays, realistic graphics, dense dramatized plots and constant dialogue seem to be the self-imposed goal for the videogame industry (or for a big part of it). In a way, the visual freedom of the first computer games and arcades, which opened the possibility of a certain abstract-motion expression -concerned with gameplay visuality and not necessarily sacrificed to verbal storytelling-, is being constrained by a high-tech race towards anthropocentric realism. The so-called “cinematic sequences” inserted throughout the narration, as well as a number of allegedly film-realistic procedures, make games look more and more like talkies (but not necessarily like films). Is history repeating itself? Could Mary Pickford’s claim be adapted to contemporary videogame design? Of course better and worse games will always be made independently from its talkie/silent orientation, but are we simply facing a matter of technological and programming improvements or could we affirm that a certain aesthetic possibility is at stake?
Perhaps engaging a true comparison between silent film forms and early interactive games, through concrete sequences and examples, may be a good way to put into crisis our personal notion of media evolution. With a bit of luck, looking back to the origins of film history might help us to value the amazing discoveries and possible creative paths -yet to be developed- of early videogames and new media. Under that perspective, Mary Pickford’s husband may be resurrected as the ultimate silent version of Megaman, and the sight gags of Buster Keaton could maybe teach us a trick or two about Super Mario’s love affair with gravity…
The GAMEPLAYGAG Project has been exhibited in:
- Múseo Games, une histoire à rejouer. Musée EDF Electropolis. Mulhouse: Apr 16, 2011.
- IX Magis Film Studies Spring School. Gorizia-Udine: Apr 14, 2011.
- 8th Seminar on the Origins and History of Cinema / Musel del Cinema. Girona: Apr 1, 2011.
- XIII AEHC Film Studies International Congress. Santiago de Compostela: Mar 11, 2011.
- University of Southern California / School of Cinematic Arts. Los Angeles: Sep 13, 2010.
- Múseo Games, une histoire à rejouer. Musée des Arts et Métiers. Paris: Jun 22, 2010.
- II AE-IC Communication International Congress. Málaga: Feb 5, 2010.
- Play Belgium International Conference. Brussels: Dec 22, 2009.
- The Tokyo University Of The Arts – Geidai / Film and New Media. Yokohama: Jun 13, 2009.
Manuel Garin // He works at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, where he teaches as assistant professor in Film and Media Studies. In 2008 he defended, within the Ph.D. Programme in Film Theory, Analysis and Documentation, his MFA dissertation: The visual gag: form, character, gameplay. He is currently finishing his doctoral thesis on the relations between audiovisual language and game forms, after having developed research stays at the Tokyo University of The Arts (2009) and the University of Southern California (2010). His research focuses on film history, game studies, sound analysis and forms of serial narration. //CONTACT
