Through the eyes of the general public, the view might be that silent cinema has been dead for decades, if not already a full century. Granted, talkies have long been favoured over silent movies ever since the invention of the form, and we have not seen a mainstream movie go silent ever since The Artist took home the Oscar at the 84th Academy Awards. However, the very people who hold this viewpoint must only journey to Bo'ness for the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival to understand that this is far from the truth. Celebrating the festival's 15th anniversary, the queue around the block for HippFest's annual Laurel & Hardy double bill is all the proof you need to know that silent cinema is alive and well.
Among the crowd is a clear sense of community. A family of returning audiences and fresh faces. People of all genders, skin colours, and whatever else coming together and being accepted by one another, all for the same thing – a love of silent cinema and a trust in the festival to provide some damn good films and a safe space to enjoy them.
This same sense of community can be felt throughout the entire town. Littered with independently run stores, family-owned restaurants and some gorgeous art-deco architecture, Bo'ness encapsulates the identity of a traditional town where community was key and the entire economy thrived on the inhabitants supporting one another's businesses. Among these, most importantly is the cinema. The perfect leisure for the entire town to enjoy together at the end of a long working week. The ultimate communal experience. That very cinema that the entire town would congregate to over a hundred years ago is still standing today as Scotland's oldest purpose-built cinema and is the home of the festival itself, the Hippodrome.
Of course, the community which has built around the festival over the past fifteen years wouldn't be there without a good selection of films to choose from in the first place. Like every year, there are the mainstays of the festival such as the yearly Platform Reels screening, the annual Laurel & Hardy Double Bill, a Buster Keaton presentation, and a spotlight on a certain star or creative. This year's spotlight shone brightly on Alma Reville. Widely known for her work alongside Alfred Hitchcock, Reveille was a widely respected screenwriter and editor within the industry. In fact, upon accepting his AFI Lifetime Achievement Award in 1979, Hitchcock famously stated that he wanted to mention four of his greatest collaborators: his editor, his screenwriter, his wife, and the mother to his children, “and their names are Alma Reville”.
The first of two films selected to highlight the work of Alma Reville was Hitchcock's directorial debut, The Pleasure Garden, the beginning of the lengthy collaboration between the future husband and wife. More noteworthy, perhaps, is one of Alma's ventures without her husband, The Constant Nymph. Starring a silent-era Hitchcock regular in Ivor Novello, the picture was voted “Best British feature of 1928” and will undoubtedly be considered one of the best features of this year's festival by those that were in attendance for the screening.
Two of the more interesting screenings of this year's festival came in the form of the Swedish silent With Reindeer and Sled in Inka Länta's Winterland and the Chinese feature The Cave of the Spider Woman. In the case of the former, the film follows the lives of the Sámi people – the indigenous group which inhabits the region of Sápmi, encompassing northern areas of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia – this screening was also the world premiere of a new score for the film, played live by Sámi musicians alongside the feature. The latter is a novelty of equal proportions. The first-ever film adaptation of one of China's most beloved novels, Journey to the West, the film was considered lost for many years until 2011 when an incomplete version of the film was found. A bizarre feature in which Monkeys turn into women, women into spiders, and Monks remain celibate regardless of all the excitement. Regardless of your thoughts on the film, it's certainly one of the festival's more memorable presentations.
It was the closing night which offered the most wonderful screening of the entire festival, however. Undergoing somewhat of a renaissance, Hippfest's closing film Forgotten Faces has recently seen a brief engagement at the BFI in London as well as screenings all over the world at other silent film festivals. Released at a time when talkies were beginning to take over, Forgotten Faces was overlooked due to its silent film status and has remained a forgotten classic ever since (at the time of writing, the film currently only has eighty-four logs on Letterboxd). Anyone in attendance for the closing night of Hippfest can attest that it is an absolute tragedy that this film has gone under the radar for so long. Released at the peak of silent filmmaking, this picture is the perfect example of the spectacular visual storytelling for which the era is well known, with way ahead of its time camera work thanks to cinematographer J. Roy Hunt. There is one particular shot in the film's closing moments which may be reminiscent of a certain shot later used in one of the most famous films of all time, Hitchcock's Vertigo. A reminder that silent cinema, though no longer mainstream, continued to inspire filmmakers long after the talkies took over and is at the heart of moviemaking to this very day.
Modern audiences may prefer sound in their motion pictures, but for the film buffs out there, it is imperative to appreciate and to learn from the beginnings of film. As Steven Spielberg once said, those who love Tarantino, Scorsese or De Palma are only seeing a weak carbon copy of the filmmakers that came before them. Look even further, to your Hitchcock's or your John Ford's and you'll find that the same goes for them until, eventually, you find yourself studying the work of those who came before, who worked at the beginning of cinema, during the silent era. The fabric of contemporary filmmaking can be found in silent cinema, and the Hippodrome Silent Film Festival keeps the flame alive. This year's festival may be over, but if you're looking to feel inspired, Hippfest 2026 is the place to go.
Hippodrome Silent Film Festival took place 19-23 March
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