Comic strip and silent movies

Having red Tin Tin The Shooting Star, and having seen two Charles Chaplin silent movies, The Dictator and Pay Day, I notice many differences in the way I interpret and even relate to the story depending on the medium, and the role that words and imagery play.

First of all I believe that the nature of the medium modifies my experience of the story deeply.

 Having red since young comic strips, and specially Tin Tin, the story is for me more relatable, I could when younger but still can now put myself in the story and be in the location with the character. I think I can attribute this to the fact that since it’s a comic strip and that even thought it has a clear linear story line; the viewer can jump around the dialogues and illustrations, since the time is not pre determined, I sometimes find myself first reading the last conversation to then be curios about why is that conversation so and read the beginning after, creating many possibilities of wondering and theories in my mind that I could relate to, that not necessarily the writer was thing off. For example, in Tin Tin The Shooting Star, when the story is still being set, in page 10 the last illustration shows the professor surprised and asking Tin Tin if he likes bull’s eyes and Tin Tin being surprised by the question, showing a big question mark above his head. Since that part captured my eyes even thought it was the end of the page, I wondered how on earth this conversation happened and what was the relation between the shooting Star and the professor to Tin Tin liking Bull Eyes; if the shooting star related to the bulls eyes or if the professor did or if the earth quake mentioned earlier did; and so after creating theories in my head I went ahead and the previous part to find out how that conversation happened. I believe that the fact that comic strips have both words and picture but in a specific set up allow the viewer to move around the page in different ways creating more interpretations and theories relating it to the previous knowledge and experience.

On the other hand, the movie medium doesn’t really allow me to jump around that much and make my own theories, the time in which you experience the story is already pre determined by the filmmaker, and the viewer has no way of changing the timing of the story; on the other side, the silent film, which only consists in imagery and music gives me also more freedom on the interpretation and the creation of theories.

On the Pay Day short film, when the character comes back to the house after a long night out, and his wife finds him, we can see an expression on her face and via body language I can create an interpretation of what she says grumbling at him, but at the same time I don not know the words that are being said, I can put the words of my Mum in her mouth, as well as the words of my professor or my own words, I can also change the way the story is interpreted.

In this case the lack of words give me freedom of interpretation of the exact words said in a really relatable way.

As a conclusion I believe that the presence of words and imagery influences the way we experience and relate to the story. On one hand the comic book, including imagery and written text, gives me the opportunity to jump around each act and create my own theories, even thought there is no freedom of interpretation of what is being said or how it looks I find myself with wonders that makes me create theories involving myself to the story. And on the other hand, the silent movies does not have the aspect of free timing between its parts, but it does have the freedom of what is actually literarily being said, making it really relatable to my own experience and how things are said, and also making me wonder what they would have said in the mind of the author.