The silent era of cinema isn’t always the easiest sell to casual movie fans. There’s a nasty rumor that silent film equals boring film, and that’s just a notion born through a lack of exposure. Alfred Hitchcock called silent films the “purest form of cinema” and everything thereafter “pictures of people talking.”

I won’t discount, however, the perceived barrier to entry. There’s truth in the notion that viewing a silent film requires more active participation on the part of the viewer. Silents absolutely require your attention. They require you to put away your small screens (not a bad thing, you know) and devote 90-some minutes to flickering images. Once you submit yourself to the experience, you’ll be duly rewarded with a new understanding of the earliest building blocks of cinema and a fresh respect for film as a visual art form.