"This is the problem with language, and this is what makes silent movies fun, because the connection with them, me or the audience is not with the language. There's no question of interpretation of what we are saying it's just about feeling. You create your own story"
About this Quote
Silent film, in his framing, bypasses that courtroom. It’s “fun” not because it’s quaint, but because it restores a purer contract between screen and viewer: image, rhythm, gesture, music. Instead of decoding lines, you’re reading faces and cuts. The “no question of interpretation” claim is deliberately provocative - of course images are interpretable - but he’s aiming at a different kind of interpretation: less semantic, more bodily. You don’t parse; you respond.
The subtext is a defense of cinema as its own language, one that doesn’t need to borrow legitimacy from literature or theater. Coming from Hazanavicius, the context is hard to miss: The Artist and its nostalgia for a pre-talkie era aren’t just aesthetic cosplay, they’re an argument about accessibility. Silent movies travel. They ask the audience to co-author, to “create your own story,” which is also a sly admission of risk: remove words and you lose control. He’s betting that surrendering control is where the magic lives.
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Hazanavicius, Michel. (2026, January 16). This is the problem with language, and this is what makes silent movies fun, because the connection with them, me or the audience is not with the language. There's no question of interpretation of what we are saying it's just about feeling. You create your own story. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/this-is-the-problem-with-language-and-this-is-88334/
Chicago Style
Hazanavicius, Michel. "This is the problem with language, and this is what makes silent movies fun, because the connection with them, me or the audience is not with the language. There's no question of interpretation of what we are saying it's just about feeling. You create your own story." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/this-is-the-problem-with-language-and-this-is-88334/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"This is the problem with language, and this is what makes silent movies fun, because the connection with them, me or the audience is not with the language. There's no question of interpretation of what we are saying it's just about feeling. You create your own story." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/this-is-the-problem-with-language-and-this-is-88334/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
