Silent protagonist
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
A silent protagonist is a central character who does not verbally interact with other characters within a story's narrative.
Contents |
In theater
In the Commedia dell'arte
Harlequin is an archetypical silent protagonist in the commedia dell'arte.
In improv
Many improv techniques are based on the silent protagonist
In modern theater
In Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, the title character can be considered a virtual character in the play. As such, he is naturally a silent one too.
In film
Although it is more common for silent protagonists to appear in video games, there have been occasional silent protagonists in film. Examples are silent films, and slapstick characters such as Monsieur Hulot of Jaques Tati's movies continued the tradition despite sound came. Other characters took inspiration from Mr. Hulot such as Mr. Bean. However they all do actually speak but do so very seldom. Other examples includes Silent Bob of Jay and Silent Bob, Todd in the 1998 film Soldier, Spike from The Land Before Time films, or the protagonist Igarashi, in the Japanese film Blessing Bell . There are also protagonists who as something that prevents them from speaking i.e. muteness such as Silence in Corbucci's The Great Silence and Ryu in Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance or being an alien, like Joe Morton in The Brother From Another Planet.
In the silent movies
All protagonsits in silent movies are by definition silent. This naturally has a profound effect on how characters act.
See also
