The Power of an Image

When I walked out of class yesterday, I couldn't stop thinking about the first couple of films we watched, specifically Sand Castle. The thing that really struck me was how amazing it is that we have the ability to tell and entire story without words; the closest thing to words was the mumbling sound  each of the characters made. When you think about it, it goes against our idea of telling a story. When someone asks me to tell a story, the first thing I think to do is use descriptive words that are exciting and draw in the listener/reader/viewer. In reality, when it comes to a film, a film is only as good as the story is before there are words added to it. Words are put in the enhance, but the image itself should be the power behind them. An overused, but worthy, example of a wordless story is the Mona Lisa. Everyone asks about her smile and what it's saying. Of course, like in this case, the story isn't always obvious, but it's there, and a good one nonetheless. I am reminded of Buechner, when he said that silence can be the greatest truth sometimes.