_the pickford paradox_

Once upon a time in the west, Mary Pickford said:

«It would have been more logical if silent pictures had grown out of the talkie instead of the other way around»

Would it be possible to look backwards, to silent cinema, as a privileged platform for comparative media? Isn’t the passion for early film, with its inventive and differential visuality, a powerful resource to better understand today’s changes in video games and new media?