This volume takes a fresh look at the various aesthetics emerging globally in the early sound film era, with a focus on the films’ fundamentally experimental and inventive character. By considering films and production contexts often neglected in film studies, it strives to counter the still dominant view of the transitional period as a time of yet-to-be-perfected forerunners of ‘classical’ sound film. Instead, authors highlight the sense of ‘fruitful uncertainty’ in this period of media change and transformation. Subjects covered include visual and auditory style; the uses of speech, music, and noises; aesthetic conceptions in sound film theory; and intermedial aesthetics. The volume’s scope is decidedly international, covering production and reception contexts in the Soviet Union, Japan, the USA, Germany, France, Italy, the UK, and Switzerland.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- 1. The Aesthetics of Early Sound Film: An Introduction
- I. From Silence to Sound
- 2. Dialogue Scenes in the Period of Multiple-Camera Shooting
- The Example of Arrowsmith
- 3. Expressive Visual Effects from Silent to Sound Film
- 4. From the Lexigraphic to the Melomanic
- Accommodations to Sound in American Studio Animation
- II. From Theory to Practice
- 5. “To Select, To Organize, To Sharpen”
- Rouben Mamoulian, Sound Film Theory, and Applause
- 6. Futurists and ‘Homogenizers’ in Early Soviet Sound Film
- III. National Contexts
- 7. Early Japanese Sound Film Aesthetics at Shochiku and Nikkatsu
- 8. Early Sound Films in France: Contexts and Experiments
- 9. Reporters, Radio Waves, and the Dispersed Audience
- Staging the Radio in Early German Sound Cinema
- IV. Speech and Language
- 10. Talking Photographs
- The Speaking Subject in Anglophone Newsreel and Documentary (1927–1936)
- 11. Die Nacht gehört uns/La nuit est à nous and Multilingual Reception in Switzerland
- 12. The Mimetic Attempt of Multiple Versions
- Language, Voice, and Transcultural Talkies (1929–1932)
- V. Music and Noise
- 13. “How Did the Music Get to the Fish Market?”
- On the Use of Nondiegetic Music in Early German Sound Films
- 14. The Sounds of War: Reflections on WWI Films of 1930
- 15. Urban Noise in the Early Italian Sound Film Gli uomini, che mascalzoni …
- General Bibliography
- Index
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