Week 2 part 1 of 4
Sound Comes to Cinema
From the very origins of cinema film makers tried to joint sound and
image. In August of 1926 Warner Brothers debuted with the vidaphone, which was the first commercially,
viable method for connecting sound to image. In the other hand, in September of
1929, major studios were producing exclusively sound film. After four years, in
1932 conversion of cinema theatres was completed, they were all wired for sound. As soon as producers
decided to ditch silent cinema they did it lucidly, completely and smoothly. Warner Brothers was a small company
that was seeking for innovation. They wanted to use sound as a way to compete
with the big silent film companies. Therefore, they used a movie called Don Juan and jointed it with a prerecorded
orchestra. In that time sound was not the main attraction, but it helped to
support the Silent Film. The next step was to incorporate these short sound
films into silent films; these were called part-talkies.
The most famous part-talkie is The
Jazz Singer from 1927, which
included intertitles, silent film characteristic acting and some singing
performances. In 1929, Applause was performed for the first time. It was directed by Rouben
Mamouilian, who was born in Russia and went to the U.S.A. in the 20’s; he was considered
a very important person of the musical stage. The film was starred by Helen
Morgan, who was a great theatre performer and know was able to be seen in films.
He didn’t want to make stage films; he was worried about losing all the beauty
of silent film with this new technology. Although he didn’t wanted to film a
play; he said “talking pictures to know have been really substitutes, they have
been staged imitations, mirrors of acted plays and that is not their purpose.
They should be motion pictures, always using the old motion techniques but
substituting dialogue for titles.” He worked very hard to make his version of
sound film as lithe and as visually
moving and expressive as Silent Cinema. He was interested in keeping film fluid
and visually expressive, however he coveted
with maintaining the good old style. The potential possibilities of the talking
picture lied in keeping the advantages of the silent cinema features with the
added use of sound that will make it so much richer.
