The Sounds of Early Cinema

344 Pages·2001·5.73 MB·English

The Sounds of Early Cinema

Edited by

R IC H A R D A BEL
and
R IC K A LTM A N
The Sounds of
Early Cinema
indiana university press
Bloomington and Indianapolis
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The sounds of early cinema / edited by Richard Abel and Rick Altman.
p. cm.
Selected papers, rev., of Domitor’s four-day Fifth Biennual Conference, hosted by the Motion Picture
Division of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C., during the ¤rst week of June 1998.
Papers in English; includes the original French texts of six papers in the appendix.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-253-33988-X (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-253-21479-3 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Silent ¤lms—History and criticism—Congresses. 2. Motion pictures—Sound effects—Congresses.
3. Motion pictures and music—Congresses. I. Abel, Richard, date II. Altman, Rick, date III. Domitor
Conference (5th : 1998 : Library of Congress)
PN1995.75 .S64 2001
791.43′024—dc21 2001001470
1 2 3 4 5 06 05 04 03 02 01
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction xi
Richard Abel and Rick Altman
part one: a context of intermediality
1. Early Phonograph Culture and Moving Pictures 3
Ian Christie
2. Doing for the Eye What the Phonograph Does for the Ear 13
Tom Gunning
3. Remarks on Writing and Technologies of Sound in
Early Cinema 32
Mats Björkin
4. “Next Slide Please”: The Lantern Lecture in Britain,
1890–1910 39
Richard Crangle
5. The Voices of Silence 48
François Jost
6. The Event and the Series: The Decline of Cafés-Concerts,
the Failure of Gaumont’s Chronophone, and the Birth of
Cinema as an Art 57
Edouard Arnoldy
part two: sound practices in production
7. Dialogues in Early Silent Screenplays:
What Actors Really Said 69
Isabelle Raynauld
8. The First Transi-Sounds of Parallel Editing 79
Bernard Perron
9. Sound, the Jump Cut, and “Trickality” in
Early Danish Comedies 87
John Fullerton
10. Setting the Pace of a Heartbeat: The Use of Sound
Elements in European Melodramas before 1915 95
Dominique Nasta
11. Talking Movie or Silent Theater? Creative Experiments by
Vasily Goncharov 110
Rashit M. Yangirov
part three: sound practices in exhibition
12. Sleighbells and Moving Pictures: On the Trail of
D. W. Robertson 121
Gregory Waller
13. The Story of Percy Peashaker: Debates about Sound Effects
in the Early Cinema 129
Stephen Bottomore
14. That Most American of Attractions, the Illustrated Song 143
Richard Abel
15. “The Sensational Acme of Realism”: “Talker” Pictures as
Early Cinema Sound Practice 156
Jeffrey Klenotic
16. “Bells and Whistles”: The Sound of Meaning in Train
Travel Film Rides 167
Lauren Rabinovitz
part four: spectators and politics
17. The Noises of Spectators, or the Spectator as Additive to
the Spectacle 183
Jean Châteauvert and André Gaudreault
18. Early Cinematographic Spectacles: The Role of Sound
Accompaniment in the Reception of Moving Images 192
Jacques Polet
19. Sounding Canadian: Early Sound Practices and Nationalism
in Toronto-Based Exhibition 198
Marta Braun and Charlie Keil
20. The Double Silence of the “War to End All Wars” 205
Germain Lacasse
part five: film music
21. Domitor Witnesses the First Complete Public Presentation of
the [Dickson Experimental Sound Film] in the Twentieth
Century 215
Patrick Loughney
22. A “Secondary Action” or Musical Highlight? Melodic Interludes
in Early Film Melodrama Reconsidered 220
David Mayer and Helen Day-Mayer
vi Contents
23. The Living Nickelodeon 232
Rick Altman
24. Music for Kalem Films: The Special Scores, with Notes on
Walter C. Simon 241
Herbert Reynolds
25. The Orchestration of Affect: The Motif of Barbarism in Breil’s
The Birth of a Nation Score 252
Jane Gaines and Neil Lerner
Appendixes: Original French Texts
Appendix A. Les Voies du silence 271
François Jost
Appendix B. L’Evénement et la série: le déclin du café-concert,
l’échec du Chronophone Gaumont et la naissance de l’art
cinématographique 279
Edouard Arnoldy
Appendix C. Les transi-sons du cinéma des premiers temps 289
Bernard Perron
Appendix D. Les bruits des spectateurs ou: le spectateur comme
adjuvant du spectacle 295
Jean Châteauvert et André Gaudreault
Appendix E. Le spectacle cinématographique des premiers temps :
fonctions des accompagnements sonores dans la réception des
images animées 303
Jacques Polet
Appendix F. Le double silence de la “dernière” guerre 309
Germain Lacasse
Contributors 317
Index 321
Contents vii

Acknowledgments
Domitor, the Motion Picture and Recorded Sound Division of the Library of
Congress, and the Center for the Humanities at Drake University provided
funding for critical stages of this book’s production.
The Executive Committee of Domitor, presided over ¤rst by Paolo Cherchi
Usai and then by Tom Gunning, offered steadfast encouragement throughout
the editing process.
Joan Catapano’s strong support was crucial to our contract negotiations with
Indiana University Press; Michael Lundell and Jane Lyle ensured that the pro-
duction process would be ef¤cient and assured; Carol Kennedy achieved an un-
usual degree of consistency in copyediting the texts of twenty-¤ve different
authors; and Lynne Nugent diligently combed through those texts to compile
the index.