Moving Images, Understanding Media

100 Moving Images: Making Movies, Understanding Media

this time as movies increased in length and required character development

and story structure that warranted longer running times.

With the arrival of spoken dialogue in fi lms, characters could be defi ned

not only by how they acted and looked but by the words that came out of

their mouths. Since actors needed lines to be spoken during the production

of fi lms, screenwriting took on a new role in moviemaking. During the silent

cinema, writing had developed some consideration as a craft , and there were

screenwriting books, competitive awards, and advertising for writers. As

sound fi lms became the norm, strategies for composing cinematic dialogue

and screenwriting standards took on a more crucial signifi cance for the

studios.

Yet again, Singin’ in the Rain amply demonstrates consequences of

the integration of sound in motion pictures. While making a new “talkie,”

the actors improvise insipid lines as they have in the past. During the

first screening of their newly completed sound movie, the audience

erupts in boisterous, unintended laughter when Gene Kelly’s character

melodramatically delivers horrible dialogue. Clearly, the time had arrived

to bring in writers who could pen eff ective dialogue, whether dramatic or

intentionally comic.

In fact, the central plot of the movie revolves around another aspect of

the arrival of sync sound: the quality of actors’ voices. In the fi lm, actress Lina

Lamont possesses a grating voice whose overwhelming Brooklyn accent is

not particularly suited to roles such as one set during the French revolution.

Problematic speaking and singing voices were an issue for a number of silent

fi lm stars, as well as the fact that acting talent now had to include the full

range of abilities necessary for spoken performance.

Figure 3-18 Actor John

Turturro playing a playwright

struggling in Hollywood in

Barton Fink by the Coen

Brothers. (Courtesy 20th

Century Fox/Photofest)

Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).