64 Moving Images: Making Movies, Understanding MediaSound and Motion Pictures
Another area in which motion pictures progressed during the years of the
silent cinema was in the use of sound. Although it seems very odd to talk
about sound with “silent fi lms,” it is important to note that the term “silent”
is quite misleading. Movies are a visual medium, but they are also a sonic
medium. Sound is at the core of the experience of motion pictures, and it
deserves ample consideration in any discussion of fi lm and video.
Films have been linked to sound right from their beginning. When
Dickson developed the early versions of the kinetograph, he was able to
produce primitive versions of motion pictures with matched sound using
the Edison phonograph. In the fi rst decade of the 1900s, hundreds of early
sound fi lms were made using the chronophone system of Gaumont and other
methods.Live Music and Voices
From their fi rst years, movies were screened with musical accompaniment, so
in fact virtually none of them were truly “silent.” Whether complemented by a
piano, an organ, or a full orchestra, movies have nearly always featured sound
as part of their artistry. In fact, a pianist was present at the fi rst screening of
the Lumière cinematograph, and many silent fi lms featured scores composed
specifi cally for their screening. In the late twentieth and early twenty-fi rst
centuries, there has been a revival of recording and composing for silent
fi lms, and a number of small and large musical ensembles have produced
music for early classics of the cinema.Figure 2-27 Buster Keaton
and friend in the MGM fi lm
The Cameraman, which
Keaton co-directed in 1928.
(Courtesy MGM/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).