The Sounds of Early Cinema Edited by RICHARD ABEL and RICK ALTMAN The Sounds of Early Cinema indiana university press Bloomington and Indianapolis This book is a publication of Indiana University Press 601 North Morton Street Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA http://iupress.indiana.edu Telephone orders 800-842-6796 Fax orders 812-855-7931 Orders by e-mail [email protected] © 2001 by Indiana University Press All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses’ Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Manufactured in the United States of America 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. Introduction Richard Abel and Rick Altman No play of the past season has contained a situation more thrilling than the reproduction of a parade of the Ninety-sixth Regiment French Cavalry. The soldiers march to the stirring tune of the “Marseillaise” and the scene stirred the audience to a pitch of enthusiasm that has rarely been equaled by any form of entertainment. The playing of the “Marseillaise” aided no little in the success of the picture. In the sham battle scene the noise and battle din created also added to the wonderful realism of the scene. A political argument and a street scene (children dancing to the strains of a hand-organ) were also excellent specimens of the work of the cinematographe [at Keith’s Bijou Theatre]. —Philadelphia Record, 11 August 1896 At the far end [of a nickelodeon on Sixth Avenue, in Manhattan] is situated what might be called the stage. Of course only a sheet is in evidence, which is not suspended from the top as in other places, but embedded in a sort of a wooden frame, surrounded by electric lights, giving the idea of a picture frame before the picture is in. Directly below the screen the entire orchestra is seated. This consists of only a piano and a drum, but it ¤lls the bill. —Views and Films Index, 25 April 1906 [At a London show] wonderfully realistic effects are introduced. In fact, two men are behind the screen doing nothing else but produce noises corresponding with events happening on the curtain. These effects absolutely synchronise with the movements, so that it is dif¤cult to believe that actual events are not occurring. —Kinematograph and Lantern Weekly, 24 October 1907 “It has always been my idea,” said Mr. Barrow [pianist at Harry Altman’s theater, 108th Street and Madison Avenue, in Manhattan], when seen by a FILMS INDEX reporter, “that the pianists who at present furnish the accompaniment for the majority of the picture shows fail to use suf¤cient judgment in their work. It seems to me as if the prevailing style of musical accompaniment to moving picture ¤lms is not the kind which might appeal to the very best class of people. Of course it is very true that the main object for which folks come to the shows is to see the pictures; but, to my way of thinking, the next important factor to good ¤lms is good music.” —Views and Films Index, 16 May 1908 Judging by the number of characters it requires, the enormous amount of work produced by the performers [behind the screen] and the particular attention it received from Mr. Dhavrol [manager of the Nationoscope in Montréal], next week’s talking picture is going to produce, we believe, a considerable impression, as the theatrical effects we will have a chance to admire in La Justice de Dieu [God’s Justice] have hardly been seen before. —La Presse, early November 1908 [At the Orpheum, in Chicago] the masterpiece was the Pathé Frères ¤lm, “The Violin Maker of Cremona.” . there the music was soft and appropriate. When Philippo, the poor wounded ¤ddler, plays a few notes to show that the violin is perfect, the orchestra stops, the violinist only plays a few sweet notes and stops as soon as the bow on the screen stops touching the violin strings. —Moving Picture World, 19 March 1910 We cite these selected remarks from the ¤rst ¤fteen years of cinema’s history to suggest how ubiquitous was the presence of sound in the so-called silent cinema, yet how equally diverse it was, from one historical moment and/or ex- hibition site to another. Until recently, sound (and its absence) has been rela- tively neglected by historians writing about early cinema, as they have focused on cinema’s development as a major mass culture industry, as a popular, sophis- ticated (and eventually respected) form of story-telling, or as a venue for mar- keting personalities (from stars to auteurs).1 That lack of attention, together with a growing awareness of sound’s signi¤cance, prompted Domitor—an in- ternational association of historians and archivists devoted to the study of early cinema (prior to 1915)—to make sound the subject of its ¤fth biannual confer- ence, hosted by the Motion Picture Division of the Library of Congress, Wash- ington, D.C., during the ¤rst week of June 1998.