by the same author FILM by Rudolf Arnheim translated by Margaret Ludwig and Herbert Read RADIO Faber & Faber Ltd 24 Russell Square London First Publishedin April Mcmxxxvi by Faber and Faber Limited 24 Russell Square London W. C.1 Printed in Great Britain by R. MacLehose and Company Limited The University Press Glasgow AllRi ghts Reserved Contents TO THE AMERICAN READER OF THE NEW EDITION page 7 INTRODUCTION page 15 1. THE IMAGERY OF THE EAR page 21 2. THE WORLD OF SOUND page 27 First the sound and then the word-A new art of sound-Na­ tural sounds and music-Music as a medium of expression­ Use with speech and sounds-Music as romantic expression­ Natural sounds-Grouping of types of voices. 5. DIRECTION AND DISTANCE page 52 Hearing direction in nature-Absence of spatial direction in wireless-Consequences in practice-Hearing distance-Hear­ ing movement-Offences distance: proximity-Tete-a-tete-Microphone music-Dis­ tance as a mode of conjiguration-Movement as expression. 4. SPATIAL RESONANCE page 95 Combination of several spaces-When should there be no reson­ ance?-Whathappens to a sound in space? 5. SEQUENCE AND JUXTAPOSITION page 105 Sections of time and space-Scene-changing-Demarcation by contrast-Demarcation bycontent-The interval-Fadingand superimposition-Imposing a similar sound-Is montage to be recommended?-Documentary mosaics-What goes together? -Sound-effects 6. THE NECESSITY OF RADIO-FILMpage 126 Film recording-Use of the effects-table-Obstruction of the artist. 5 Contents 7. IN PRAISE OF BLINDNESS: EMANCI- PATION FROM THE BODY page 155 (i) Against using imagination-Ineffective bodiless announcer-Music without musicians-Action and background-Dramatic economy-Exposition-Noises. (ii) Dialogue and monologue-Abstract figures, symbols, personi­ fiCations-Voices without bodies-Essential fo rm of radio drama-In defence of the announcers. 8. AUTHOR AND PRODUCER page 204- 9. THE ART OF SPEAKING TO EVERY- BODY page 211 Addr.essing the hearer-Making oneself understood-Impro­ vising. 10. WIRELESS AND THE NATIONS page 226 Dethronement of space-Le temps. du monde jini commence­ Armaments in the ether-Broadcasting and the state-Liberal broadcasting-Broadcasting and the spirit of unity-Creating a community-Monopoly stations-Central and regional stations. ? 11. PSYCHOLOGY OF THE LISTENER page 258 The passive standardised man-Art and science in the home­ Self-discipline-Learning how to be rich-The hermit at the loudspeaker. 12. TELEVISION page 276 Not an independent mode of expression-Broadcasting will be­ come documentary-The use offilm-Producers and officials -Television-reportage. INDEX page 289 6 I- 155 To the American Reader of the New Edition 204- his book on radio, just as an earlier one on the art and psychology of the film;was written when its sub­ EVERY- 211 ject seemed about to go out of existence. In the 1930's, Tit looked as though radio, by acquiring sight through the development of television, would soon be a closed 226 chapter of the past, just as the pictures of the silent film had been expected to lose much of their visual symbolism when the actors became able to communi­ cate by speech. Indeed, my attempts to praise the vir­ tues of radio and film may have come from a conserva­ tive disposition to guard the accomplishments of 8 vanishing arts. However, the following decades showed that sound without image and image without sound satisfied such basic human needs that they would not simply be dis­ 276 placed when television and the talking film endowed popular spectacles, with a more complete sensory presence. Speech and music have a completeness of 289 their own, and so do moving images. T.he words of the story-teller or the poet, the voices of dialogue, the 7 Preface arguments of the thinker, the complex sounds of music conjure up worlds of experience and thought that are easily disturbed by the undue addition of visible things. Therefore, in one form or another, they have been allowed to continue to act as pure sounds through the ages. And the direct expression of visual images has continued to provide the motion picture with its most powerful effects, all the talking notwithstanding. Speech and music are still the proper domain of radio, whereas they are in many ways an unconquer­ able embarrassment to television. The disembodied voices of invisible newscasters or participants in panel discussions serve their purpose so much more intelli­ gently than the sight of earnest gentlemen on the screen reading from pieces of paper or perching uncom­ fortably on their chairs while awaiting their turn. ' Similarly, televised musicians more often than not intrude with their unwarranted presence on the sounds they produce. However, while allowing the listener to concentrate on s!,eech and sound, radio also encourages the mind to wander. Since sound follows the listener wherever he turns, radio tends to become the auditory foil of daily occupations, attracting sporadic attention, but not really commanding its audience. This is particularly true for our young people, who work and play in an aquarium of melancholy screams, tribal beats, and 8 Preface chatter. "We turn on the radio to tune into the flow of existence," writes the editor of the Harvard Crimson's radio supplement; and he observes, without apparent regret, that this flow of sound supplies his life with the sense of a forward direction which "in those safe pre­ industrial revolution days" a person used to derive from what his work had accomplished that morning. He also mentions as a historical curiosity that "in, let's say, the thirties somewhere, people used to gather their families and pay full attention to their radios." The "thirties" -that is the time when the present book was written. It could not claim new readers today if by now radio were nothing better than a drug among drugs. But this is not so. In Europe especially, where radio has always been used more deliberately as a cul­ tural instrument, many programs still call for the full attention of an active audience. Particularly relevant is the continued development of the radio play, whose potential I analyzed in this book on the basis of the early experiments. In commenting on an anthology of such plays, Hansjorg Schmitthenner reports that be­ tween 1927 and 1962 some two hundred radio plays were published in Germany, most of them after 1945, in editions totalling several hundred thousand copies; and that a British bibliography also lists about two hundred titles for a similar period. 'I'he BBC in par­ ticular has continued to cultivate the radio play through 9 Preface commissions that have enlisted the cooperation of such writers as Dylan Thomas, Louis MacNeice, Richard Hughes, and Tyrone Guthrie. Not unexpectedly, the best of these plays derive their style from the particular characteristics inherent in a medium of pure sound. Michel Butor, in an article, "Literature, the Ear and the Eye" (Repertoire III, 1968), writes: The experience of working for the radio, where the sound qualities of language predominate, . -.f�, leads one to consider the text of a broadcast as a ' musical score. One is compelled to note not only \' �"o \\> ' e sequenc of words but the ways in which rif.,{' :�, / th ;s these words follow arid overlap each other; and one must refine one's sensitivity, much more than the traditional theatre required, for intonations, tempi, intensities, pitches. Through the ages, musicians have done an enormous amount of work in this respect; Mallarme thought that it was time for literature to retrieve its own from music and attempted himself to do a score-book -the an­ cestor pf our own experiments. Butor himself provides a pertinent example in his Reseau Aerien of 1962, a kind of speech oratorium in which five pairs of voices, in changing combinations, recite six-line dialogues in the sort of terse, poetical lan­ guage that has become typical of many literary radio 10 ,. Preface plays since Bertolt Brecht used it in The Flight of the Lindberghs. Furthermore, the easy shift from place to place and through distances of time has increasingly favored themes totally free of spatial and temporal limitations. Logical rather than geographical coher· ence, the unreal mingling of dream figures, the vocal presence of fantastic creatures or Gods or personifica­ tions, have made of the radio play a successful medium not only for didactic poems such as Brecht's The Trial of Lucullus, but also for the spooky fables of a Dur­ renmatt or the playful absurdities of an lonesco. \\f.,{' �"o :�, This fulfillment of possibilities forecast years ago encourages me to make this book again available. First published in London in 1936, it soon went out of print; the same was true for an Italian edition published by Ulrico Hoepli in 1938. There is no way now of bring­ ing it up to date without destroying or replacing it. The analysis of the psychological and artistic properties of radio as a medium has, I am persuaded, stood the test of time, and the quaintness of the rest may serve as an historical reminder of what those early days did to radio and what radio did to them. * *The original edition of this book contained a number of photographs not referred to in the text but added by the publisher in order to supply glimpses of what broadcasters, studios, and audiences were like at the time. By now the pictures look quai fit and are hardly in­ formative. I have therefore suggested that they be omitted from the present reprint. 11 Preface· The new edition also pays a debt of gratitude to the late Sir Herbert Read. Always eager to champion new forms.