Film Sound

Elisabeth Weis is professor of film at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and executive director of the National Society of Film Critics. She has written or edited books on sound, comedy, and star acting. John Belton is professor of English and film at Rutgers University and the author of five books, including Widescreen Cinema, winner of the Kraszna-Krausz prize for books on the moving image, and American Cinema/American Culture, a textbook accompanying the PBS series American Cinema. He has also edited three books, including Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, and is associate editor of the journal Film History.

An extremely useful and wide-ranging collection of essays devoted to a topic often ignored or taken for granted by visually-dominated studies of the moving picture... -- Gerald Mast, University of Chicago Both comprehensive in its choice of readings and creative in its editorial approach... Film Sound, as well as being an eminent introduction to the writings in the field, forcefully demonstrates the need for the study of the media to be both textually and institutionally grounded, and both theoretically and historically informed. -- Richard Allen Framework Indispensable... [a] superb collection of essays... An important contribution to our literature on film theory and practice and... necessary reading for anyone interested in the art and the practice of filmmaking. Journal of Popular Film and Television Film Sound is a pleasure to read. In addition, the book's general organization and range of selections present an accurate summary of the development of film sound and attitudes toward it from the late twenties to the eighties. For anyone interested in finding ways out of the present theoretical confusion, Film Sound is an excellent place to start. Film Quarterly Convincingly suggests that an exciting new field has been opened up, one that may well come to determine the way we look at the cinema as a whole... [Film Sound] pays attention to the new technologies as they affect not only the cinema but also how we come to view its history. Sight and Sound

• Part 1. History, Technology, and Aesthetics Introduction The Coming of Sound: Technological Change in the American Film Industry, by Douglas Gomery Economic Struggle and Hollywood Imperialism: Europe Converts to Sound, by Douglas Gomery Film Style and Technology in the Thirties: Sound, by Barry Salt The Evolution of Sound Technology, by Rick Altman Ideology and the Practice of Sound Editing and Mixing, by Mary Ann Doane Technology and Aesthetics of Film Sound, by John Belton Part II: Theory Section 1: Classical Sound Theory A Statement, by S. M. Eisenstein, V. I. Pudovkin, and G. V. Alexandrov Asynchronism as a Principle of Sound Film, by V. I. Pudovkin The Art of Sound, by Rene Clair Manifesto: Dialogue on Sound, by Basil Wright and B. Vivian Braun Sound in Films, by Alberto Cavalcanti A New Laocoon: Artistic Composites and the Talking Film, by Rudolph Arnheim Theory of Film: Sound, by Bela Balazs Dialogue and Sound, by Siegfried Kracauer Slow-Motion Sound, by Jean Epstein Section 2: Modern Sound Theory Notes on Sound, by Robert Bresson Direct Sound: An Interview with, by Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet Aural Objects, by Christian Metz The Voice in the Cinema: The Articulation of Body and Space, by Mary Ann Doane Part III: Practice Section I: Practice and Methodology Fundamental Aesthetics of Sound in the Cinema, by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson On the Structural Use of Sound, by Noel Burch Section 2: Pioneers The Movies Learn to Talk: Ernst Lubitsch, Rene Clair, and Rouben Mamoulian, by Arthur Knight American Sound Films, 1926-1930,, by Ron Mottram Applause: The Visual and Acoustic Landscape, by Lucy Fischer Enthusiasm: From Kino-Eye to Radio Eye, by Lucy Fischer Lang and Pabst: Paradigms for Early Sound Practice, by Noel Carroll The Voice of Silence: Sound Style in John Stahl's Back Street, by Martin Rubin Section 3: Stylists Orson Welle's Use of Sound, by Penny Mintz The Evolution of Hitchcock's Aural Style and Sound in The Birds, by Elisabeth Weis The Sound Track of The Rules of the Game, by Michael Litle Sound in Bresson's Mouchette, by Lindley Hanlon Godard's Use of Sound, by Alan Williams Section 4: Contemporary Innovators Altman, Dolby, and the Second Sound Revolution, by Charles Schreger Sound Mixing and Apocalypse Now: An Interview with Walter Murch, by Frank Paine The Sound Designer, by Marc Mancini Sound and Silence in Narrative and Nonnarrative Cinema, by Fred Camper