Most silent films were accompanied by live music, ranging from a piano or an organ to a full orchestra. Sound effects were roughly matched to the screen action. In addition, from the cinema’s beginning, inventors attempted to join the image to mechanically reproduced sound, usually on phonograph records. These systems had little success before the mid-1920s, primarily because sound and image proved difficult to synchronize and because amplifiers and loudspeakers were inadequate for theater auditoriums.
The introduction of synchronized sound is usually dated from 1927, when Warner Bros. released the enormously successful The Jazz Singer. But the process of inventing and disseminating sound technology occurred at different rates in different countries and involved many competing systems and patents.
Sound had economic and technological implications, but it also affected style. Some critics and directors feared that extensive dialogue scenes in adapted plays would eliminate the flexible camera movements and editing of the silent era (see “Notes and Queries” at the end of this chapter). Most filmmakers soon realized, however, that sound, used imaginatively, offered a valuable new stylistic resource. In 1933, Alfred Hitchcock commented on the difference between musical accompaniment for silent films and musical scores in sound films: “I was greatly interested in music and films in the silent days, and I have always believed that the coming of sound opened up a great new opportunity. The accompanying music came at last entirely under the control of the people who made the picture.”' Now sound and image could be combined in predictable ways during production.
World History
