The Jazz Singer, an American musical film, was released in 1927, was the first feature-length movie with synchronized dialogue. It marked the ascendancy of “talkies” and the end of the silent-film era. Produced by Warner Bros. of Burbank, California with its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system, the movie starred Al Jolson, who performed six songs. The film, written by and starring Jewish Americans, focused on Jewish-American culture as well as American jazz.
Since the invention of cameras and the creation of motion pictures, the entertainment industry has continued to innovate how art and technology are used to bring stories to the big screen. As Hollywood began to ramp up production in the 1920s, advancements to cameras, film editing, and sound became defining points in the evolution of cinema. One of the most influential developments that changed everything from how films were shot to how background actors were used, was the introduction of talkies.
As sound proved instantly popular with European and American audiences, movie theatres all over the world began to invest in new audio equipment and leaving silent films behind. The shift happened in fits and starts, and long after audiences in America had become nostalgic for the silent era, the old movies were still playing in some of the less-travelled corners of the world. But by 1932 the vast majority of moving picture consumers had been won over by the ‘talkies.’
The advent of sound also encouraged the emergence of new film genres. The technical challenges of primitive sound recordings, combined with increasingly stringent self-censorship by Hollywood, encouraged the production of musicals and dialogue-heavy comedies and dramas, which gradually replaced the slapstick comedies and spectacles popular during the 1920s. Though some genres, such as westerns and serials, successfully made the shift from silent to sound, overall, this trend was to further differentiate the sound cinematic experience from what had come before it.
Intriguingly, as the sound grew more naturalistic, the visual element was allowed to become more unreal. Gradually the static camera assuming the position of a spectator in the center of the auditorium unmoors itself and begins to float free, assuming “impossible” angles, like overhead shots of the chorus line. And where the production numbers of 1929 mostly respect the actual dimensions of a theatre stage, by 1930 they had expanded into the non-Euclidean dream space that Busby Berkeley would soon be exploring so brilliantly. “It’s a Great Life” climaxes with a Technicolor production number, “Sailing on a Sunbeam,” that erases any sense of a proscenium, as giggling chorus girls glide down giant chutes in every direction.
- New York Times, 2010
Artistically, the early years of “the talkies” proved challenging, as filmmakers struggled with the imperfections of early recording technology and the limitations they imposed on filmmaking practice. But filmgoing remained popular in the United States even during the depths of the Great Depression, and by the early 1930s, a combination of improved technology and artistic adaptation led to such a marked increase in quality that many film historians regard the period to be the beginning of Hollywood’s Golden Era. With a new voluntary production code put in place to respond to criticism of immorality in Hollywood fare, the American film industry was poised by the early 1930s to solidify its prominent position in American cultural life.
Within a few years, however, things got better and by 1930 sound movies were as action-packed as the silent films had been. New, quiet cameras meant that cameramen could come out of those hot boxes and move their cameras around again, and microphones were modified to make it easier for the actors to move around while they talked. A new kind of film was invented where the sound recording was printed right onto the film itself, instead of being on a separate phonograph record. The sound was recorded as a squiggly pattern of light and dark, and it ran right alongside the pictures on the film. Audiences couldn't see the "soundtrack" on screen, but it now was easier for projectionists to keep the sound and picture in sync.
Even when sound movies got much better, however, one famous actor still chose never to speak in his movies. Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp remained silent, expressing his feelings not through his voice, but his eyes, face, body, and movement. For this reason, his stories continued to speak to the whole world, including people who were unable to hear, as he spoke in a language that everyone could understand.
Today, we might view silent films as archaic, but they embodied a high quality that is nearly impossible to appreciate now. Most movies from the silent film era are missing scenes or lack the original copy. Unfortunately, the age of silent films is an aspect of media history that is hard to study due to neglected footage.
As sad as it is to lose footage from the silent film era, we can still admire the remaining clips and observe them for their significant role in film history.
very well written ! loved it