History of the Hollywood Musical

• Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer (the first "talkie," 1927)
• Busby Berkeley (1930s)
• Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (later 1930s)
• MGM: the Arthur Freed unit (1940s and 1950s)
• Dancers: Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse
• Directors: Vincente Minnelli, Stanley Donen
• Lavish production values, in Technicolor
• Integration of musical numbers into plot and character development
• Nonetheless, there are also standalone quasi-narrative dance sequences
• Decline of the musical in the 1960s and 1970s
• Recent revival of the genre (Moulin Rouge, Chicago, Dreamgirls)

Singin' in the Rain: Techniques of the Musical

• Visibility of the technologies of sound reproduction
• Where to hide the microphone?
• Need to capture sound from all directions
• Early technical problems with film sound
• Dubbing, synchronization, etc.
• Re-recording in the studio, matching lips to sounds
• Lina (Jean Hagen) up front, Kathy (Debbie Reynolds) behind the curtain
• Multiple levels of the relation between sound and image
• Relation of sound to motion (the dance numbers)

Singin' in the Rain: Spectacle and Themes

• Problem of the voice: Jean Hagen's comic performance as Lina Lamont
• Contrapuntal sound: initial narration by Don Lockwood (Gene Kelly), accompanied by flashback
• Soundstage artifice: when Don woos Kathy Selden (Debbie Reynolds)
• Performance as artifice: Cosmo Brown (Donald O'Connor), "Make 'Em Laugh"
• Body as expression (Gene Kelly, "Singin' in the Rain" number)
• Ballet: the "Broadway Melody" number (Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse)

Basic Elements of Film Sound

• Speech and the Human Voice
• Onscreen Dialogue
• Offscreen voices
• Voiceover, Narration, etc.
• Music
• Diegetic Music
• Background Music (non-diegetic)
• Use of music in Musicals
• Noise and Sound Effects
• Naturalistic
• Exaggerated

Relations of Sound and Image

• How does sound relate to image?
• Does the sound merely accompany, or support, the image?
• Or are sound and image of equal weight?
• Continuity of sounds and continuity of images
• How do sounds and images relate to their sources?
• The image is a (2D) copy, separate from the (3D) thing of which it is an image
• But, even when we listen to a recording, we hear actual sounds, rather than just copies of the sounds

Sources of Film Sound

• Synchronous (onscreen) vs.asynchronous (offscreen) sound (relates to the use of offscreen space)
• Parallelism vs.counterpoint of sound to image
• Diegetic vs. nondiegetic sound
• DIEGESIS = the world of the film's story, the world of the narrative
• DIEGETIC = existing in the world of the film's story
• Most movie music is nondiegetic, because we hear it but the characters in the world of the film don't
• Ambiguity regarding the source of the sound (e.g. the trumpets of the Cavalry in Stagecoach first seem to be non-diegetic, but then turn out to be diegetic)
• Intermediate cases: semi-diegetic, or internal diegetic sound
• Are voiceovers spoken by a character in the film diegetic or not? (are they internal monologue? or narration to audience?)
• Cf. the case of William Holden in Sunset Boulevard, telling us his story even though he is dead

History of Film Sound

• Traditions of musical theater, from ancient Greek drama through 19th-century opera, melodrama, and vaudeville
• Musical accompaniments to "silent" film
• Introduction of sound film: The Jazz Singer (Warner Bros., October 1927)
• Period of transition (1927-1931)
• Early sound effects, influence of radio (Orson Welles, Citizen Kane, 1941)
• Stereophonic sound (1950s)
• Dolby sound, surround sound, multi-channel sound (1970s)
• Multi-track recording: Robert Altman, Nashville (1975)
• Multiple speakers in theater: Francis Ford Coppola, Apocalypse Now (1979)
\item Digital sound (1990s)

Techniques of Film Sound

• Importance of sound design
• Sound recording on the set, simultaneous with shooting
• Postproduction sound editing, along with image editing
• Introduction of sound effects (foley), music, etc.
• Postsynchronous sound (as opposed to natural sound)
• Looping, re-recording, automated dialogue replacement
• Final sound mixing, once the image track is complete
• Our sense of the scene is largely guided by the sound (example: Jim Jarmusch, Stranger than Paradise, 1984)

Voice in Film

• Importance of human speech and dialogue
• Sound perspective: apparent distance of the sound source
• Most film dialogue remains close -- even when the visuals are not close-ups
• Alternative: use of overlapping dialogue, at various distances (e.g. Robert Altman, Nashville, 1975)
• Uncanny, inhuman voices (e.g. HAL in Stanley Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968)
• Voice-off: offscreen, but within the diegesis (e.g. Robert Aldrich, Kiss Me Deadly, 1955)
• Voiceover: not heard within the diegesis -- often used for narration
• Synchronization: it appears ``natural,'' but it is in fact manufactured in the editing room
• Most natural-sounding dialogue is in fact post-synchronized

Sound Effects

• Sound effects usually seem `"natural" or "realistic"...
• ...But they are among the most carefully manufactured elements of film: constructed, rather than reproduced
• Density of sound effects in recent Hollywood films, compared to older films
• Sound effects help to give an impression of depth (three-dimensionality)
• Deliberate exaggerations of various sonic elements (traffic, gunshots, etc.)

Film Sound: Examples
Akira Kurosawa, Seven Samurai (1954)

The final battle scene

• Constant background noise of wind and rain
• Conversation and preparations, interrupted by pauses
• Sound perspective: approaching horses' hooves; bandits' battle cries
• The battle itself: abrupt sounds punctuating the action
• Gunshot

Film Sound: Examples
Psycho, shower scene

• Without the sound, how intelligible is the image editing?
• Diegetic sound (toilet, shower) at start and end of sequence
• The attack: Bernard Herrmann’s score
• Shrieking, staccato violins, overwhelming the diegetic sound of Marion’s screams
• Change to low bass after attacker leaves
• Diegetic sound only, during the concluding camera movements

Film Sound: Examples
Jacques Tati, Playtime, 1967

• Sound and material objects
• Walking on various surfaces
• Everyday objects (chairs, household appliances; cf. also the silent slammed door at the trade show)
• Ambient sound (traffic and other sounds of the city, as well as speech)
• Sound and gadgetry (the intercom system, the trade show)
• Buzzing of neon signs (e.g. outside the restaurant)
• Sound and space
• Sound and distance (Hulot waits for man to approach down corridor)
• Significance of glass (muffling sound; separating sound from sight; misleading reflections; Hulot breaks glass door)
• Role of diegetic music in remolding space (in the restaurant)