Movies, Songs, and Electric Sound

Movies, Songs, and Electric Sound PDF Author: Charles O'Brien
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253040426
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
How did the introduction of recorded music affect the production, viewing experience, and global export of movies? In Movies, Songs, and Electric Sound, Charles O’Brien examines American and European musical films created circa 1930, when the world’s sound-equipped theaters screened movies featuring recorded songs and filmmakers in the United States and Europe struggled to meet the artistic and technical challenges of sound production and distribution. The presence of singers in films exerted special pressures on film technique, lending a distinct look and sound to the films’ musical sequences. Rather than advancing a film’s plot, songs in these films were staged, filmed, and cut to facilitate the singer’s engagement with her or his public. Through an examination of the export market for sound films in the early 1930s, when German and American companies used musical films as a vehicle for competing to control the world film trade, this book delineates a new transnational context for understanding the Hollywood musical. Combining archival research with the cinemetric analysis of hundreds of American, German, French, and British films made between 1927 and 1934, O’Brien provides the historical context necessary for making sense of the aesthetic impact of changes in film technology from the past to the present.

Movies, Songs, and Electric Sound

Movies, Songs, and Electric Sound PDF Author: Charles O'Brien
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253040426
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 228

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Book Description
How did the introduction of recorded music affect the production, viewing experience, and global export of movies? In Movies, Songs, and Electric Sound, Charles O’Brien examines American and European musical films created circa 1930, when the world’s sound-equipped theaters screened movies featuring recorded songs and filmmakers in the United States and Europe struggled to meet the artistic and technical challenges of sound production and distribution. The presence of singers in films exerted special pressures on film technique, lending a distinct look and sound to the films’ musical sequences. Rather than advancing a film’s plot, songs in these films were staged, filmed, and cut to facilitate the singer’s engagement with her or his public. Through an examination of the export market for sound films in the early 1930s, when German and American companies used musical films as a vehicle for competing to control the world film trade, this book delineates a new transnational context for understanding the Hollywood musical. Combining archival research with the cinemetric analysis of hundreds of American, German, French, and British films made between 1927 and 1934, O’Brien provides the historical context necessary for making sense of the aesthetic impact of changes in film technology from the past to the present.

Electric Sounds

Electric Sounds PDF Author: Steve J. Wurtzler
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231136778
Category : Mass media
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
The 1920s and 1930s marked some of the most important developments in the history of the American mass media: the film industry's conversion to synchronous sound, the rise of radio networks and advertising-supported broadcasting, the establishment of a federal regulatory framework, and the birth of a new acoustic commodity in which consumers accessed stories, songs, and other products through multiple media formats. The innovations of this period not only restructured and consolidated corporate mass media interests while shifting the conventions of media consumption. They renegotiated the social functions assigned to mass media forms. In this impeccably researched history, Steve J. Wurtzler grasps the full story of sounds media, proving that the ultimate form technology takes is never predetermined but shaped by conflicting visions of technological possibility in economic, cultural, and political realms.

Electric Sound

Electric Sound PDF Author: Joel Chadabe
Publisher: Pearson
ISBN:
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
The author covers the development of the electronic musical instrument from Thaddeus Cahill's Telharmonium at the turn of the last century to the MIDI synthesizers of the 1990s. --book cover.

The Movie Musical

The Movie Musical PDF Author: Desirée J. Garcia
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 197880380X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
Putting Asian and European musicals into conversation with Hollywood classics like Singin’ in the Rain and La La Land, this study demonstrates the flexibility and durability of the genre. It explores how the movie musical mediates between nostalgia and technical innovation, while foregrounding the experiences of women, immigrants, and people of color.

A Companion to D. W. Griffith

A Companion to D. W. Griffith PDF Author: Charles Keil
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118341252
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
The most comprehensive volume on one of the most controversial directors in American film history A Companion to D.W. Griffith offers an exhaustive look at the first acknowledged auteur of the cinema and provides an authoritative account of the director’s life, work, and lasting filmic legacy. The text explores how Griffith’s style and status advanced along with cinema’s own development during the years when narrative became the dominant mode, when the short gave way to the feature, and when film became the pre-eminent form of mass entertainment. Griffith was at the centre of each of these changes: though a contested figure, he remains vital to any understanding of how cinema moved from nickelodeon fixture to a national pastime, playing a significant role in the cultural ethos of America. With the renewed interest in Griffith’s contributions to the film industry, A Companion to D.W. Griffith offers a scholarly look at a career that spanned more than 25 years. The editor, a leading scholar on D.W. Griffith, and the expert contributors collectively offer a unique account of one of the monumental figures in film studies. Presents the most authoritative, complete account of the director’s life, work, and lasting legacy Builds on the recent resurgence in the director’s scholarly and popular reputation Edited by a leading authority on D.W. Griffith, who has published extensively on this controversial director Offers the most up-to-date, singularly comprehensive volume on one of the monumental figures in film studies

A Companion to Early Cinema

A Companion to Early Cinema PDF Author: André Gaudreault
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1444332317
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 660

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Book Description
An authoritative and much-needed overview of the main issues in the field of early cinema from over 30 leading international scholars in the field First collection of its kind to offer in one reference: original theory, new research, and reviews of existing studies in the field Features over 30 original essays from some of the leading scholars in early cinema and Film Studies, including Tom Gunning, Jane Gaines, Richard Abel, Thomas Elsaesser, and André Gaudreault Caters to renewed interest in film studies’ historical methods, with strict analysis of multiple and competing sources, providing a critical re-contextualization of films, printed material and technologies Covers a range of topics in early cinema, such as exhibition, promotion, industry, pre-cinema, and film criticism Broaches the latest research on the subject of archival practices, important particularly in the current digital context

The Routledge Companion to Art Deco

The Routledge Companion to Art Deco PDF Author: Bridget Elliott
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429627408
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 475

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Book Description
Scholarly interest in Art Deco has grown rapidly over the past fifty years, spanning different academic disciplines. This volume provides a guide to the current state of the field of Art Deco research by highlighting past accomplishments and promising new directions. Chapters are presented in five sections based on key concepts: migration, public culture, fashion, politics, and Art Deco’s afterlife in heritage restoration and new media. The book provides a range of perspectives on and approaches to these issues, as well as to the concept of Art Deco itself. It highlights the slipperiness of Art Deco yet points to its potential to shed new light on the complexities of modernity.

A Companion to Jean Renoir

A Companion to Jean Renoir PDF Author: Alastair Phillips
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118325338
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 794

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Book Description
A Companion to Jean Renoir “An extraordinary collection of essays that more than fulfills the aims of its editors, Alastair Phillips and Ginette Vincendeau. The essays offer exciting, original work from younger scholars as well as long-established authorities, all of which offer invaluable insights into the films, writings, and life of Jean Renoir. Receiving particular attention are questions about the singularity or multiplicity of what the editors call the many ‘Renoirs’ (French, American, Indian; even transnational), especially from the early 1930s through the early 1960s. Whether mining relatively unexplored archive materials, deploying newly current methodological approaches, interrogating one of a wide range of topics and issues, or engaging in close textual analysis, the contributors construct a tantalizing series of innovative ‘road maps’ for future researchers to pursue.” Richard Abel, University of Michigan “Alastair Phillips and Ginette Vincendeau have brought together essays that bring new perspectives to both the best-known and the lesser-known of Renoir’s films. Both French cinema specialists and viewers new to Renoir’s work will find much of interest in this outstanding collection.” Judith Mayne, Ohio State University Dubbed simply “the best director”’ by François Truffaut, Jean Renoir is a towering figure in world film history. This exhaustive survey of his work and life features a comprehensive analysis of his films from the multiple critical perspectives of the world’s leading Renoir scholars. Renoir’s career spanned four decades and four countries and included an extraordinary body of films, some of which – La Grande illusion (1937) and La Règle du jeu (1939) – are universally recognized masterpieces. Fathered by the celebrated painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the filmmaker lived through much of the twentieth century, beginning his career in the silent era and ending it in full Technicolor. His films are notable for their paradoxical combination of strong internal coherence and thematic breadth and diversity, and they provide a rich source for today’s scholars of film history and French culture. This handbook, the largest volume on Renoir ever produced in the English language, ranges in scope from extreme close-up analysis of individual films to long-shot explorations of his aesthetics and the social and cultural contexts in which he worked. The most ambitious critical study of Renoir to date, this book will appeal to film enthusiasts as much as scholars and specialists.

More Movie Musicals

More Movie Musicals PDF Author: John Howard Reid
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 1411673425
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 261

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Book Description
Many of your favorite movie musicals are sure to be represented in this book. Classics like "Rose Marie" and "Calamity Jane" rub shoulders with "Artists and Models," "Babes on Broadway," "The Bohemian Girl," "The Inspector General" and "The Kid from Brooklyn." Bing and Bob are off on "The Road to Singapore," Eddie Cantor is involved in "Roman Scandals," while Mitzi Gaynor enjoys her stay in "South Pacific." Will Rogers, Jeanne Crain and Alice Faye all have a go in the various versions of "State Fair" and we catch Deanna Durbin in "Three Smart Girls," "Three Smart Girls Grow Up," "It Started with Eve" and "Something in the Wind." And that's just a small sampling of the wonders in store in "More Movie Musicals."

Saying It With Songs

Saying It With Songs PDF Author: Katherine Spring
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199844151
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Hollywood's conversion from silent to synchronized sound film production not only instigated the convergence of the film and music industries but also gave rise to an extraordinary period of songs in American cinema. Saying It With Songs considers how the increasing interdependence of Hollywood studios and Tin Pan Alley music publishing firms influenced the commercial and narrative functions of popular songs. While most scholarship on film music of the period focuses on adaptations of Broadway musicals, this book examines the functions of songs in a variety of non-musical genres, including melodramas, romantic comedies, Westerns, prison dramas, and action-adventure films, and shows how filmmakers tested and refined their approach to songs in order to reconcile the spectacle of song performance, the classical norms of storytelling, and the conventions of background orchestral scoring from the period of silent cinema. Written for film and music scholars alike as well as for general readers, Saying It With Songs illuminates the origins of the popular song score aesthetic of American cinema.