Synopses & Reviews
and#147;
Film Rhythm after Sound is the most convincing demonstration Iand#8217;ve seen of how much Ezra Poundand#8217;s description of poetry ('form cut in time') applies to narrative cinema. Everyone knows that dramatic motion pictures rely on rhythm and pacing to hold our interest and stimulate emotion, but until this book we have had almost no tools to analyze rhythm across the many forms it takes in feature films. This book is a major achievement.and#8221;and#151;James Naremore, author of
An Invention without a Future: Essays on Cinema and#147;This brilliant investigation of experiments with rhythmic form in early sound cinema fills a major gap in our understanding of film aesthetics. Against the backdrop of a revisionist assessment of Eisensteinand#8217;s concept of rhythmic montage, Lea Jacobs explores the collaborative efforts of Hollywood directors, performers, screenwriters, composers, and editors in the 1930s to incorporate spoken dialogue and music into the formal design of synchronized sound films. In the process she invents nothing less than a new type of audiovisual analysis, one attentive to cinematic rhythm as a complex formal matter, irreducible to a single compositional principle or stylistic element and operating on multiple temporal scales. No existing study brings together an examination of acting, dialogue, music, and visual style in cinema in precisely this way. Film Rhythm after Sound will be of keen interest not only to film historians and analysts but also to scholars engaged with aesthetic issues across the performing arts.and#8221;and#151;Charles Wolfe, Professor of Film and Media Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
Review
and#8220;Iand#8217;ll start with a simple declarative statement: this is a brilliant book. If you care about the way that movies are made and experienced, you need to read it. Now.and#8221;
Review
"Finely tuned . . . Jacobs expertly analyzes the scores of early sound films, brilliantly opening up the experimental (and clever) use of rhythm, tempo, and sound effects.; This is a virtuoso performance on the cinematic art of tempo and rhythm."
Synopsis
The seemingly effortless integration of sound, movement, and editing in films of the late 1930s stands in vivid contrast to the awkwardness of the first talkies. Film Rhythm after Sound analyzes this evolution via close examination of important prototypes of early sound filmmaking, as well as contemporary discussions of rhythm, tempo, and pacing. Jacobs looks at the rhythmic dimensions of performance and sound in a diverse set of case studies: the Eisenstein-Prokofiev collaboration Ivan the Terrible, Disneyand#8217;s Silly Symphonies and early Mickey Mouse cartoons, musicals by Lubitsch and Mamoulian, and the impeccably timed dialogue in Hawksand#8217;s films. Jacobs argues that the new range of sound technologies made possible a much tighter synchronization of music, speech, and movement than had been the norm with the live accompaniment of silent films. Filmmakers in the early years of the transition to sound experimented with different technical means of achieving synchronization and employed a variety of formal strategies for creating rhythmically unified scenes and sequences. Music often served as a blueprint for rhythm and pacing, as was the case in mickey mousing, the close integration of music and movement in animation. However, by the mid-1930s, filmmakers had also gained enough control over dialogue recording and editing to utilize dialogue to pace scenes independently of the music track. Jacobsand#8217;s highly original study of early sound-film practices provides significant new contributions to the fields of film music and sound studies.
About the Author
Lea Jacobs is Professor of Film at the University of Wisconsinand#150;Madison and author of The Decline of Sentiment: American Film in the 1920s.
Table of Contents
List of Online Film Clips
Acknowledgments
1. Introduction: Film Rhythm and the Problem of Sound
2. A Lesson with Eisenstein: Rhythm and Pacing in Ivan the Terrible, Part I
3. Mickey Mousing Reconsidered
4. Lubitsch and Mamoulian
5. Dialogue Timing and Performance in Hawks
6. Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Filmography
Index