I found it interesting what Andre Bazin had to say about the introduction to sound in cinema. Like the introduction of any new technology, it was looked at with apprehension. People that are so used to one method of doing something are obviously going to have a tough time accepting a revolution of established technique. However, like Bazin said, sound did not come to destroy the established cinema, but to fulfill its prophecy. He refers later to how there is a dividing line that held cinema back from seeming realistic, and that was the barrier of sound. When this was introduced, cinema did not die, because the cinema in place wasn’t the sole representation of the art form. Art is an organic, living, breathing institution that builds upon what has been accomplished in the past through inspiration and technological innovation. The ultimate goal is to represent the world as we perceive to the best of our abilities, in order to convey messages or purely out of the desire to portray narrative. Sound allows narrative to become more complex and adds many stylistic options to the creation of a story. I would say that introduction of sound in cinema is tantamount to the introduction of color in its effect on progressing towards realism.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Sound in the Bazin Reading
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I agree with the post. I believe that most people thought that technology would "destory" what cinema had already become. instead of accepting what positives sound and technology could possibly most tended to only think of the negatives and how it would change the way we saw cinena. Something that stood out to me in the article was "everything that the representation on the screen adds to the object there represented." To me that meant taht cinema for years had already been represented! There wasnt anything that was going to take away from what was already there. Instead things would add to it. And I think that's what Bazin was trying to get across to the readers.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this post as well. I think at the time sound was introduced, people did not completely understand these new technology and were nervous of what it would do to established form of art, like the cinema. As the post above quotes: everything that the representation on the screen adds to the object there represented," can be true in some cases, such as the cinema. It is understandable to see how people may have been scared that an introduction of a new technique could somehow taint a current art form, since adding soemthing to a painting or a novel could potentially away from it. But with film, adding sound only allows the representation on screen to more accurately represent life, or a world where people and other creatures could actually exist with elements, like sound, that should exist there as well.
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