This classic anthology provides essential models for analyzing sound stylistics through the detailed study of critical sound films. Elisabeth Weis and John Belton carefully curate major essays from the world's most respected film historians, aestheticians, and theorists, including Douglas Gomery, Barry Salt, Rick Altman, Mary Ann Doane, S. M. Eisenstein, V. I. Pudovkin, René Clair, Béla Belázs, Siegfried Kracauer, Christian Metz, David Bordwell, Kristin Thompson, Noël Burch, and Arthur Knight. Their selections recount the innovations and triumphs of Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Rouben Mamoulian, Dziga Vertov, Robert Bresson, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Altman, and Francis Ford Coppola, among many others, and explicate the techniques and practices of sound filmmaking from initial recordings to final theater playback. Film Sound is the ideal companion for anyone seeking both a comprehensive introduction to the form and a rich survey of its historical and global evolution.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
An extremely useful and wide-ranging collection of essays devoted to a topic often ignored or taken for granted by visually-dominated studies of the moving picture...
(Gerald Mast, University of Chicago )Both comprehensive in its choice of readings and creative in its editorial approach... Film Sound, as well as being an eminent introduction to the writings in the field, forcefully demonstrates the need for the study of the media to be both textually and institutionally grounded, and both theoretically and historically informed.
(Richard Allen Framework )Indispensable... [a] superb collection of essays.... An important contribution to our literature on film theory and practice and... necessary reading for anyone interested in the art and the practice of filmmaking.
(Journal of Popular Film and Television )Film Sound is a pleasure to read. In addition, the book's general organization and range of selections present an accurate summary of the development of film sound and attitudes toward it from the late twenties to the eighties. For anyone interested in finding ways out of the present theoretical confusion, Film Sound is an excellent place to start.
(Film Quarterly )Convincingly suggests that an exciting new field has been opened up, one that may well come to determine the way we look at the cinema as a whole.... [ Film Sound] pays attention to the new technologies as they affect not only the cinema but also how we come to view its history.
(Sight and Sound )About the Author
Elisabeth Weis is professor of film at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and executive director of the National Society of Film Critics. She has written or edited books on sound, comedy, and star acting. John Belton is professor of English and film at Rutgers University and the author of five books, including Widescreen Cinema, winner of the Kraszna-Krausz prize for books on the moving image, and American Cinema/American Culture, a textbook accompanying the PBS series American Cinema. He has also edited three books, including Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, and is associate editor of the journal Film History.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ear-opening,
This review is from: Film Sound: Theory and Practice (Paperback)
I got this book because after 4 years of film school, I still felt as if I had been shortchanged when it came to learning sound design. I had been taught how to record and edit sound, been taught how to do ADR, been taught all the different types of microphones; but I still didn't know WHY to use one type of microphone over another, WHY using an omnidirectional, or a shotgun, or a lavalier mic would change the feel of a scene (and how this would in turn change depending on whether that sound was being matched with a closeup or a long shot). In short, I was never taught the aesthetic significance behind any of the options I was presented with. My formal education on the topic had been entirely technical. As the editors make clear in the preface to this anthology, it was their attempt to compile a book "addressed to aestheticians rather than technicians." At this they've done an incredible job.
The scope is broad - covering theory, practice, history, as well as the technological side - different essays focusing on individual films, directors, genres, historical periods or the medium as a whole. The viewpoints of the authors are also as diverse as anything you'll find in film studies generally, ranging from Marxist, formalist and psychoanalytic analysis to more straightforward historical or technical writing. As a filmmaker, this book has been eye opening (or should I say ear opening?). For the first time I am finally able to think about sound design in the same way that I think about any other element of a film. Since starting to read the book, I've paid more attention to the sound design in all of the films I've watched. This book was written in 1985. No doubt does this mean that innovations in the field since 1985 (most notably the dawn of digital editing and sound mixing) are left out from the book. But even so, if you are a filmmaker who is looking to gain some insight into what film sound is all about, this is an excellent place to start.
9 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Table of Contents,
By Curupira (Salvador, Bahia Brazil) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Film Sound: Theory and Practice (Paperback)
Part I. History, Technology, and Aesthetics
Introduction The Coming of Sound: Technological Change in the American Film Industry, by Douglas Gomery Economic Struggle and Hollywood Imperialism: Europe Converts to Sound, by Douglas Gomery Film Style and Technology in the Thirties: Sound, by Barry Salt The Evolution of Sound Technology, by Rick Altman Ideology and the Practice of Sound Editing and Mixing, by Mary Ann Doane Technology and Aesthetics of Film Sound, by John Belton Part II: Theory Section 1: Classical Sound Theory A Statement, by S. M. Eisenstein, V. I. Pudovkin, and G. V. Alexandrov Asynchronism as a Principle of Sound Film, by V. I. Pudovkin The Art of Sound, by René Clair Manifesto: Dialogue on Sound, by Basil Wright and B. Vivian Braun Sound in Films, by Alberto Cavalcanti A New Laocoön: Artistic Composites and the Talking Film, by Rudolph Arnheim Theory of Film: Sound, by Bela Balazs Dialogue and Sound, by Siegfried Kracauer Slow-Motion Sound, by Jean Epstein Section 2: Modern Sound Theory Notes on Sound, by Robert Bresson Direct Sound: An Interview with, by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet Aural Objects, by Christian Metz The Voice in the Cinema: The Articulation of Body and Space, by Mary Ann Doane Part III: Practice Section I: Practice and Methodology Fundamental Aesthetics of Sound in the Cinema, by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson On the Structural Use of Sound, by Noël Burch Section 2: Pioneers The Movies Learn to Talk: Ernst Lubitsch, René Clair, and Rouben Mamoulian, by Arthur Knight American Sound Films, 1926-1930,, by Ron Mottram Applause: The Visual and Acoustic Landscape, by Lucy Fischer Enthusiasm: From Kino-Eye to Radio Eye, by Lucy Fischer Lang and Pabst: Paradigms for Early Sound Practice, by Noël Carroll The Voice of Silence: Sound Style in John Stahl's Back Street, by Martin Rubin Section 3: Stylists Orson Welles' Use of Sound, by Penny Mintz The Evolution of Hitchcock's Aural Style and Sound in The Birds, by Elisabeth Weis The Sound Track of The Rules of the Game, by Michael Litle Sound in Bresson's Mouchette, by Lindley Hanlon Godard's Use of Sound, by Alan Williams Section 4: Contemporary Innovators Altman, Dolby, and the Second Sound Revolution, by Charles Schreger Sound Mixing and Apocalypse Now: An Interview with Walter Murch, by Frank Paine The Sound Designer, by Marc Mancini Sound and Silence in Narrative and Nonnarrative Cinema, by Fred Camper
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