The Sounds of Silent Films : New Perspectives on History, Theory and Practice

Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. Front Matter....Pages i-xx Introduction: ‘The Birth of Cinema from the Spirit of Music’....Pages 1-9 Front Matter....Pages 11-11 Organizing a Music Library for Playing to Pictures: Theory vs. Practice in Britain....Pages 13-35 The Formation of a Swedish Cinema Music Practice, 1905–1915....Pages 36-48 The Use of Cue Sheets in Italian Silent Cinema: Contexts, Repertoires, Praxis....Pages 49-65 Music, Singing and Stage Practice in the Cinemas of Upper Silesia During the 1920s....Pages 66-83 The Sound of Music in Vienna’s Cinemas, 1910–1930....Pages 84-102 The Moving Picture World, W. Stephen Bush and the American Reception of European Cinema Practices, 1907–1913....Pages 103-122 Musical Beginnings and Trends in 1920s Indian Cinema....Pages 123-138 Front Matter....Pages 139-139 Deconstructing the ‘Brutal Savage’ in John Ford’s The Iron Horse....Pages 141-155 ‘The Hermeneutic Framing of Film Illustration Practice’: The Allgemeines Handbuch der Film-Musik in the Context of Historico-musicological Traditions....Pages 156-171 Sergei Eisenstein and the Music of Landscape: The ‘Mists’ of Potemkin between Metaphor and Illustration....Pages 172-191 Paradoxes of Autonomy: Bernd Thewes’s Compositions to the Rhythmus-films of Hans Richter....Pages 192-207 The Tradition of Novelty — Comparative Studies of Silent Film Scores: Perspectives, Challenges, Proposals....Pages 208-220 Germaine Dulac’s La Souriante Madame Beudet (1923) and the Film Scores by Arthur Kleiner and Manfred Knaak....Pages 221-250 Back Matter....Pages 251-265 The Sounds of Silent Films is a unique collection of investigatory and theoretical essays that, for the first time, unite up-to-date research on the complex historical performance practices of silent film accompaniment with in-depth analyses of relevant case studies. The Sounds of Silent Films comprises up-to-date research on silent film sound, providing a particular focus on historical performance practices combined with detailed theoretical case studies. The contributions by eminent scholars in the fields of musicology, film studies and media studies, as well as by curators and archivists, explore crucial notions such as the historicity of interpretations of silent film music and the diverse acoustic manifestations of film exhibition. The volume stands among the first to integrate a large number of texts that cover a variety of cultural and historical sites and their particular regional and local historical performance practices in, for example, Swedish, Polish, British, Italian, Austrian and Indian silent cinema. The contextualizations of silent film sound production are confronted with their reception in the United States and form a unique comparative perspective for the welldocumented North American literature The Sounds of Silent Films comprises up-to-date research on silent film sound, providing a particular focus on historical performance practices combined with detailed theoretical case studies. The contributions by eminent scholars in the fields of musicology, film studies and media studies, as well as by curators and archivists, explore crucial notions such as the historicity of interpretations of silent film music and the diverse acoustic manifestations of film exhibition. The volume stands among the first to integrate a large number of texts that cover a variety of cultural and historical sites and their particular regional and local historical performance practices in, for example, Swedish, Polish, British, Italian, Austrian and Indian silent cinema. The contextualizations of silent film sound production are confronted with their reception in the United States and form a unique comparative perspective for the well documented North American literature.