Melinda Szaloky makes it clear, along with others, that there has never been a truly silent film. This theory is based on the fact that viewer's previous experience with everyday situations will have created a “sound effect” database from which to draw sounds. The phenomenon is not as abstract as some might argue. Dominique Nasta's claim is that many sounds and images recreate one another in people's minds. Simply put, hearing a sound can conjure an image tucked away in someone brain. The same is true with seeing images. The Last Laugh is a tremendous example of a film in which the viewer begins to forget the fact that there is no sound coming through the speakers, and that it is all produced in their own minds.
Szaloky includes a quote early in her article from Norman King. King described a phenomenon that no longer exists in modern-day cinema. Theaters in the early days of film had in house orchestras that would provide a score that suited the film. They were nearly identical to modern scores except that they were played live. It is interesting to think of this practice as negating the term “silent film” altogether, as King states. It is hard to write off the whole genre as never having existed, but it is a new perspective that I had never previously considered.
There are a number of different ways in which visual acoustics can be brought to life. There are obvious connections between a sequence on screen that naturally creates sounds. Examples of this could be a stack of metal pots falling over or someone blowing a whistle. Nearly all of the audience members of a film would have experience a situation like one of the two I mentioned and would be able to interpret the noise that accompanied such an experience appropriately. Known as visible sounds, these sounds typically go unnoticed by characters because they are routine experience that would not generate much of a reaction in the real world. There are dozens of examples of visible sounds in The Last Laugh, namely the rain, the doorman's whistle, women trouncing up and down stairs, clapping, and the cheers of the wedding.
There was also a conscious effort not to over-do sounds so as to insult the intelligence of the audience. A quote included from Emmett Campbell Hall suggested that audience members did not need a series of “bow-wows” to recognize that the animal onscreen was a dog. Most people that view films would have at least been able to identify with a majority of the images on screen.
There are also a number of instances in which sounds are implied more than explicitly shown onscreen. These sounds are often signaled by character's reactions and editing. The audience is clued into a large sound in the distance by a character turning to try and figure out what it is, or trying to determine what is causing the puzzled look on one of the character's faces.
It is my contention that visible sounds are a testament to the believability of a (silent) film because it adds another dimension. For many early film viewers, there was a clear fascination with silent film. Lynne Kirby likened silent films to the locomotive. Much in the way that trains were reaching from one end of the country to the other, silent films were beginning to spread throughout the nation (Kirby 2). Not only were people still amazed by moving images on a large screen, they were subconsciously being affected by the sounds created by those images. It was this implementation of sound that made most people able to accept that films were a real phenomenon that was nothing futuristic, and was here to stay.
I believe that most people were still trying to accept the fact that they were seeing moving photographs and did not care that they perceived a film to be silent. It is hard to say whether or not people were even aware that sound from film was possible, but I think that the newness of the industry as well as the idea of visual acoustics made them believe that they really did not need much else to be entertained. Even in today's “spoiled” day and age or special effects and CGI, I found that after a few minutes of The Last Laugh, that I did not miss a sound track all that much.
Balázs offers what I consider to be the most revolutionary idea in the whole article when he suggests that sound films should do more than simply add a recorded track. Instead, they should “approach the reality of life from a totally different angle and open up a new treasure-house of human experience”. He mentions that the sound inherently built into any film is enough for the viewer; it would simply be repetitive to add the sounds that are already in the game again. It is a completely new idea for me to think about sound in this way. I had never really thought about how influential sound should be, and that it truly can change a movie going experience.
