In 1916, Hugo Munsterberg scoffed at the idea of sound being a part of cinema:
“the Edison scheme of connecting the camera with the graphophone, and so to add spoken words to the moving pictures, was not successful for very good reasons. It really interfered with the chance of the moving pictures to develop their original nature. They sank back to the level of mere mechanical imitation of the theatre” (Critical Visions 2011: 12).Last class some of us scoffed at the idea of 3D films, declaring that they would never be a form of film worth viewing. Looking at how off the mark Munsterberg was in regards to sound in film, I wonder if the claim that 3D cinema distracts from the true intentions of cinematic endeavors will remain true into the future..?
From the early 1900s, when sound was just making its way into cinema, to the scores written for films of the Classical Hollywood era, to the present day, the use of sound has changed in innumerable ways. As Gorbman outlines in Critical Visions, sound of the Hollywood era was meant to set the mood- not dictate it, to be inaudible, and invisible. Just as directors like Maya Deren, Truffaut, and Twyker have bent the rules of formalism in filmmaking, the formalistic guidelines for sound in film have been broken since the Classical Hollywood era as well. Sound no longer remains in the background, but is often used as a device to break the fourth wall. As I mentioned in class, the use of sound to break the fourth wall is executed by P.T. Anderson in his film Magnolia (1999) as can be seen in this clip:
The music used in film, which in Classical Hollywood was typically an orchestral score, is now often synonymous with films of recent years. When I think of Toy Story, I can’t help but think of Randy Newman’s “You’ve Got a Friend in Me”. Jerry Maguire? – Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin'”, which, as can be seen in this clip, also serves as a sound bridge between two scenes, and is used as both diegetic and non-diegetic sound.
Munsterberg could not have predicted how sound could would used in films since his era, nor can we predict how it will be used in the future. Hopefully we can learn from Munsterberg’s miscalculation, and appreciate the ability of film to be molded and shaped in ways that we cannot fathom in the present.