Magical History Tour – Voice, Language, Speaking in Film

In April we invite visitors of the Magical History Tour to lend an ear. At issue in this month's – as always subjective – selection is less the big topic of sound (which we will deal with in the future) but three pivotal and oftentimes neglected elements of the audio track: the voice, language and speaking in film. The audible voice in conjunction with the image of the actor in film counted as one of the fundamental innovations of sound film and in some cases soon became an existential problem. Many voices failed to meet the audience's expectations: For example, the British accent of English actors was met by laughter in the United States, the rough voice of Greta Garbo at first alienated the spectators, and the twang of John Gilbert was completely rejected. These early responses by the audience already refer to the high status that the voice (and, derived from it, language and speaking) has in relation to the image in film. But not only the acoustic features, the tone of the actors’ voices and their alleged "harmonious" unity with the cinematic image refer to the power of the voice in cinema, but also such moments in which voices and language resist the images, in which both elements diverge and becomes detached from each other. In many of the films presented this month, the formal tensional relationship becomes a basic module and the starting point of the plot.