Sound Film Research Articles

The Motion Picture Editors Guild Treatment of the Film Sound Membership: Enforcing Status Quo for Hollywood’s Post-Production Sound Craft

The Motion Picture Editors Guild (MPEG) is the labor union representing post-production workers in the Hollywood motion picture industry, including seven sound craft classifications. The sound craft has low status within the hierarchical structure of the Hollywood film industry in comparison to other filmmaking crafts. This article evaluates the workings of the MPEG in concerns with the sound craft and status within the industry through a thirty-plus year review of their professional journal, website, sound practitioner discourse, and other industrial documents. The article argues that the union does not sufficiently protect sound practitioners from employer exploitation, contributes to the alienation of sound practitioners from their work, and constraints the level of and recognition for creative contributions. These actions are seen as perpetuating the low status of sound practitioners and the sound craft, which weakens the power of the union.

An Adaptable Aesthetic: Theodor Sparkuhl's Contribution to Late Silent and Early Sound Film-making at British International Pictures, 1929–30

The German cinematographer Theodor Sparkuhl worked at Elstree from 1929 to 1930. Accounts of this period in Britain have often emphasised the detrimental effects of the arrival of the sound film in 1928, how it sounded the death knell of film as an international medium and how the film industry struggled to adapt (economically, technically, aesthetically). However, this article shows that the international dimension of the film industry did not disappear with the coming of sound and British International Pictures (BIP) was an exception to what Robert Murphy has called the ‘catalogue of failure’ during this turbulent period in British film history. Sparkuhl indisputably contributed to this achievement, working as he did on eight feature films in just two years from around July 1928 to April 1930, as well as directing several BIP shorts. Sparkuhl's career embodies the international nature of the film industry in the 1920s and 1930s. In Germany he moved within very different production contexts, from newsreels to Ufa and the Großfilme; in Britain from big-budget films aimed at the international market to low-scale inexpensive films at BIP. As what Thomas Elsaesser has called an ‘international adventurer’, Sparkuhl cannot be contained within any single national cinema history. The ease with which he slipped in and out of different production contexts demonstrates not just his ability to adapt but also the fluidity between the different national industries during this period. In this transitional phase in Britain, Sparkuhl worked on silent, part sound and wholly sound films, on films aimed at both the international and the indigenous market, and in genres such as the musical, the war film and comedy. The example of Sparkuhl shows that German cameramen were employed not only for their aesthetic prowess but also for their efficiency and adaptability.

The Press, Society and the Coming of Sound to Birmingham

The arrival of sound on British cinema screens is perhaps more accurately described as the arrival of American sounds. Almost overnight, the sounds of American voices, accents, slang and vernacular became commonplace throughout the country. This article uses linguistic and social economic frameworks to explore the ways in which American sound films challenged the legitimacy and dominance of hegemonic forms of language within Britain. Taking the mainstream provincial press as a primary source, it discusses the ways in which the arrival of sound was seen as a nationalist threat to both industry and culture. The article uses Birmingham as a focal point and uncovers nuanced ways in which language was negotiated and deployed both by mainstream institutions as well as young people and the working classes. It argues that dominant social actors within British society – such as the press, the Church and educationists – saw talkies as almost invariably threatening, while marginalised social actors like children, teenagers and working-class Northern and Midland audiences were able to use the othered displacement of American talkies as a class-neutral space where their own social capital was bolstered.

The Development of Australian Culture in the XX Century: Australian Film Industry

This article represents the first attempt in Ukraine of complex interdisciplinary investigation of the history of Australian film development in the XX-th century in the context of Australian culture. Analysing films in historical order the peculiarities of each decade are taken into consideration. The periods of silent films, sound films and colour films are analysed. The best film productions, their film directors and prominent actors are outlined. Special attention is paid to the development of feature films and documentaries.
 The article concentrates on the development of different film genres beginning with national historical drama, films of the first pioneers’ survival, adventure films. It is shown how they contribute to the embodiment in films of the main archetypes of Australian culture, the development of Australian identity. After World War I and World War II war films appear to commemorate the courage of the Australian soldiers in the war fields. Later on the destiny of the Australian women white settlers’ wives or native Australians inspired film directors to make them the chief heroines of their movies.
 A comparative analysis of films and literary primary sources underlying their scripts is carried out. It is concluded that the Australian directors selected the best examples of Australian national poetry and prose, which reveal the historical and social, cultural and racial problems of the country's development during the twentieth century.
 The publication dwells on boom and bust periods of Australian film making. The governmental policy in this sphere is analysed. Different schemes of film production and distribution are outlined to make national film industry compatible with the other film industries of the world, especially with the Hollywood. The area of a new discipline - Australian Film Studios - is studied as well as the works of Australian scholars. It is clarified in what Australian universities this discipline is taught. It is assumed that the experience of Australia in this sphere should be taken by Ukraine.

Employing the Psychological Dimension of Sound in the Cinematic Film

يتناول هذا البحث الشق المسموع من الفيلم السينمائي, وهو الصوت وعناصره داخل فضاء الصورة السينمائي, وايضا يتناول الجانب السيكولوجي للصوت, والتأثيرات التي يحدثها الصوت على المشاهدين, وذلك من خلال الاستخدام المدروس بعناية لصانع العمل في توظيفه للصوت وعناصره, ولأهمية هذا العنصر وعى اغلب المخرجين الى الخطورة التي يحدثها الصوت للصورة السينمائية, من ثم الى العمل ككل, من دلالات ومعان ورموز واستعارات وانتقالات ووو...الخ من المعان والدلالات, ولقد اشتمل البحث على, الاطار المنهجي, الذي احتوي مشكلة البحث, التي صاغ الباحث فيها السؤال الآتي (كيفية توظيف البعد السيكولوجي للصوت في الفيلم السينمائي) ومن ثم اهمية البحث, وهدف البحث, وحدود البحث, وختم الباحث بتحديد المصطلحات, اما الاطار النظري, فلقد تضمن مبحثين جاء الاول ليحمل عنوان (البعد السيكولوجي للصوت), الذي تناول البعد السيكولوجي للصوت والتأثرات التي يحدثها الصوت وعناصره على المشاهدين, وكان مدعوما بعدد من المصادر, اما المبحث الثاني فلقد جاء تحت عنوان (الصوت وعناصره في العمل السينمائي) اذ تناول هذا المبحث عنصر الصوت وتوظيفه داخل العمل السينمائي من خلال عناصره, ومن ثم ختم البحث بعدد من المؤشرات, اما (اجراءات البحث) التي تتضمن, (منهج البحث, ومجتمع البحث, وعينة البحث, وأداة البحث, وصدق الاداء, وحدت التحليل), ومن ثم (تحليل العينة) الذي اشتمل على تحليل الفيلم (الاجنبي (Avengers Infinity War) انتاج (2018) من اخراج (الأخوان روسو), وقد توصل الباحث الى عدد من النتائج كان اهمها: يمتلك الصوت وعناصره القدرة على ابراز الجانب السيكولوجي للشخصيات. ان للصوت قابلية في دعم الاحداث الصورية من خلال ابراز الجانب السيكولوجي. لا يمكن للافعال وردود الافعال للشخصيات ان تخلو من صوت, يكون بقدرة هذه الافعال. يمتلك الصمت القدرة بتغير الاحداث بشكل مباشر داخل فضاء الصورة السينمائية. ان الصوت وعناصره يعطي قدرة مضاعفة للأحداث داخل فضاء الصورة السينمائية. لا يظهر الجانب السيكولوجي للأحداث الفيلمية الا من خلال موسيقى تكون متناغمة مع الاحداث وبتأثير سيكولوجي.

Editorial - Cinema Urbana

Cinema Urbana é um festival temático internacional que oferece um oportuno encontro entre urbanismo, arquitetura e o cinema, que promove um diálogo entre os sentidos trazidos pelos filmes e a reflexão acadêmica produzida por palestras, mesas-redondas, apresentação de trabalhos de pesquisadores, estudantes e realizadores do audiovisual e, por outras experiências nas diversas ações propostas - visita sonora, oficina de animação, cinema em drive-in e exibições em espaços urbanos de grande diversidade de usos e trânsitos.

George Gershwin’s jazz transcriptions in piano performance of academic tradition

George Gershwin’s jazz transcriptions in piano performance of academic tradition

Writing with Music: Self-Reflexivity in the Screenplays of Walter Reisch

Self-reflexivity is a significant characteristic of Austro-German cinema during the early sound film period, particular in films that revolve around musical topics. Many examples of self-reflexive cinematic instances are connected to music in one way or another. The various ways in which music is integrated in films can produce instances of intertextuality, inter- and transmediality, and self-referentiality. However, instead of relying solely on the analysis of the films in order to interrogate the conception of such scenes, this article examines several screenplays. They include musical instructions and motivations for diegetic musical performances. However, not only music itself, but also music as a subject matter can be found in these screenplays, as part of the dialogue or instructions for the mis-en-scène. The work of Austrian screenwriter and director Walter Reisch (1903–1983) will serve as a case study to discuss various forms of self-reflexivity in the context of genre studies, screenwriting studies and the early sound film. Different forms and categories of self-referential uses of music in Reisch’s work will be examined and contextualized within early sound cinema in Austria and Germany in the 1930s. The results of this investigation suggest that Reisch’s early screenplays demonstrate that the amount of self-reflexivity in early Austro-German music films is closely connected to music. Self-referential devices were closely connected to generic conventions during the formative years and particularly highlight characteristics of Reisch’s writing style. The relatively early emergence of self-reflexive and “self-conscious” moments of music in film already during the silent period provides a perfect starting point to advance discussions about the musical discourse in film, as well as the role and functions of screenplays and screenwriters in this context.

Radio, Sound Cinema, and Community Singing: The Making of a New Sonic Culture in Modern China

The rise of choral singing as public performance in Shanghai during the mid-1930s was the result of overlapping historical developments and conditions. This study considers how new sound technologies, the introduction of new singing subjects as well as subject matter, and an acute sense of the nation in crisis converged to turn “community singing” into a fresh musical practice and generate a new sonic culture. Sound cinema in particular made new heroes visible as well as audible. Liu Liangmo, a secretary of the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in Shanghai, was instrumental in initiating and promoting the community singing movement. His efforts, along with contributions by Lü Ji, a composer and music theorist of the cultural left, propelled the emergence of China as a “singing nation” by the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japan in 1937. This process was an integral part of the cultural as well as political history of producing an articulate and audible subject against the soundscape of modernity.

"There's a Song There, Really": Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies, the Musical Revue, and Early Sound Film

This essay examines the relationship between Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies, the musical revue, and early sound film in Britain. By attending to the soundscapes of Waugh's novel and connecting them with the history of revue, early sound film productions of revue shows, and contemporary reviews of the novel as a "revue between covers," this analysis demonstrates the text's critical interaction with both emerging sound film and stage entertainment of its time. The essay argues that Vile Bodies is Waugh's attempt to assert the place of the novel in a rapidly expanding media system.

Introduction

Introduction Tessa Dwyer (bio) and Jennifer O'Meara (bio) The paradoxes engendered by voice on-screen are manifold. Screen voices both leverage and disrupt associations with agency, presence, immediacy, and intimacy. Concurrently, they institute artifice and distance, otherness and uncanniness. Screen voices are always, to an extent, disembodied, partial, and unstable, their technological mediation facilitating manipulation, remix, and even subterfuge. The audiovisual nature of screen media places voice in relation to—yet separate from—the image, creating gaps and connections between different sensory modes, techniques, and technologies, allowing for further disjunction and mismatch. These elusive dynamics of screen voices—whether on-screen or off-screen, in dialogue or voice-over, as soundtrack or audioscape—have already been much commented on and theorized by such notables as Rick Altman, Michel Chion, Rey Chow, Mary Ann Doane, Kaja Silverman, and Mikhail Yampolsky, among others.1 Focusing primarily on cinema, these scholars have made seminal contributions to the very ways that film and screen media are conceptualized through their focus on voice, voice recording and mixing, and postsynchronization as fundamental filmmaking processes. Altman [End Page 153] and Chion, for instance, both note the vococentrism of cinema and the obsession with "moving lips" epitomized by classic shot–reverse-shot sequences. Indeed, Chion claims that the soundtrack, as such, does not exist, sound and image being utterly inseparable in cinema and unable to operate independently. So, why revisit the screen voice yet again? Significantly, despite the centrality of voice to screen since at least the "silent" era (through lecturing, live dubbing, and intertitles, for instance), it has been routinely marginalized within screen studies, with scholars repeatedly needing to rescue or resuscitate this essential, ubiquitous area of inquiry. It is this slippery complexity of the screen voice that this dossier addresses by prioritizing concepts and practices of vocal return and refashioning, voice doubling and dissemination, verbal tiers, folds, and modulation. Such tactics have always been integral to technologies of recorded voice on-screen, representing core, constituent practices rather than aberrant possibilities. As Yampolsky notes, the verbal "chimera" created by dubbing points to "fundamental characteristics of film" and "is present in an inconspicuous way in any sound film, since the voice in a film is never actually produced by the visible mouth on the screen; its source always lies outside the body of the speaker at the location of the sound system."2 The inherently split nature of voice on-screen (and of vocalization in general, according to Jacques Derrida), is brought to the surface via acts of vocal re-mediation, respeaking, and reconstruction deemed necessary because of the voice's entanglements with language and nation, difference, and translation.3 While film dubbing and sound engineering share entwined histories, practices, and processes, screen "audibilities" (according to Pooja Rangan, "the product of sonic forms and auditory practices of listening") also generate and rely on cultural specificities, performative politics, and identity play, producing mediated voices that echo across diverse, global screens.4 Examining instances of vocal remix and dubbing, live festival translation (during screenings) and subtitling, podcasting, and accent maneuvering and manipulation, the six essays in this dossier extend and build on seminal work by Chion, Silverman, Sarah Kozloff, and Hamid Naficy while also taking stock of more recent scholarship collected in anthologies such as VOICE: Vocal Aesthetics in Digital Arts and Media, Locating the Voice in Film, and Vocal Projections: Voices in Documentary.5 The dossier begins with examples tied to contemporary media formats and technologies, yet these are framed in relation to older practices (like the history of ventriloquism) and preexisting screen voices (now remediated via podcast), leading us into the diverse ways that the screen has been revoiced across time and place. Each of the six essays provides insights into specific [End Page 154] practices for vocal refashioning and demonstrates how such strategies are embedded in the broader traditions of audiovisual screen history and culture. In their opening essays, Jaimie Baron and Jennifer O'Meara consider how filmic enunciation is refracted and repurposed through social media, podcasting, and the televisual, exploring the digital dissemination and replay of screen voices in present-day mediascapes. Baron focuses on mechanisms of political critique through revoicings of Donald Trump on...

Chinese Film Classics, 1922-1949 by Christopher Rea

Reviewed by: Chinese Film Classics, 1922-1949 by Christopher Rea Ling Zhang (bio) Christopher Rea. Chinese Film Classics, 1922-1949. New York: Columbia University Press, 2021. xvi, 381 pp. Hardcover $120.00, isbn 9780231188128. Paperback $30.00, isbn 9781231188135. Christopher Rea's Chinese Film Classics, 1922-1949 is a timely introduction to extant Chinese fiction films made before 1949. Rea analyzes fourteen films according to their "artistic accomplishment, critical reception, historical significance, and availability" (p. 4), situating them in relation to their broader tumultuous historical, sociopolitical, and cultural context. Differing from but building on previous significant scholarship about early Chinese cinema, such as Zhang Zhen's An Amorous History of the Silver Screen: Shanghai Cinema, 1896-1937 (2005) and Weihong Bao's Fiery Cinema: The Emergence of an Affective Medium in China, 1915-1945 (2015), Chinese Film Classics is a valuable addition to the field that makes early Chinese film history and analysis accessible, and familiarizes general readers with the diverse styles and creative vitality of early Chinese filmmakers. The book is divided into two parts, with each of the fourteen chapters offering production information, a synopsis, and analysis of one film. The films [End Page 130] are discussed in chronological order, and Rea focuses on each work's "artistic accomplishment and cultural significance" (p. 1). Therefore, unlike conventional academic books, Chinese Film Classics does not feature an overarching argument, though certain motifs recur from chapter to chapter. Rea's attention to themes such as slapstick comedy, play fulness, and gags in his analysis also reflects a continuity with his previous book, The Age of Irreverence: A New History of Laughter in China (2015). A list of further reading and viewing material at the end of each chapter contextualizes these analyses vis-à-vis relevant academic discussions and provides a bibliography for readers new to the field. The first part of the book, which addresses silent films, contains six chapters and focuses on silent and partial-sound films made between 1922 and 1935—including the earliest extant Chinese film, Laborer's Love (laogong zhi aiqing, Zhang Shichuan, 1922) and three films by the accomplished filmmaker Sun Yu (1900-1990): Little Toys (Xiaowanyi, 1933), Queen of Sports (Tiyu huanghou, 1934), and The Great Road (Dalu, 1934). The latter is a partial-sound film with added sound effects and interlude songs. Two other chapters examine Wu Yonggang's acclaimed silent film Goddess (Shennv, 1934) and Cai Chusheng's post-dubbed New Women (Xin nv xing, 1935). In the next eight chapters, Rea turns to sound films made between 1937 and 1949, including three produced in the late 1930s: Ma-Xu Weibang's Song at Midnight (Yeban gesheng, 1937), a horror film with strong political messaging; Yuan Muzhi's sarcastic urban tragicomedy Street Angels (Malu tianshi, 1937); and Bu Wancang's costume drama Hua Mulan (Mulan congjun, 1939). Five films from the 1940s illustrate the situation of chaos and anguish after the War of Resistance against Japanese invasion (1937-1945), with the pathos of the civil war (1945-1949) looming large. These include the urban family comedy based on writer Eileen Chang's screenplay, Long Live the Missus! (Taitai wansui, Sang Hu, 1947); the epic melodrama depicting Chinese people's collective trauma produced by the Japanese occupation and spirit of resistance, Spring River Flows East (Yijiang chunshui xiangdongliu, Cai Chusheng and Zheng Junli, 1947); the melancholic masterpiece Spring in a Small Town (Xiaocheng zhichun, Fei Mu, 1948); as well as two social realist films made during the 1949 regime transformation, Wandering of Three-Hairs the Orphan (Sanmao liulangji, Zhao Ming and Yan Gong, 1949) and Crows and Sparrows (Wuya yu maque, Zheng Junli, 1949). Rea has been developing this project for several years through various media platforms and has translated these films' intertitles and subtitles into English, making the subtitled versions freely accessible on YouTube. He and his team have also launched the website chinesefilmclassics.org, which contains an open-access, self-paced course on early Chinese cinema that complements this book (p. 2). As Rea mentions early on, he envisions Chinese Film Classics as [End Page 131] "a film-viewing companion for multiple readerships, especially people new to Chinese cinema history or to...

Kafka and Noise: The Discovery of Cinematic Sound in Literary Modernism by Kata Gellen

Reviewed by: Kafka and Noise: The Discovery of Cinematic Sound in Literary Modernism by Kata Gellen Ted Dawson Kata Gellen, Kafka and Noise: The Discovery of Cinematic Sound in Literary Modernism. Northwestern UP, 2019. 250 pp. Kafka's writings resound with odd sounds, from the inhuman squeaks in Gregor Samsa's voice to the mysterious noise in "The Burrow." Only, as literature, these texts cannot actually resound at all. This is Kata Gellen's point of departure for her compelling book Kafka and Noise, which investigates the "sounds" of Kafka's texts alongside the "sounds" of silent film in order to show that "nonsounding media can reveal aspects of sonic modernity that are unavailable to sounding media" (33). Gellen knows she is not the first scholar to listen for Kafka's strange noises (34). [End Page 101] As becomes clear in the first chapter, her methodological innovation involves her focus on film. After considering the early sketch "Great Noise" to exemplify her premise that "noise, a phenomenon with no apparent function, meaning, or value, presents a productive obstacle to modernist literary narration" (4–5), Gellen spends much of the chapter reading the opening of "The Metamorphosis" alongside the "silent" film The Artist (Michael Hazanavicius, 2011), focusing on both pieces' use of the "acoustic closeup" (19). By considering The Metamorphosis with a tool derived from Balázs film theory, Gellen is able to highlight the way sounds expand time around the moment of awakening and develop new insights into Gregor's transformation. She does not suggest that Kafka himself conceived of this as an acoustic closeup, though. What sets Gellen's work apart from other writings on Kafka and film, such as Peter-André Alt's Kafka und der Film and Anna Brabandt's Franz Kafka und der Stummfilm, is that Gellen understands silent film not merely as an influence on Kafka's writing but also sees both film and Kafka's works as indices of changing modernist perceptions around sound (83–84). In other words, Gellen is aware that Kafka's "literary engagement with sound was certainly influenced by his experience of its technological mediation," but she is primarily interested in a longer evolution of discourses around sound and noise, including earlier technologies that shaped both Kafka's and film's imagination of sound (29). The second chapter takes up the inability of literature or silent film to be heard, considering not only "Josefine the Singer" and the impossibility of representing Josefine's singing, but also "The Knock at the Courtyard Gate," in which it cannot be said whether a character actually knocked or simply feigned knocking, and "The Silence of the Sirens," in which the reader finally cannot know whether the sirens actually sang for Odysseus. These latter texts draw attention to "the basic instability of representing sound in silent media," for the reader is invited to imagine sounds which may or may not have ever been audible (83). In the third chapter, the focus shifts to sounds that are heard, as Gellen considers the anxieties around the advent of sound film together with the role of recitation in Kafka's works, looking at the imagined recitation in "Report for an Academy" and at its near opposite, the "Speech on the Yiddish Language," a text "primarily spoken and only secondarily written" (137). The sounds of the second and third chapter—knocking, singing, reciting—are notably not sounds generally considered "noise," and a certain [End Page 102] ambivalence around this term is one of the few weaknesses of this otherwise strong book. The word noise seems sometimes to be used only in the sense of "a noise," that is, any sound, while at other times it appears as "unwanted sounds, acoustic refuse" (187). Missing in Gellen's wide-ranging bibliography are many of the important texts on noise—we do not find Douglas Kahn or David Nowak or even a sidelong glance at Jacques Attali. This is unsurprising insofar as Gellen has explicitly deselected sound studies for developing her theoretical approach, opting instead to draw on the critical vocabulary of film theory (7, 28). While this choice may provide fresh insights—and Gellen is certainly correct that sound studies has...

Górale huculscy w wojskowej propagandzie na rzecz przysposobienia społeczeństwa do wojny u schyłku Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej (Wybrane problemy badawcze)

<p>Druga połowa lat trzydziestych upływała pod znakiem nasilającego się zagrożenia wojennego. Władze wojskowe Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej usiłowały objąć propagandą na rzecz obrony kraju, zróżnicowane pod wieloma względami społeczeństwo polskie. Z powodu napiętej sytuacji w Małopolsce Wschodniej, kierownictwu sił zbrojnych bardzo zależało, aby w przygotowania wojenne zaangażować górali zamieszkujących najdalsze zakątki Karpat, w szczególności Hucułów. Brak odpowiednio rozbudowanej sieci komunikacyjnej na terenie Karpat Wschodnich, nie pozwolił na zastosowanie najskuteczniejszych narzędzi propagandowych, jakimi wówczas były prasa, radio oraz film dźwiękowy. Zainteresowanie sprawami państwa wśród Hucułów, Łemków i Bojków – górali najbardziej oddalonych od cywilizacji, wzbudziło dopiero organizowane co roku (1935–1938) „Święto Gór”. Współpraca górali huculskich z armią, ułatwiała walkę z antypaństwowym ruchem ukraińskim w Małopolsce Wschodniej. Do wzmocnienia polskości w tym regionie przyczynić się miało również odpowiednie wykorzystanie nieocenionych walorów Huculszczyzny.</p>

‘The film gone male’: women and the transition to sound in the British film industry 1929–1932

ABSTRACT Taking its cue from Dorothy Richardson’s essay, ‘The Film Gone Male’ written for the critical, Left-wing British film publication Close Up in 1932, this article looks at women working in the British film industry during the transition from silent to sound cinema between 1929 and 1932. It considers the effects of new sound technology on women’s roles in front of and behind the camera from production to reception and critique. It also questions whether sound technology further marginalised women as producers of cinema and interrogates whether synchronised sound masculinised film as Richardson asserted.

Deuterium Permeation in an Er2O3 Thin Film Fabricated on a Type-316L Stainless-Steel Substrate

A metal-oxide film can be used as a hydrogen-isotope permeation barrier in the fuel circulation system for nuclear fusion. We fabricated Er$_2$O$_3$ thin film on a type 316L stainless-steel substrate by using a metal-organic chemical vapor deposition technique for the purpose of hydrogen-isotope permeation barrier. Electron microscopy based imaging and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy measurements indicate a sound film quality together with X-ray diffraction experiments. We also measured deuterium permeation in the film at high temperatures ranging from 600 $^{\circ}$C to 800 $^{\circ}$C. The permeation reduction was most apparent at 650 $^{\circ}$C. Above 800 $^{\circ}$C, we confirmed that the film was damaged and did not work as a permeation barrier.

Cinema as Prosthesis: Errol Morris’s Use of the Interrotron in <em>Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.</em>

Cinema as Prosthesis: Errol Morris’s Use of the Interrotron in <em>Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr.</em>

Jews, Nazis, and the Cinema of Hungary: The Tragedy of Success, 1929–44 by Frey David (review)

REVIEWS 785 (dedicated to Britten), his Thirteenth String Quartet and Britten’s Third Cello Suite, described as reflecting the relationship between the two composers ‘in its closest form hitherto’ (p. 255), notably in the Suite’s full statement of the Russian Orthodox Kontakion for the Departed. The chapter ends with a consideration of Shostakovich’s Fifteenth Symphony and his projected operatic version of Chekhov’s ‘The Black Monk’ in relation to Britten’s opera, ‘Death in Venice’. In the conclusion to this admirably comprehensive book, Pyke introduces a number of other composers, including Mieczysław Weinberg, John Tavener and Arvo Pärt, who also showed the influence of Britten and Shostakovich. In sum, Britten’s building of bridges with Soviet culture undoubtedly improved for a while the progress of detente. Seventeen appendices provide valuable additional detail and background to the extensive footnotes. The book is remarkable for the author’s diligence and resourcefulness as well as his studious avoidance of exaggeration and excessive speculation. Rich in ideas, with musical, statistical and pictorial illustrations, this handsome volume is a splendid tribute to one of Rostropovich’s outstanding pupils, the tragically short-lived Professor Alexander Ivashkin who, incidentally, recorded Britten’s complete works for cello. Cameron Pyke’s admirable study deserves a place in all major libraries and on the shelves of many of the composer’s admirers who wish to know more about an important aspect of his life and work. London Arnold McMillin Frey, David. Jews, Nazis, and the Cinema of Hungary: The Tragedy of Success, 1929–44. I. B. Tauris, London and New York, 2018. xvi + 462 pp. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. £85.00: $115.00. Hungarian cinema has had a consistent impact on international audiences since the Second World War. Film-makers from Zoltán Fábri to Miklós Jancsó and Béla Tarr have all established their place in cinema history and the achievements of émigré film-makers such as Alexander Korda in the United Kingdom and Michael Curtiz in Hollywood are also well recognized. Yet its cinema before the 1950s remains virtually unknown. While this is scarcely unique in terms of common knowledge, it also applies to the world of academic film history. István Nemeskürty’s Word and Image was translated into English as early as 1968 and there was no other systematic account of the history of Hungarian cinema in English until John Cunningham’s seminal The Hungarian Cinema: From Coffee House to Multiplex in 2004. But even here, the coverage of pre-war cinema is restricted in terms of space. In its extensive coverage of the period SEER, 97, 4, OCTOBER 2019 786 from the 1930s to 1944, David Frey’s new study therefore provides a much needed history of what was then a commercial industry. Referring to the Treaty of Trianon (1920), when the country lost 70 per cent of its pre-war territories, Frey points out that Hungary was transformed overnight from a multi-national state to one in search of a new identity. The cinema and, in particular, sound cinema was ‘to become a central collision point in the quest to define, locate, and discover Hungary’s national nature’ (p. 7). Not only would cinema represent ‘Hungarianness’ both at home and abroad but it would become a major element in the creation of a new identity. Surprisingly, between 1929 and 1942, it was also to become a major commercial success and, by 1942, was one of Europe’s most prolific industries, behind only Germany and Italy in terms of international exports. One of the book’s central themes is the role in this played by Hungarians of Jewish origin. The assimilation of Jewish citizens had been welcomed under the Dual Monarchy and, from a statistical perspective, they counted as ethnic Hungarians. Frey points out that by the 1920s they constituted the core of the middle and upper middle classes. Film distribution was controlled by Jewish Hungarians and nearly all leading producers and directors were of Jewish origin. When Hungary became an ‘ethnically homogenous’ nation state following World War One, he argues that Jews lost their ‘swing constituency’ status. Consequently, antisemitism found a new breeding ground, reaching its...

Islam and Nationhood in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Surviving Empires by Bougarel Xavier (review)

REVIEWS 787 Hollywood productions, which maintained their influence throughout and, despite the banning of imports in 1943, up to the Nazi invasion of March 1944. Frey’sbookisanindustrial-politicalhistoryratherthananaestheticone(here one has to return to Nemeskürty), although there are perceptive discussions of theme and subject matter. Its great strength lies in the extraordinary amount of original research conducted in archives in Budapest, Berlin and elsewhere and the ways in which often disparate material has been assembled into a compelling narrative and precise argument. While its contribution to the history of the production and distribution of European sound cinema breaks significant new ground, its study of the political and ideological cross currents within Hungarian society in the post-Trianon context takes it beyond the traditional confines of film scholarship. Its contribution to both cinema and political history is both original and invaluable. Staffordshire University Peter Hames Bougarel, Xavier. Islam and Nationhood in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Surviving Empires. Translated by Christopher Mobley. Bloomsbury Academic, London and New York, 2018. xii + 280 pp. Acronyms. Maps. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. £85.00. While it may not be the last word on the subject, Bougarel’s book is the most authoritative and comprehensive work to date on the political history of the Bosniaks/Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bloomsbury Academic is thus to be praised for making available this seminal work (translated from the 2015 French original by Christopher Mobley) to an English-language audience. With a profound knowledge of its subject and impressive erudition, Bougarel normalizes what he calls the haphazard, uncertain nature of Bosniak/Muslim nation-building,extricatingitfromitsnarrowSouthSlavcontexttothatofpostimperial national- and state-building, and theoretical notions of loyalty and political allegiance. Against the dominant trope of Bosnian Muslims’ belated nation-building and the divergence to models proposed by key nationalism scholars, Bougarel instead explores the notion of national indifference, or nondetermination , addressing the place of religion in South Slav nation-building, as well as connections between national and religious identity in general. In particular, he tackles its interplay with currents of Islamist thought. Bougarel’s claim is that Bosniak/Muslim identity was decisively influenced by the attitudes of Muslim elites in Bosnia and Herzegovina which, from the end of the Ottoman era to the end of Yugoslavia, expressed a constant loyalty to the central authority as a way of safeguarding their privileged position. After the Austro-Hungarian occupation, according to Bougarel, Muslim political SEER, 97, 4, OCTOBER 2019 788 elites’ reliance on imperial centres of power was reducing Bosnian Muslims to a non-sovereign religious minority and few if any efforts were made to build a national identity. This loyalty to the Empire was accompanied by demands for the autonomy of religious institutions, which led Muslims to national nondetermination , enclosing them within their religious community and giving them a safety net. Muslim elites continued to apply this strategy in the period between the two World Wars, similarly promoting Yugoslavism as loyalty to the state, while seeking autonomy for the Islamic Community and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina in return, but not building a separate ethnic identity. Highlighting imperial legacies in forming and maintaining communities based on religious boundaries (and conflicts over these boundaries) versus the dominant paradigm of modern-day nationalism as the cause of all the trouble in Bosnia might be Bougarel’s greatest contribution in this dense volume full of revelations. Bougarel thus reinterprets the period of Austro-Hungary’s rule and some of the long-held assumptions established by the American historian Robert Donya. Similarly, he is critical of Marko Hoare’s interpretation of the Bosnian Muslims’ Second World War political choices, and the nature of Alija Izetbegović’s Islamic Declaration argued by Noel Malcolm. There was nothing linear in the process, as many Bosniak nationalists would like to present it, and many foreign observers trying to make sense of it would accept as an easy explanation. Similarly, frequently shifting national allegiances by Bosniak/Muslim leaders, according to Bougarel, did not occur out of opportunism but can be explained within his framework of national indifference and religious identity. Similarly, demands for the autonomy of Bosnia and Herzegovina were not testament to proto-nationalism but a search for a direct...

Hannah Lewis, <i>French Musical Culture and the Coming of Sound Cinema</i>

Hannah Lewis, French Musical Culture and the Coming of Sound Cinema
 New York: Oxford University Press, 2019 [xiv, 245 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-063598-5. £64.00 (paperback)]. Oxford Music/Media Series. Music examples, photos, figures, index, filmography, and bibliography.