Hollywood Spectator (1931)

20 Hollywood Spectator The Babel of Sound Effects By Dalton Trumbo WITH the present debauch of sound, which continues despite the realization of producers that it has sliced their business neatly in the middle, the screen is paying the heavy price that is assessed against every art which forsakes the advantages of its own peculiar position and goes after false gods. It has been said that the films are talking themselves to death, when in truth they are also rattling, roaring, buzzing, tapping, singing, whistling, scratching themselves toward the same melancholy destination. This babel and confusion of noises can be justified only upon the ground that it increases the atmosphere of realism— something which it does not accomplish, and toward which it should not strive. One day, when the last producer has been sold out by his creditors, when the last director has been discovered in advanced stages of starvation and turned over to the county, when the last star has been torn limb from limb by an infuriated populace, Hollywood will realize that nothing can equal in absolute realism the realm of the legitimate stage. It will find that there is no substitute for flesh and blood, depth and color, person-to-person contact with an audience. It will, moreover, sadly discover that in frantically searching for some substitute it has forsaken completely its capability for fantasy, for romance, for those interpretations of human emotion which partake of the mental and the imaginative more than the physical and obvious. ▼ ▼ It patently is absurd to question the screen’s possibilities for realism, for they are immense. But realism, by its very nature, is composed of infinite gradations, and it is a rude necessity that the screen immediately set about to discover which brand it is able to interpret. If it would limit its realism to the banging of doors, the scuffling of feet, and the yell of a man who is kicked in the pants, it will continue as it is doing now, and lose a great deal more money. If, however, it develops within the circles of experienced directors, actors and writers a desire to climb to a higher plane of realism, to portray the soul and the mind of characters through sound and action, if it cares to take advantage of the legitimate stage’s enormous handicap in this direction, it will move steadily upward, and in ten years — O hosannah to the Highest! — break even once more. These conclusions have been festering in my mind for long months, and were resolved into words after having seen the fragile little romance, Daybreak. Here was a delicate piece shot through with a very slender thread of interest. Of all photoplays it was one which should have shunned the absolutism of reality. The inception of the romance occurred in an open horsedrawn cab at night in Vienna. A conscientious sound director did as well as possible in registering the clump-clumpclump of the horse’s hooves. The lovers became interested in each other, made mental explorations, gradually became acquainted, fell under the spell of the moonlight, yet the incessant noise of the horse’s progress continued. ▼ ▼ It lasted throughout the scene, diverted the attention of a sympathetic audience from the characters to the intoler able racket, and forced upon them the knowledge that they were witnessing a theatrical production. There were fidgetings and coughs. My guest whispered that another minute of the clumping would most certainly induce madness. From that moment the picture drooped and almost died on our hands before the actual plot was well started. But realism, absolute realism, had been maintained to the desperate end. It is a physical fact that an iron-shod horse trotting on pavement produces sound. It is also true that those near the horse hear the sound, providing, of course, they are not deaf. Thus a perfect case is built up for the director. The sound was there. Why, therefore, should it not have been recorded? I have always understood the primary purpose of drama to consist of placing the audience in the position of the actor. If an audience forgets that it is an audience and accepts the players’ difficulties as a personal problem, a dramatic success has been registered. When the hero and heroine of Daybreak stepped into the carriage they undoubtedly heard the hoof beats. But as they became more interested in each other, noises from without were less noticeable. There were times when their interest in each other denoted that, to them, no sound existed save that of their own voices. ▼ V When their interest in each other was distracted momentarily, the hoof beats probably came to their ears. When the interest arose, they were gone again. As they neared their destination their thoughts were naturally interrupted by the incipient parting or parrying, and the sounds of an outside world became audible once mor to them. Why, one wonders, didn’t the director realize their mental condition, and gradate the sound of his horse’s hoofs to harmonize with it? Why weren’t those infernal hoof beats reduced to their proper place, instead of usurping the attention of everyone except the two in the carriage and ruining an entire scene? I submit as a question for debate at the next meeting of the Academy: Resolved, that the emotional reaction, tendency and intensity of characters may be completely and delicately established by their sensitiveness to external sound. I remember vividly a funeral I attended a few years ago. It was a miserable day. Rain beat an impersonal tatoo from corner eaves and echoed through the alleys in mournful resonance. It gathered all colors in its wet embrace and neutralized them in a melancholy blear of gray. Water slid through the gutters and sprawled over the streets at overflow points. Clouds scudded low over the Santa Monica mountains and descended heavy-bellied into the very streets. ▼ V As I sat in the funeral car and was driven to the cemetery I was conscious of no single sound. My mind was so filled with emotion that sound was obliterated. Rain beat upon the car top and I did not hear it. Tires hissed over wet pavements and I was oblivious. Only during those brief periods when I wrested my mind from the sad mission I was upon to specific fact did I realize that I lived in a world of sound. In a moment I escaped from it, and was once more a point in the midst of silence. The thing went even further than sound. I looked from the window and beheld not leaden