<p><em><strong>ScreenPrism: Why was the release of “The Jazz Singer” a pivotal moment in film history? How did sound develop in the next decade of films that followed?</strong></em></p>

<p><strong>Professor Marc Lapadula</strong>: In 1927 with the nation-wide release of<em> <a href=“http://screenprism.com/film/page/the-jazz-singer” target=“_blank”>The Jazz Singer</a>,</em> film briefly captured its voice in the first feature-length movie that incorporated the “miracle of sound.” But <em>The Jazz Singer </em>was a hybrid of sorts, for it only embodied this aural sensation for a handful of scenes, the rest of the movie playing out like any typical silent film of the era with inter-titles that audiences had to read and showcasing acting styles that crowds only a few years later would come to find laughably dated. Like a baby’s first words, “Ma-ma,” The Jazz Singer has two passionate songs sung by Al Jolson that proclaim his character Jack Robin’s sincere love and ever-lasting devotion to his mother. (It’s fitting that early sound cinema’s first words imitate an actual baby’s.) But from 1927 to 1930, film would experience a profound growth-spurt, maturing in a matter of months to become what had been so elusive in a diligent pursuit incubating across three decades.</p>

<p><img alt=”” src=”{assets_6691:https://the-take.com/images/avatars/default/The_Jazz_Singer_2.jpg}” style=“height:300px; width:387px” /><br />
<em>Still from </em>The Jazz Singer (1927)</p>

<p>From the rural crossroads of <em>The Jazz Singer,</em> where silence intersected sound, film would transform, progress and urbanize into what we would have to call its modern-day or sophisticated incarnation. And by moving away from the clearly demarcated boundary line (or more aptly put, chasm) where silence ceases and sound begins, one might think it would take a decade or two for film to progress to a stage where it would capture its true persona, resembling to viewers what they would recognize and define a modern film to be by their “today’s standards.” But this was not to be the case. Film’s evolution at the dawn of the sound era was a blitzkrieg revolution, so lightning-swift that in less than three short years (from the time of <em>The Jazz Singer</em>’s thunderous debut), modern cinema would come into its own, harnessing and articulating a complex identity. And in doing so with such take-no-prisoners celerity, it would draw a shroud-like curtain over the entire silent age, relegating this period of motion pictures to the pawnshop of America’s erstwhile thirst for mass entertainment, the silent film’s allure driven to an abrupt, almost mass extinction by the concussive, meteor-like impact of sound. (All despite some nearly evangelical attempts at its resurrection by several of the Silent Age’s most stalwart stars and devout practitioners, i.e. Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Charlie Chaplin—all of whom had no choice but to eventually jump on the “sound bandwagon” or find themselves retired to the pages of film history.)</p>

<p>By 1930, movies like <a href=“http://screenprism.com/film/page/all-quiet-on-the-western-front” target=“_blank”><em>All Quiet on the Western Front </em></a>(1930), directed by Lewis Milestone, heralded the modern era of a cinema that we, as viewers, still embrace today. Audiences by this time were experiencing and expecting full-fledged “talkies” accompanied by the signature rapid-editing, “let the picture tell the story” mantra and “flowing camera techniques,” which the new generation of filmmakers inherited and wisely retained from their silent forebears. It was the perfect marriage of sight and sound. </p>

<p><em>Read more from <strong><a href=“http://screenprism.com/film/page/ask-the-professor” target=“_blank”>Ask the Professor</a></strong>:<a href=“http://screenprism.com/insights/article/i-am-a-fugitive-from-a-chain-gang-use-sound-creatively” target=“_blank”> How does early talkie “I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang” use sound creatively?</a></em></p>

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<h5><em><a href=“http://screenprism.com/contributors/page/marc-lapadula” target=“_blank”>Marc Lapadula</a> is a Senior Lecturer in the Film Studies Program at Yale University. He is a playwright, screenwriter and an award-winning film producer. In addition to Yale, Professor Lapadula has taught at Columbia University's Graduate Film School, created the screenwriting programs at both The University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins where he won Outstanding Teaching awards and has lectured on film, playwriting and conducted highly-acclaimed screenwriting seminars all across the country at notable venues like The National Press Club, The Smithsonian Institution, and The New York Historical Society. He has also been an expert script analyst in major Hollywood lawsuits. </em></h5>