Anatoly Ryasov on sound in silent films, 'Barely audible hum: an introduction to the philosophy of sound' (translated from Russian):
'In the era of silent films, Garbo had as many voices as her army of fans could imagine. Sound cinema, on the other hand, limited her to one - her own <...> husky and with a Swedish accent". [219]," notes Sion. But the endless, hidden speech still continues to ripple beneath the unstructured footage, and this silent rumble contains a genuine grandeur. It seems to be the one that allows us to talk about the ontology of cinema. Silent films unequivocally pointed to a problem that had previously remained on the periphery, and was later forgotten altogether: the possibility of thinking sound before sound. The music that accompanied these pictures was nothing like interpretation, it did not dispel the enormous ambiguity, but rather exacerbated it. But a few decades have passed and even film music has less and less recourse to the principle of counterpoint, preferring to emphasise emotional states and turning into an obligatory banality - an innocent sound interior.'
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