Description

Sounding American: Hollywood, Opera, and Jazz looks at the role played by 1920s musical shorts in crafting studio identity and establishing American film sound. It argues that the persistence of opera and jazz on the soundtrack during and after the conversion produces a fragmentary text and encourages an active spectator.

CONTENTS

Introduction
Chapter 1 Archiving America: Sound Technology and Musical Representation
Chapter 2 Opera Cut Short: From the Castrato to the Film Fragment
Chapter 3 Selling Jazz Short: Hollywood and the Fantasy of Musical Agency
Chapter 4 Opera and Jazz in the Score: Toward a New Spectatorship
Conclusion
Bibliography
Filmography
Index