Tom Gunning, "The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde"

"The Debate about Cinema: Charting a Controversy (1909-1929)"

while German film gained status as art through Wegener's "neo-Romantic preference for pre-industrial visual worlds" and expressionism, Hollyood was deemed merely commercial product and escapist fantasy.

see also Kreimeier, The Ufa Story: A History of Germany's Greatest Film Company, 1918-1945, and for consideration of question of whether Expressionist film was kitsch, Elsaesser, Weimar Cinema and After: Germany's Historical Imaginary 

Cavell, "More of The World Viewed" 28 (1974), 571-631.

Gunning, "An Aesthetic of Astonishment: Early Film and the [In]Credulous Spectator"

Mary Ann Doane, "When the Direction of the Force Acting on the Body is Changed: The Moving Image" 1985, 7/2.

thorough discussion of early cinema's relation to theatrical practice, says Gunning. europe and us.  influence and transformation of theatrical performance style, lighting techniques, sensation scenes.

Peter Brunette's Commentary: "What David Hemmings is doing here is putting photographs together to makes some kind of narrative to figure
out what the story was, which of course is the definition of a movie, putting together still photographs that run in some kind of narrative way through some kind of temporal sequence to makes some kind of meaning. And that's exactly what's happening here."

Cited by Gitelman Always Already New.

 8	Edison's Teeth: Touching Hearing
	Steven Connor	000
 9	Thinking about Sound, Proximity, and Distance in 
	Western Experience: The Case of Odysseus's Walkman
	Michael Bull	000
10	Wiring the World: Acoustical Engineers and the Empire of 
	Sound in the Motion Picture Industry, 1927-1930
	Emily Thompson	000

"Ever since the advent of the two- and three-our photoplay, which also inaugurated an era of building palatial playhouses for their exhibition, there has come an increased demand for these so-called organ-orchestras and the one at the Strand has attracted so much attention that th ewriter ventured to ask Mr. Austin whether he believed that the mechanical orchestra - though operated at the console by a competent musician - was destined to eventually replace the large orchestral bodies in our play-houses of various grades" (335)..."'But we are convinced that the organ can be made a vital part of the equipment of the modern photoplay-house and by special arrangements of its tonal scheme and voicing can be rendered truly imitative of orchestral qualities and at the same time have sufficient inherent dignity which is invariably lacking in the usual theatre orchestra. The best results in my opinion,' continued Mr. Austin, 'can be obtained in the combination of the pipe organ and a limited orchestra, in fact, I think that not only in the moving picture theatres but in all play-houses the best effects will be achieved by such a combination of the larger organ and a few solo pieces in the orchestra.' The influence of the organ orchestra in the theatre of science has tended to greatly augment the musical side of photplay presentation and it is, indeed, a befitting as well as a truly artistic adjunct of the modern motion picture theatre, illustrating as it does the gradual resort to scientific means of expression. Hence, it is not surprising in this era of newly erected palatial photoplay houses that as high as $50,000 is being expended for what is known as the Wurlitzer Unit Orchestra." (336)

Also discusses potential of talking pictures and first experience with telephone. 

Good history of buildings for movies.

Basic historical story, stuff you'll find elsewhere.

The aims of this research project are to 1) historicize the Classical Hollywood orchestra, and 2) interrogate the cultural significations of the orchestral sound that Hollywood both deployed and helped to form.

This book is amazing; it situates its contributions to our knowledge of silent film music – which our copious – within the existing body of literature, providing a solid point of departure for all further study. Marks gives extensive consideration to the availability and state of the historical evidence, and works to piece together the surviving (often partial) scores, advertisements and reviews in order to create a more complete picture of the silent era’s musical practices then has elsewhere been achieved. Marks debunks the notion that there was a period during which anything went musically as long as it covered up the noise of the projector and compensated for the uncanny flatness of the moving image by looking at music for some of the proto-film technologies (vitascope, biograph and bioskop). The more compelling case of bioskop took place in Europe, however, and their film music practices were not immediately taken up in America. In 1909 Moving Picture World dubbed the majority of pianists inadequate movie accompaniests, and only months later Edison published its first guidelines for film accompaniment. Marks observes that the 1910-14 period has been subject to severe music scholarly neglect due to the perceived lack of evidence. Marks finds and considers numerous “special scores,” i.e. scores written specially for particular movies, that predate Birth of a Nation (1915), the oft cited “first.” Birth of a Nation gets its own chapter too, however, for it was a significant and influential achievement. Marks includes numerous facsimiles as well as transcriptions of the surviving parts/scores, and subjects them to paleographic as well as music analysis. I would say this is THE book for silent film music.

The aims of this research project are to 1) historicize the Classical Hollywood orchestra, and 2) interrogate the cultural significations of the orchestral sound that Hollywood both deployed and helped to form.

This documentary spends an unfortunate amount of time on a present day studio orchestra recreating the event of recording a hollywood film score. However, besides that there are enlightening discussions and examples of film scores by Max Steinr and Erich Korngold in particular, and conversations with then still living composer of Laura, David Raskin. The state of film music archives depicted is exciting and depressing: some scores from classical hollywood era survive but many were thrown away when studios ran short of space. Much film music research is devoted to reconstructing the partially surviving scores.  The technique for achieving synchrony between sound and image - which involves punches and streamers - is well illustrated.

Sklar argues that the development of the movies during critical years of change (industrialization, urbanization, modernization) in the social structure of America is responsible for their success in becoming the most popular and influential media of the first half of the 20th century; I would say that there is no doubt some truth to this but that it fails to recognize the role of movies in actually bringing about changes in the modern, urban social structure. The older American city, according to Sklar, juxtaposed and intermingled different income levels and occupations, while the new city segregated them.  When Sklar calls the discovery of storefront movie theaters “a shocking revelation to the middle class” he paints the middle class with too broad a brushstroke; he does, however, vividly report the reaction of social reformers to the specter of entertainment and information sources unsupervised by by churches and schools.  Sklar suggests that the middle-class saw censorship as a way to control the movies and to realize a desire to return to a society (a la Elizabethan) in which high culture was popular culture accessible to and enjoyed by alls social groups.  This dream failed to materialize because demonopolization (the busting of the Edison Trust) of the movie industry thwarted efforts at exert complete control over movie content through censorship.  The desire to make high culture popular culture factors significantly in my research interests, and while it is not Sklar’s main concern his history usefully details the movie situation within which such desire was expressed. His history covers the period from the birth of the movies to “Hollywood’s collapse” as he puts it, which coincided with the rise of television, art films and hard-core porn films.