In 1926: living at the edge of time - Monoskop

142 ARRAYS
lights begin to dim, the action on the screen engages the spectators'
minds in a play of images which is always different from that of their
everyday lives. But while the moviegoers' imaginations may roam far
from the quotidian, their bodies remain enveloped in a sphere that fills
the gap between the quotidian and the film plots. The concretization of
this in-between sphere is the gorgeous artificiality of the movie palace.
Film itself has become part of "a glittering, revue-like entity ... : the
total artwork [Gesamtkunstwerk] of effects" (Kracauer, "Kult," 312).
[see Revues] Symphonies from the classical repertoire-and sometimes
even orchestral pieces composed for individual films-accompany the
action on the screen. But what really transforms the movie palaces'
shows into a Gesamtkunstwerk are the stage performances that precede
the feature films: "The total artwork of effects assaults everyone of the
senses using every possible means. Spotlights shower their beams into the
auditorium, playing over festive drapes or rippling through colorful
growth-like glass fixtures. The orchestra asserts itself as an independent
power, its acoustic production enhanced by the coordinated lighting.
Every emotion is given its own acoustic expression, its color value in the
spectrum-an optical and acoustic kaleidoscope which provides the setting
for the physical activity on stage, pantomime and ballet. Until finally
the white screen is lowered and the events of the three-dimensional stage
blend imperceptibly into two-dimensional illusions" (Kracauer, "Kult,"
312).
The need to reduce the cost involved in providing such musical accompaniment
(which moviegoers have come to expect), as well as the desire
to make it available even to small cinemas, leads to the final step in the
technical development of the sound film. In April, Warner Brothers, with
the financial assistance of the Wall Street banking group Goldman Sachs,
establishes the Vitaphone Corporation, formally leases a new sound
system from Western Electric, and for $800,000 secures the exclusive
right to lease it out in turn to other studios. There is at first no question
of making "talking pictures" but only the goal of replacing the orchestra
with a technical device (Cook, 257f£'). The world premiere of this device
takes place in the "Refrigerated Warner Theater" at Broadway and
Fifty-second Street in New York City on Thursday, August 6: John
Barrymore's costume drama Don Juan is shown with a recorded orchestral
score performed by the New York Philharmonic. The feature is
introduced by an hour-long, one-million-dollar program of sound-