At least half the picture: sound and narration in the postwar / pre-Dolby American film

Unrestricted This dissertation: (a) argues that the time between the end of World War Two and the introduction of Dolby technology constitutes a distinct historical period in the American sound film and labels this the "postwar / pre-Dolby era"; (b) offers case studies of Hollywood films, avant-garde films, documentary films, and an animated film from the identified time period; and (c) on the basis of these case studies, complicates the synchronous / a synchronous dichotomy, the diegetic / nondiegetic binary, and the classical hierarchy of image over sound. In sum, the dissertation argues that the study of film history needs to more fully acknowledge the centralityof sound and the study of film sound needs to become more historical.; The dissertation discusses changes in the production, aesthetics and exhibition of American films in the postwar / pre-Dolby era. Films in this period present sound as something more than a support for the image and narrative. The foregrounding of sound in film narration is a return to the uncontrolled sound of the pre-classical era and explains the uses and presentation of sound in the Dolby era. This leads to a reconfiguration of the classical period's limitations on sound as the exception, rather than the norm, of cinema. The discussion puts forth a theorization of film narration as the combination of sound and image because film is an audiovisual medium.; Topics also include: magnetic sound, stereo sound, surround sound, voiceover narration, the use of rock music as performance and underscore, the direct aural address of the audience, and the combination of voice and body in films that admit the two do not naturally or inevitably belong together.