Synopsis

October 6th, 1927, Warner Brothers showcased a film which would inspire great innovation in film history. This film was the first sound film, The Jazz Singer in which Vaudeville star Al Jolson starred, sang and spoke his lines. Although strictly speaking, The Jazz Singer was not a true sound film as it merely presented an audio recreation of instrumental accompaniment, the actors’singing and a few dialogue lines, but the film rewrote film history as it inspired change in world cinema. At first, it drove Hollywood into a state of confusion as some cheered at the new possibilities sound presented while others were critical about sound film’s potential to destroy silent cinema’s aesthetic world of imagination. Amongst this controversy, The Jazz Singer saved Warner Brothers from bankruptcy and established it as a major studio while the film’s successors embraced this innovative paradigm called‘sound’, inventing new forms and styles. The subsequent emergence of new genres such as music films and musicals were the result of technological advance. Like the‘holy sound’that reverberated with God’s words at the beginning of the world, the first sound film, The Jazz Singer brought a new reverberation to the world of cinema. Eighty years later at Jecheon in 2008, it will truly be a wonderful experience to hear the first sound that was made in film. (Hyuk-sang Denis Lee) ​

감독

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  • 알랜 크로스랜드
  • 1894년 미국 뉴욕 출생.‘ 뉴욕 글로브’란 영화잡지에 글을 쓰다 1912년 에디슨 스튜디오에서 처음으로 영화 일을 시작한다. 몇 편의 무성 단편 영화를 연출한 후, 1918년 <믿지 않는자>란 첫 장편 영화를 감독했다. 이후 워너 브라더스사에서 사운드가 들어간 첫 영화인 <돈주앙>(1926)을 연출했고, 이듬 해 대표작인 최초의 유성영화 <재즈 싱어>를 감독했다. 1936년 교통사고로 사망하기 전까지 꾸준히 활동했으나 <재즈 싱어>가 가장 유명한 작품으로 남아 있다.​