The aesthetics of early feature-film scores were shaped by narrational problems introduced by multi-reel features and their longer durations. Using The Patchwork Girl of Oz, I show how stylistic devices like silences and musical punctuation were used to address the coherence and pacing of multi-reel storytelling.
This article corrects misconceptions regarding the history of film stereo.I show that the technical and aesthetic innovations regularly credited to Dolby Stereo, to sound designers like Walter Murch, and to films like Apocalypse Now (1979) were not revolutions but extensions of surround-sound practices that Hollywood codified in prior decades. I call such historical misconceptions the "Dolby myth." Further, I argue that practitioners circulated this myth to critics and scholars in order to elevate the value of postproduction sound labor following the industry's transition from a studio-based economy to one dominated by independent productions.
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