Silent Era Analysis

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In any visual text, the main focus is generally put on the visual, the moving images which provide colour however this function of providing a visual satisfaction is not fulfilled without the supporting auditory effect which accompanies the visual images and builds up the synchronization which then in turn develops a successful visual text. In the history of cinema, the 1st era of films was known as the “silent era”; this was the period where the first kind of moving pictures, the silent movies were successful. During this silent era, sounds used to be performed live. The word “silent” is to be used as a retronym because these silent performances were accompanied by live sound mostly performed by orchestras to provide sound effects to the…show more content…
The constant changing of the background score which also accommodates for the diegetic sounds which follows the sequence of the characters fulfils the aim of the cartoon to generate comedy. The hits for example the sound which supports the scene when Jerry slaps a metal pan on Tom’s face and pulling his whickers to take the fish out of his mouth is the legitimate sound of a metal object banging on a surface; this adds to the reality of the situation, the viewer even if he is not watching the cartoon, knows that an act of violence has occurred. The comedy is inherent and draws the audience’s attention without the use of words. There is an interesting play of the diegetic and the non-diegetic sounds in this episode; the action like in most Tom and Jerry episodes occur very fast and there is almost an immediate change of the auditory from a peppy merry going tune to that of one with a sad undertone especially where Tom for example realizes that he has shut his tail in the pressure cooker and ending with a parallel tune showing suspense while Tom plots his next trap for Jerry. Following Kallen (1911) “the teased recognizes the nature of danger because in his state of alarm he still succeeds his aim of pain and this action generates laughter”. The musical background shapes the comedy through a tragedy, generating a chuckle from the spectator or in some cases, follows the principle of “laugh till you cry” as it does in most of the episodes. In this paper, we analysed the means through which the auditory creates language even without the use of dialogues. The musical score added with inherent sounds which follow a synchronization of the visual allow the viewer to form his own perception of the story happening in the

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