Musical moments and numbers in Austrian silent cinema

Abstract

Although the film musical as a genre came into its own with the sound film technologies of the late 1920s and early 1930s, several characteristic features did not originate solely with the sound film. The ‘musical number’ as the epitome of the genre, can already be found in different forms and shapes in silent films. This article looks at two Austrian silent films, Sonnige Träume (1921) and Seine Hoheit, der Eintänzer (1926), as case studies for how music is represented without a fixed sound source, highlighting the differences and similarities of musical numbers in silent and sound films. The chosen films are analysed in the contexts of their historical exhibition and accompaniment practices, Austria’s film industry as well as the country’s cultural-political situation after the end of the monarchy. These two examples demonstrate that several characteristics of the film musical are based on the creative endeavours made by filmmakers during the silent era, who struggled, failed and succeeded in ‘visualizing’ music and musical performances in the so-called ‘silent’ films. In reconstructing their problems and analysing their solutions, we are able to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of musical numbers during the silent era and on a more general level.