The Jazz Singer

When I first started this assignment I thought I was going to be completely bored. I thought that since it was a silent film with music, I would not be able to understand what was going on and for a while I was right but as I continued to view the film, I completely understood what was going on. The Jazz Singer sparked a revolution by the film industry to have synchronized speech, singing, and music using the vitaphone. Even though the film only had two senses where the characters actually spoke and the rest of the dialogue was presented through the caption cards, or inter-tiles which was a common standard in silent movies with the music accompaniment, this was a big event for 1927. The vitaphone sound was on disc format which was developed…

Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer opened in 1927 to critical acclaim and widespread popular acclamation. The film is focused on young, Jewish Jakie Rabinowitz, who defies his devoutly religious family in order to pursue a career on stage as a jazz singer. Significantly, this film features copious uses of blackface, which is not only narratively but thematically central to the message of the film—the necessary rebellion of modernity against tradition, of New World dynamism against Old World stagnation.…

the South California (Rosenberg, 2002) The movie “The Jazz Singer” is a 1927 American musical cinematic experience. The date 6th October 1927, it made a new mark in the history as the audiences flocked to the theaters to watch the much-hyped The Jazz Singer, the only difference was that audience not only saw but also heard the actual voices of the actors. It changed the prospect and the façade of the cinema viewing experience. The film starred the popular actor Al Jolson and the movie used his…

problems. Early sound technology was cumbersome and loud, therefore it needed to be housed in a special room, called a blimp. Cameras also lost the ability to pan, and actors, the ability to move around- microphones needed to remain static in order to capture sound, therefore, actors had to remain fairly still as well (infoplease, 2001). Due to these restraints, it was unclear if sound had a future in film. The Jazz Singer and its Impact. The Jazz Singer (1927) was released on October 26, 1927.…

It sort of serves as a documentary or epic on what filmmakers had to go through during that era and suffered with. When the Jazz Singer was released most filmmakers thought they would go out of business because they could not compete with talkies. You can see the film company parodying and joking in the scene Don Lockwood and Lina Lamont have their film preview and the film loses synchronization, which actually happened in the 1920s because the technology was difficult for some to work. The use…

In 1940 there were short films of many famous jazz artists and their bands on a movie-set bandstand. Musician Louis Thomas Jordan made short films for his songs which then was spiced together into a feature film called ‘Lookout Sister.’ Louis Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences for 1930 to the early 1950's. He was a very successful African American musician and sold at least 4 million hits during his career. In 1964 the Beatles set the stage for modern music video with…

Billie Holiday was born in Philadelphia Pennsylvania in 1915 and is a very successful and famous Jazz singer. Billie Holiday influenced tons of musicians and people throughout her career, even though it came to a bad end. Her songs and the way she sang them really inspired many people and made many fall in love with her and her work.People still listen to her music till this day and she is still considered one of the greatest jazz musicians. Billie Holiday had a very tough childhood. Her real…

Not often does a decision made by a director due to lack of funds create an end result that critics will continue discussing for nearly a century. However German director Fritz Lang, made such a decision for his 1931 film, M. Partly due to monetary constraints, and partly due to feelings that his own artistic vision would be compromised by including sound in his piece, the end result was a film with roughly a third in total silence. No film, as of yet, quite encapsulates the deafening power of…

The lack of African Americans in The Jazz Singer becomes clear as Jack Robin (played by Al Jolson) appears on screen for the first time in blackface. The only African American representation in the film is through what is considered a racist imitation or caricature. Jolson’s use of blackface and its meaning has been subject to much debate by scholars. Rogin believes blackface was a vehicle for upward mobility, as Jack Robin ‘rises by putting on the mask of a group that must remain, immobile,…

relaxing jazz music, sing along with a great singer, and reminisce about my musical days. The incorporation of the black experience throughout the event was a fresh breath of air. I am an Africana Studies minor, so anything about the black experience has my attention! I appreciated the fact that although I did not read Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson, I was able to understand the era of the book through the various Harlem jazz and blues-inspired music pieces. In addition, the speaker,…