Abstract: Film scholars have praised Rouben Mamoulian's Applause for its early innovative use of sound. Less attention, however, has been paid to two key questions: precisely how unusual were such techniques when the film was released, and what factors encouraged Mamoulian to offer such an unorthodox sound approach? This article answers these questions by examining Mamoulian's beliefs about artistry in general, and film sound in particular, and by comparing Applause to the sound practices of other films at the time. Mamoulian's devotion to medium specificity and stylization drove him to conceptualize film sound as an element to be selected, manipulated, and harnessed to the story, an attitude that was unusual at the time but would soon become the Hollywood norm.

Keywords: medium specificity, stylization, foreground / background sound, dialogue

Rouben Mamoulian's Applause (October 1929) has been widely heralded as a landmark in the development of synchronized sound film practices. Sonically, scholars have pointed to its daring work in such areas as twotrack recording, audio density, off-screen sound, and sonic expressivity. Less attention, however, has been paid to two key questions: precisely how unusual were such techniques when the film was released, and what factors predisposed Mamoulian to break the ground he did?

Such questions are vital for grasping both the early history of sound film aesthetics in the United States and the career trajectory of Mamoulian, one of the most understudied directors in American entertainment. Though many of Applause's stylistic methods would anticipate later sound film practices, we do not always recognize just how much of an anomaly Applause was upon its release in 1929. And while Mamoulian has been praised as an innovator, less attention has been paid to the extent to which Applause was the product of Mamoulian's broader, unified theory of art, and the role that Mamoulian's theatrical background played in his direction of the film. Far from a one-off experiment, Applause reflected the concerted effort of a director-artist to define sound cinema's essential properties and display ways that sound could be manipulated for narratively expressive purposes. Examining Mamoulian's theories and their realization in Applause helps uncover the methodology of a neglected director and enables us to see how filmmakers began to separate from stage-bound practices.

Filmmaking was brand new to Mamoulian when he directed Applause in 1929, but he benefitted tremendously from having spent years thinking rigorously about art in general, and theatre in particular.