ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the aural impact on the cinematic discourse of film periodicals in India in the 1930s, when synchronized sound became part of the filmic medium. Based on contemporary disciplinary revisions that have made sonic influences part of a more inclusive and perceptual approach to cultural engagement (Erlmann 2004), I explore how the sonic inscribes itself in the textual/visual of the early film magazines and journals, which in itself is an interesting site that negotiates the demands of mass production of the film industry in a bourgeois form with claims and aspirations to engage the cultural aesthetics of the new format. There are two primary facets of the periodical that I wish to engage as part of my analysis: first, the “noise” that emerges around film music in the cinematic discourse. Music became the primary identifiable sound for the new talking film produced in different parts of India. Its presence was extremely popular and constantly discussed in terms of as a guilty pleasure in these film magazines, which constantly desired and posited the idea of an alternative modern form. It also serves as an important background to theorize listening for talking films. Second, I consider how the aural interacts and integrates with the emerging visual narrative of early stardom in the country.
