ABSTRACT
Focusing on the echoes of the radiophonic in early sound cinema, this chapter explores the intersections, complements, and rivalries between sound cinema and radio in this period. Throughout Latin America, radio and sound cinema reconfigured the aurality of the public sphere and sensorial competencies of audiences. Early sound cinema and radio are linked by their dependence on music, more specifically by the development and consolidation of nationness in music. Similarly, sound technologies also generated a renewed sense of aurality and reimagination of community that further challenged and reconfigured visual/literate culture. The chapter illuminates the complex intermedial relation between radio and cinema during the crucial first decades of the sound era. It argues first that film historians have largely ignored or misrepresented the intermedial synergies. The chapter then explores the impact of the aural dynamics that emerges from such intermedial practices on the stabilization of the audience. Finally, it looks to the specific textual practices in key films of the period.
