Some thoughts on “Train Effects”
The article discusses certain aspects – “auditory hallucinations” of the so-called “train effect” – of the “foundational myth” of cinema that accompanied the first screenings of The Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station (L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat,1895/96) by the Lumière brothers, pointing out the “silence” of silent cinema that has not been suffciently taken into account, examined or integrated in historical analyses of this phenomenon. Silence predominated in the initial period of early cinema when film screenings were not (yet) accompanied or complemented by music or other sound effects. Proceeding from the thoughts of M. Gorky, P. Bonitzer and M. Chion, the author proposes that concurrently with and complementarily to the “blind field” of cinema, there also emerged a “deaf-mute field”, a specific “film silence” that contributes its part both to the unease and the enjoyment of early cinema.
The integral version of this article can be found in the printed KINO!