Sound or silence, loss or gain‪?‬

“Put speech into films, and you will get speech plus film but you will not get a film.”

Although, initially, sound films were considered to be only a temporary phenomenon that would never replace the silent picture, the transition to talkies proceeded more and more in Weimar cinema of the late 20’s, and, in 1931/32, the sound film completely replaced its predecessor, which had gone out of fashion finally. Yet, the new invention unmistakably evoked numerous debates about whether the addition of sound to cinema pictures rather should be seen as a pro- or regress within the evolution of film art. In view of that, this essay discusses the advantages and drawbacks of silent as well as of sound films. [...]