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20世纪20年代末从无声电影到有声电影的转变，标志着到目前为止电影史上最重要的转变。

The shift from silent to sound film at the end of the 1920’s marks, so far, the most important transformation in motion picture history.

尽管从那以后的几十年里，在影院和家庭影院中出现了非常明显的动态影像技术发展，但没有一项创新被视为类似的分水岭。

Despite all the highly visible technological developments in theatrical and home delivery of the moving image that have occurred over the decades since then, no single innovation has come close to being regarded as a similar kind of watershed.

在几乎每一种语言里，无论词汇是如何表达的，影院历史上最基本的区分存在于无声电影和有声电影之间。

In nearly every language, however the words are phrased, the most basic division in cinema history lies between films that are mute and films that speak.

然而，这一最基本的历史分期标准掩盖了许多悖论。

Yet this most fundamental standard of historical periodization conceals a host of paradoxes.

几乎每个电影院，无论多么简陋，都有钢琴或风琴为无声电影提供音乐伴奏。

Nearly every movie theater, however modest, had a piano or organ to provide musical accompaniment to silent pictures.

在很多情况下，在录制声音之前的时代，观众在观看电影的视觉画面的同时，还能体验到精心制作的听觉效果，从日本辩士（讲述者）精心制作的多种对话叙事，到欧洲和美国交响乐规模的乐团演奏的原创音乐作品。

In many instances, spectators in the era before recorded sound experienced elaborate aural presentations alongside movies’ visual images, from the Japanese benshi (narrators) crafting multivoiced dialogue narratives to original musical compositions performed by symphony-size orchestras in Europe and the United States.

在柏林，电影导演谢尔盖·爱森斯坦（Sergei Eisenstein）与奥地利作曲家埃德蒙·迈瑟尔（Edmund Meisel，1874-1930）合作，为《波将金号》（Battleship Potemkin）在苏联之外的首演配乐；柏林的伴随着现场音乐的放映帮助这部电影获得了广泛的国际声誉。

In Berlin, for the premiere performance outside the Soviet Union of The Battleship Potemkin, film director Sergei Eisenstein worked with Austrian composer Edmund Meisel (1874–1930) on a musical score matching sound to image; the Berlin screenings with live music helped to bring the film its wide international fame.

除此之外，录制的声音的成功掩盖了在20世纪20年代同时进行的在视觉图像方面的技术和美学实验的丰富多样性。

Beyond that, the triumph of recorded sound has overshadowed the rich diversity of technological and aesthetic experiments with the visual image that were going forward simultaneously in the 1920’s.

在这一时期，人们发明或尝试了新的色彩处理方法，更大或不同形状的屏幕，多屏幕投影，甚至电视机，有时会取得惊人的成功。

New color processes, larger or differently shaped screen sizes, multiple-screen projections, even television, were among the developments invented or tried out during the period, sometimes with startling success.

转换成声音的高昂成本和声音技术的早期限制是抑制这些其他领域的创新或阻碍进步的因素之一。

The high costs of converting to sound and the early limitations of sound technology were among the factors that suppressed innovations or retarded advancement in these other areas.

新屏幕格式的引入被推迟了四分之一个世纪，而颜色，尽管在接下来的二十年里被用于特殊的制作，直到20世纪50年代才成为一种标准。

The introduction of new screen formats was put off for a quarter century, and color, though utilized over the next two decades for special productions, also did not become a norm until the 1950’s.

尽管从后来的角度可能很难想象，但20世纪20年代的一种批评意见认为，有声电影将是一种很快就会淡出人们的视线的技术新奇事物，就像之前那些可以追溯到第一次世界大战之前的许多将图像与录制的声音联系起来的尝试一样。

Though it may be difficult to imagine from a later perspective, a strain of critical opinion in the 1920’s predicted that sound film would be a technical novelty that would soon fade from sight, just as had many previous attempts, dating well back before the First World War, to link images with recorded sound.

这些批评者做出了一个普遍的假设——早期尝试中技术的不足（同步差，声音放大弱，录音易损）将不可避免地再次发生。

These critics were making a common assumption—that the technological inadequacies of earlier efforts (poor synchronization, weak sound amplification, fragile sound recordings) would invariably occur again.

可以肯定的是，他们对1920年声音实验中技术缺陷的评估并没有偏离目标太远，但是他们忽略了电影领域中重要的新力量，从某种意义上说，这些新力量是不容否定的。

To be sure, their evaluation of the technical flaws in 1920’s sound experiments was not so far off the mark, yet they neglected to take into account important new forces in the motion picture field that, in a sense, would not take no for an answer.

这些力量是20世纪20年代迅速扩张的电子和电信公司，在发展和连接电话和无线技术。

These forces were the rapidly expanding electronics and telecommunications companies that were developing and linking telephone and wireless technologies in the 1920’s.

在美国，这些公司包括美国电话电报公司、通用电气公司和西屋电气公司。

In the United States, they included such firms as American Telephone and Telegraph, General Electric, and Westinghouse.

他们对所有形式的声音技术和所有潜在的商业开发途径都感兴趣。

They were interested in all forms of sound technology and all potential avenues for commercial exploitation.

20世纪20年代早期，从商业广播节目的引入开始，他们之间的竞争与合作开始在美国形成广播产业。

Their competition and collaboration were creating the broadcasting industry in the United States, beginning with the introduction of commercial radio programming in the early 1920’s.

他们的金融资产要比电影行业的资产大得多，或许还对娱乐和通讯媒体之间的关系有了更广泛的认识，因此他们重新推动了对电影声音录制的研究。

With financial assets considerably greater than those in the motion picture industry, and perhaps a wider vision of the relationships among entertainment and communications media, they revitalized research into recording sound for motion pictures.

1929年，美国电影工业发行了300多部有声电影——这是一个粗略的数字，因为考虑到许多还没有安装音响设备的电影院，许多电影都是有配乐的无声电影，或者是准备了两个版本的电影。

In 1929 the United States motion picture industry released more than 300 sound films—a rough figure, since a number were silent films with music tracks, or films prepared in dual versions, to take account of the many cinemas not yet wired for sound.

在生产水平上，美国在1930年几乎完成了转换。

At the production level, in the United States the conversion was virtually complete by 1930.

在欧洲花了更长时间，主要是因为对更多的小型生产商来说，声音的成本让人望而却步，而在世界其他地区，由于使用权或设备的问题，声音制作的转变又推迟了几年（尽管大城市的电影院可能是为了播放外国的有声电影而安装了音响系统）。

In Europe it took a little longer, mainly because there were more small producers for whom the costs of sound were prohibitive, and in other parts of the world problems with rights or access to equipment delayed the shift to sound production for a few more years (though cinemas in major cities may have been wired in order to play foreign sound films).

有声电影的胜利是迅速的，全面的，非常受欢迎的。

The triumph of sound cinema was swift, complete, and enormously popular.

According to paragraph 1, which of the following is the most significant development in the history of film?

Why does the author mention “Japanese benshi” and “original musical compositions”?

Paragraph 2 suggests which of the following about Eisenstein’s film The Battleship Potemkin?

According to paragraph 3, which of the following is NOT true of the technological and aesthetic experiments of the 1920’s?

Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.

According to paragraph 4, which of the following is true about the technical problems of early sound films?

In paragraph 5, commercial radio programming is best described as the result of

According to paragraph 6, which of the following accounts for the delay in the conversion to sound films in Europe?

Look at the four squares  that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage. When this research resulted in the development of vastly improved sound techniques, film studios became convinced of the importance of converting to sound.  Where would the sentence best fit? Click on a square  to add the sentence to the passage.

Directions: An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selecting the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points.

Transition to Sound in Film The shift from silent to sound film at the end of the 1920’s marks, so far, the most important transformation in motion picture history. Despite all the highly visible technological developments in theatrical and home delivery of the moving image that have occurred over the decades since then, no single innovation has come close to being regarded as a similar kind of watershed. In nearly every language, however the words are phrased, the most basic division in cinema history lies between films that are mute and films that speak. Yet this most fundamental standard of historical periodization conceals a host of paradoxes. Nearly every movie theater, however modest, had a piano or organ to provide musical accompaniment to silent pictures. In many instances, spectators in the era before recorded sound experienced elaborate aural presentations alongside movies’ visual images, from the Japanese benshi (narrators) crafting multivoiced dialogue narratives to original musical compositions performed by symphony-size orchestras in Europe and the United States. In Berlin, for the premiere performance outside the Soviet Union of The Battleship Potemkin, film director Sergei Eisenstein worked with Austrian composer Edmund Meisel (1874–1930) on a musical score matching sound to image; the Berlin screenings with live music helped to bring the film its wide international fame. Beyond that, the triumph of recorded sound has overshadowed the rich diversity of technological and aesthetic experiments with the visual image that were going forward simultaneously in the 1920’s. New color processes, larger or differently shaped screen sizes, multiple-screen projections, even television, were among the developments invented or tried out during the period, sometimes with startling success. The high costs of converting to sound and the early limitations of sound technology were among the factors that suppressed innovations or retarded advancement in these other areas. The introduction of new screen formats was put off for a quarter century, and color, though utilized over the next two decades for special productions, also did not become a norm until the 1950’s. Though it may be difficult to imagine from a later perspective, a strain of critical opinion in the 1920’s predicted that sound film would be a technical novelty that would soon fade from sight, just as had many previous attempts, dating well back before the First World War, to link images with recorded sound. These critics were making a common assumption—that the technological inadequacies of earlier efforts (poor synchronization, weak sound amplification, fragile sound recordings) would invariably occur again. To be sure, their evaluation of the technical flaws in 1920’s sound experiments was not so far off the mark, yet they neglected to take into account important new forces in the motion picture field that, in a sense, would not take no for an answer. These forces were the rapidly expanding electronics and telecommunications companies that were developing and linking telephone and wireless technologies in the 1920’s. In the United States, they included such firms as American Telephone and Telegraph, General Electric, and Westinghouse. They were interested in all forms of sound technology and all potential avenues for commercial exploitation. Their competition and collaboration were creating the broadcasting industry in the United States, beginning with the introduction of commercial radio programming in the early 1920’s.  With financial assets considerably greater than those in the motion picture industry, and perhaps a wider vision of the relationships among entertainment and communications media, they revitalized research into recording sound for motion pictures.   In 1929 the United States motion picture industry released more than 300 sound films—a rough figure, since a number were silent films with music tracks, or films prepared in dual versions, to take account of the many cinemas not yet wired for sound.  At the production level, in the United States the conversion was virtually complete by 1930.  In Europe it took a little longer, mainly because there were more small producers for whom the costs of sound were prohibitive, and in other parts of the world problems with rights or access to equipment delayed the shift to sound production for a few more years (though cinemas in major cities may have been wired in order to play foreign sound films). The triumph of sound cinema was swift, complete, and enormously popular.