Hallelujah (1929) de King Vidor : naissance de la voix afro-américaine à Hollywood

Hallelujah and Hearts in Dixie were the first all-black cast, talking and singing pictures to be produced in Hollywood. Although conceived as a Movietone synchronized sound film, King Vidor’s Hallelujah had to be shot silent and dubbed afterwards. The added sound-track revolutionized the way picture...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Jean-Marie Lecomte
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Presses universitaires de Rennes 2009-01-01
Series:Revue LISA
Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/788
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1841558358463610880
author Jean-Marie Lecomte
author_facet Jean-Marie Lecomte
author_sort Jean-Marie Lecomte
collection DOAJ
description Hallelujah and Hearts in Dixie were the first all-black cast, talking and singing pictures to be produced in Hollywood. Although conceived as a Movietone synchronized sound film, King Vidor’s Hallelujah had to be shot silent and dubbed afterwards. The added sound-track revolutionized the way pictures were perceived. Avoiding both popular imagery and musical fantasy, Vidor achieved what might be called “lyrical social realism”, a blend of subjective vision and objective reality. He extracted the verbal artefacts of negritude found in the Black communities of his Texan childhood while keeping them within a documentary format. To appreciate the full impact the movie made in 1929, one must set it in the proper context of American film in the nineteen-twenties when “colored” characters had a limited segregated place, like silent images in a picture-book. The film’s verbal flux runs like a metaphoric undercurrent displacing visual stereotypy. Hallelujah’s characters (mostly played by untrained actors) transcend the limitations of their visual representation through the poetics of voice. Black Americans are not patronized, but shot with Vidor’s particular brand of subjective realism suffused with folk poetry, they become human.
format Article
id doaj-art-50cbde5296d4418b87f2e720fce6383d
institution Kabale University
issn 1762-6153
language English
publishDate 2009-01-01
publisher Presses universitaires de Rennes
record_format Article
series Revue LISA
spelling doaj-art-50cbde5296d4418b87f2e720fce6383d2025-01-06T09:03:54ZengPresses universitaires de RennesRevue LISA1762-61532009-01-017567210.4000/lisa.788Hallelujah (1929) de King Vidor : naissance de la voix afro-américaine à HollywoodJean-Marie LecomteHallelujah and Hearts in Dixie were the first all-black cast, talking and singing pictures to be produced in Hollywood. Although conceived as a Movietone synchronized sound film, King Vidor’s Hallelujah had to be shot silent and dubbed afterwards. The added sound-track revolutionized the way pictures were perceived. Avoiding both popular imagery and musical fantasy, Vidor achieved what might be called “lyrical social realism”, a blend of subjective vision and objective reality. He extracted the verbal artefacts of negritude found in the Black communities of his Texan childhood while keeping them within a documentary format. To appreciate the full impact the movie made in 1929, one must set it in the proper context of American film in the nineteen-twenties when “colored” characters had a limited segregated place, like silent images in a picture-book. The film’s verbal flux runs like a metaphoric undercurrent displacing visual stereotypy. Hallelujah’s characters (mostly played by untrained actors) transcend the limitations of their visual representation through the poetics of voice. Black Americans are not patronized, but shot with Vidor’s particular brand of subjective realism suffused with folk poetry, they become human.https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/788
spellingShingle Jean-Marie Lecomte
Hallelujah (1929) de King Vidor : naissance de la voix afro-américaine à Hollywood
Revue LISA
title Hallelujah (1929) de King Vidor : naissance de la voix afro-américaine à Hollywood
title_full Hallelujah (1929) de King Vidor : naissance de la voix afro-américaine à Hollywood
title_fullStr Hallelujah (1929) de King Vidor : naissance de la voix afro-américaine à Hollywood
title_full_unstemmed Hallelujah (1929) de King Vidor : naissance de la voix afro-américaine à Hollywood
title_short Hallelujah (1929) de King Vidor : naissance de la voix afro-américaine à Hollywood
title_sort hallelujah 1929 de king vidor naissance de la voix afro americaine a hollywood
url https://journals.openedition.org/lisa/788
work_keys_str_mv AT jeanmarielecomte hallelujah1929dekingvidornaissancedelavoixafroamericaineahollywood