98 years ago today, on May 3, 1927 (April 3, 1927, lunar calendar), Warner Productions released the first sound film in film history. The birth of sound films In 1927, the famous American Warner Productions company launched the first sound film in film history, bringing an earth-shaking revolution to world films. It should be said that movies are never silent. Before sound entered movies, people used musicians to score movies; in Japan, there were even specialized rappers who explained the content of the film in rap form when the film was screened. The music is usually improvised by musicians based on the plot displayed on the screen; but some films, such as the 1908 French film "The Assassination of the Duke of Guise", were composed specifically for them by the famous composer Saint-Saens. During the screening, the musicians played according to the score provided by the composer. Needless to say, the scale of the performance depends on the conditions: most are performed by one musician solo (piano or violin), sometimes several musicians perform together, and occasionally a symphony orchestra. King of Jazz Songs (1927) Director: Alan Crosland When sound films appeared in the United States in 1927, the above situation changed fundamentally. Sound is no longer just a soundtrack; the introduction of ambient sound and dialogue into the screen has put the mature image art facing the crisis of transformation. Prior to this, movies became a new type of art under the conditions of "colorless". Not only does it not regret being "colorless", on the contrary,"colorless" is just a basic condition for making movies an art. Nowadays, the intrusion of sound will inevitably break the "balance of elements" that has been formed. Therefore, in the early days of sound films, it is understandable that some artists and film theorists had doubts about sound. However, movie audiences unanimously welcomed the sound. King of Jazz Songs (1927) Director: Alan Crosland's image art formed in the silent film era is facing the crisis of being submerged. The transformation of film artists 'attitude towards sound from suspicion and opposition to adoption has turned this "crisis" into an "opportunity" for development. Eisenstein and others 'declaration on sound films, their theoretical proposition and artistic practice of "sound and painting" are typical representatives of the above changes. By the 1930s, sound had become an indispensable element in the art of film. The genre films that have appeared in the silent film era have become more mature and diverse due to the emergence of sound; as for musical comedies and police and gangster films, they cannot appear and develop without sound. Sound also provides more realistic conditions for film performance. In the 1930s, when the "art of sound and painting" matured, the trend of realism almost spread to films from all over the world.