O cinema silencioso e o som no Brasil (1894-1920)

The silent cinema has recurred to sound from its beginnings. Despite the importance of the connection between these two spheres, only recently foreign scholars began to study the uses the cinema made of sound. Here in Brazil, researches of this field are only beginning. This essay aims to recuperate the uses the silent movies made of sound in national ground, from the first experiences with the kinetoscope (in the ends of 1894) to the beginning of the 1920s, when the place of the music in the cinematographic spectacle was stabilized. From a transdisciplinary perspective, we intend to prove that the cinematographic scene from this period integrated a context of cultural circulation: when popular music and songs were used as accompaniment for the silent films; impregnating the cinematograph with former meanings, as well as constructing new meanings – ones that mixed the moving shadows of the artists to the social polyphony.