Turner, Graeme. Chapter 3: Film Languages.

Film as Social
Practice. Fourth Edition. London: Routledge, 2006.

Talking film, sound, came as a result of the need for realism to which the human
subject is in constant pursuit. Turner writes the camera itself is an apparatus that
embodies a theory of reality, ideology, because it sees the world as an object of a
single individuals point of view.
Graeme begins with an interesting example about the introduction of sound to the
film industry and theorizes as to why sound came at that point in time. Optical
sound was the crucial component to the rise of the feature film as we know it.
Turner argues that it fulfilled a need (cultural, aesthetic, political) over and above
the economic need that business always demands. He draws this notion from
Buncombe who writes that technological development all comes as a result of
some sort of need over and above the economic
Graeme and Turner took the study of film seriously without forgetting that it is an
entertainment medium. Assuming no previous knowledge of film theory, it provides
an introduction to the methods and terminology used in the study of films. It covers
the main topics encountered on film courses, such as narrative, cinematography,
stardom, the auteur, spectatorship, the film industry and much else. The way we
study a film, meaning of mise en scene or genre and how can we use these
terms to develop a deeper understanding of films. Drawing on examples ranging
from Stagecoach and Casablanca to Raiders of the Lost Ark and Pulp Fiction, it
encourages the reader to start actively studying films from the outset and to
develop an understanding not only of the text but also of the institutional and social
context within which it is situated. It relates the theory of mise en scene which
theory is used in direction skills.