I realize that in 1929 sound was an issue - one actor in a scene might be heard while another one is barely heard at all. Lack of sound effects is another issue. There seems to be quite a bit of whispering, which makes this more frustrating to watch.
shareI agree. I'm suprised my neighbors didn't call the police on me since my volume was all the way up. If you ever watch this again, I noticed the problem was that the mic was near the camera. Therefore, the closer the actor walked to the camera, the better you could hear. It was also obvious when an actor turned their back to the camera -- you could hardly hear them.
"I'm not ugly. People tell me I look a lot like Sandra Bernhard."
I am about 2/3 of the way through the film, watching a Turner Classic Movies broadcast of the film. I am glad to hear the same sound issues mentioned by two others.
Another reason this might have been better as a silent: the director so clearly must have thought, "Now that we have sound, we must resort to all the conventions of the theater," and the result is a laughably stagey production.
"Another reason this might have been better as a silent: the director so clearly must have thought, "Now that we have sound, we must resort to all the conventions of the theater," and the result is a laughably stagey production."
I'm afraid you have it backwards. It's highly unlikely the director actually wanted to be stagey. The technological limitations of really early sound dictated claustrophobic, stagey production. You couldn't film outside, or even in a large indoor hall for that matter.
The invention of the boom mike in late 1929 solved this issue, but Coquette is pre-boom.
yeah i think this would have been much better as a silent movie.When there's no more room in hell, The dead will walk the earth...
I agree. I really disliked this movie. I am a huge Mary Pickford fan but this movie made me cringe. The over acting and expressions were totally suited for a silent. I realize it was early days for talkies but still...it was very awkward to watch. Mary winning the Oscar had to be for her previous body of work in silents.
shareYes, but you're watching history in the making. The sound challenges in talkies would not have been ironed out without the experience of these early talkies! Their historical significance has to at least partly compensate for their technical inadequacies. In any case I doubt that audiences of 1929 would have been overly conscious of these limitations and after all, they're the ones whom the movie was made for.
It's fine to say this movie would have been better as a silent, and I'm inclined to agree, but to say it should have been a silent or that the acting is overdone seems to be missing a basic point about the history of movie-making and about the significance of this movie in particular.
I saw this film today for the first time and I loved it. I expected it to be lame & cheesy but I was engaged from the start. I liked that as silly as she was Norma spoke her mind when she needed to and stood up to her father & friends. Johnny Mack Brown had a strong role too. I wasn't surprised at her father's actions but the ending did shock me. I really enjoyed this movie. As Robert Osborne said the other night, the crew, actors, and directors at the time were learning as they went along. They did. I will watch for this one when it airs again.
The early bird might get the worm, but the 2nd mouse gets the cheese!
The audio made the film frustrating to watch. I could clearly hear them speaking but just couldn't understand most of what was being said. Putting it louder helped a little bit but I'd still say 2/3 of it is just incoherent. Hopefully some company like Criterion picks this up, gives it a nice audio polish because the visual is actually pretty solid.
share