The Dickson Experimental Sound Film (1894)

The Dickson Experimental Sound Film Review

The Dickson Experimental Sound Film is an 1894 silent short film directed by William Dickson. It is such a crucial piece of film history.

This is the first movie in history to feature synchronized sound with image. It is mind-blowing that they managed to incorporate sound into a film two decades before talkies actually arrived and it doesn’t sound terrible or creaky. It’s a miracle, that’s for sure. The movie looks and sounds incredible for its time and the most interesting part of it is the director speaking before the movie starts. The fact that we can hear him talking made for a transcendent cinematic moment.

The film is famous for featuring two men dancing together, but this is not a gay sequence. Back then it was common for men to dance with each other and that wasn’t seen to be romantic as it is today. Still, the fact that the first sound movie has two men dancing was fascinating and that image is an iconic one. The music that they chose for the movie is also quite interesting, though rarely known today. It is difficult to rate this type of film, but it’s most certainly worthy of admiration even if it is just seventeen seconds long.

The Dickson Experimental Sound Film is a crucial film for the history of cinema as the first ever movie with synchronized sound. It was a tremendous achievement.

My Rating – 4.5