This study discusses and analyses recorded/filmed speech, translation, and cultural identity in film discourses in early European sound film. The purpose is to frame these issues from a number of theoretical perspectives in order to highlight relations between media, speech and translation. The points of departure are 1. “universal language” vs. “linguistic diversity”, 2. “media transposition” vs. “language translation”, and 3, “speech as words” vs. “speech as body”. An important aspect in order to discuss these topics is the problem of “versions”, both different translated versions, and versions in different media of speech representation. The correlation of theory with a historical focus offers a contextualisation of translation as an issue of cinematic culture, and also sheds new light on topics that previously have been referred to as details (such as foreign accents in film) or as phenomena considered to be unrelated to “cinematic quality” (such as “filmed theatre”). The object of analysis consists of German, French and Swedish films, trade and fan press, and film theory from the 1920s and 1930s. The study begins with a theoretical and historical introduction, which addresses representation of speech in reproduction media focusing on early sound technology predominantly from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Chapter two offers a discussion of speech as signifier of differentiated ethnicity in relation to a utopia of universal language embodied in film and sound media. Chapter three addresses film speech as a multimedia issue revealing a problematic of version as a context for the various means of translating. Chapter four offers a general discussion of film translation in the period of transition to sound with a focus on dubbing, subtitles and inter-titling. The two last chapters deal exclusively with the multiple language version film, a translation practice based on re-making the same script in different languages.

C’est le 8 mars 1929 qu’on voit pour la première fois à Lyon, dans une salle de cinéma, une production américaine sonore, Les Ailes (Wings, William A. Wellman, 1927). Ce film marque les débuts du cinéma sonore et parlant dans la capitale des Gaules. Dès lors, les grands établissements de la ville s’équipent d’une installation. C’est un succès phénoménal. L’arrivée et le triomphe du cinéma parlant inquiètent le monde théâtral qui voit en lui un sérieux et redoutable concurrent. À cette époque, de nombreux articles rapprochant le septième art et l’art dramatique vont paraître, nombre d’entre eux s’interrogent alors sur l’avenir du théâtre. Mais qu’en est-il réellement des répercussions de la généralisation du parlant sur l’évolution de la fréquentation des théâtres de la ville de Lyon ? Comment réagissent-ils face à l’arrivée des films parlants ? Cette nouvelle technologie a-t-elle eu des conséquences sur leur fréquentation et sur leur fonctionnement ? Dans une approche socio-culturelle, économique et historique, cette thèse se propose donc d’étudier et d’analyser l’évolution de la fréquentation des cinémas et des théâtres lyonnais au cours des années trente. L’étude de l’impact de la généralisation du parlant, puis de la crise économique et enfin de la mise en place des nouvelles lois sociales par le Front populaire en juin 1936 est alors déterminante pour comprendre les changements de rapports qui s’établissent entre ces deux arts. / The first time that an American sound film was shown in a cinema in Lyon, was on March 8, 1929. The movie was entitled Wings (Les Ailes, William A. Wellman, 1927). This film was a starting point for sound films also known as talking pictures, in the capital of the Gauls. From that point, cinemas started to equip. It was a phenomenal success. The beginnings and the triumph of sound films worried the theatre world, which saw them as a serious and fierce rival. This is the time when a lot of articles comparing cinematographic art and drama were published, many of them wondering about the future of drama. What were the repercussions of the transition to sound films on the evolution of theatres attendance in Lyon? How did theatres react to the rise of talking pictures? Did this new technology have an impact on theatres attendance and functioning? This thesis will pay attention to the evolution of attendance in Lyon’s cinemas and theatres in the 1930s focusing on a sociocultural, economic and historic approach. The study of the impact of the transition to sound films as well as the economic crisis and the implementation of laws by the Front populaire in June 1936 are then determining to understand the evolution of the connection between drama and cinema.