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The Transition from Silent to Talking Film
The Jazz Singer
Dir.: Alan Crossland | 90 minutes

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The film that successfully started the era of talking cinema is a film that still manages to excite almost 100 years later. A winning combination of singing, jazz, heart-wrenching melodrama and a historical aura that will probably never fade.

Speaker: Jonathan Bar Giora (in Heb.) 

USA 1927 | 90 minutes | English | Hebrew subtitles

Jackie Rabinowitz, son of a pious cantor, wants to sing ragtime. His father, however, wants him to continue in his footsteps. Jackie leaves home, puts on blackface, and enjoys success as a jazz singer. Years later, he returns home, and from his deathbed, his father can hear his son chanting "Kol Nidre" from an adjacent synagogue. The Jazz Singer, the first film to have a synchronized soundtrack, changed the face of cinema.