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Sound films from around 1930 often feature striking moments in which neither music, nor speech, nor sound effects can be heard. Well-known examples of such uses of cinematic silence include the terrifying silence that follows the mother’s cries in M (Fritz Lang, Germany 1931), the oppressive silence in Professor Unrat’s classroom in *The Blue Angel* (Josef von Sternberg, Germany 1930), or Bela Lugosi’s wordless appearance as a vampire in *Dracula* (Tod Browning, USA 1931). How are these scenes to be understood, and how do they relate to the transition from silent film to sound film? How were they perceived by contemporary audiences? Drawing on numerous film analyses and an examination of historical source material, this study demonstrates that silence played a significant role in the development of the new cinematic aesthetic from around 1930 onwards, and that its expressive possibilities were thoroughly explored in both theory and practice. It was precisely through silence that it became clear that films were no longer merely watched – they were now also listened to.
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DOI: 10.23799/9783741005473Editions