Elisabeth Weis is professor of film at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and executive director of the National Society of Film Critics. She has written or edited books on sound, comedy, and star acting. John Belton is professor of English and film at Rutgers University and the author of five books, including Widescreen Cinema, winner of the Kraszna-Krausz prize for books on the moving image, and American Cinema/American Culture, a textbook accompanying the PBS series American Cinema. He has also edited three books, including Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window, and is associate editor of the journal Film History.

Part 1. History, Technology, and Aesthetics
Introduction
The Coming of Sound: Technological Change in the American Film Industry, by Douglas Gomery
Economic Struggle and Hollywood Imperialism: Europe Converts to Sound, by Douglas Gomery
Film Style and Technology in the Thirties: Sound, by Barry Salt
The Evolution of Sound Technology, by Rick Altman
Ideology and the Practice of Sound Editing and Mixing, by Mary Ann Doane
Technology and Aesthetics of Film Sound, by John Belton
Part II: Theory
Section 1: Classical Sound Theory
A Statement, by S. M. Eisenstein, V. I. Pudovkin, and G. V. Alexandrov
Asynchronism as a Principle of Sound Film, by V. I. Pudovkin
The Art of Sound, by René Clair
Manifesto: Dialogue on Sound, by Basil Wright and B. Vivian Braun
Sound in Films, by Alberto Cavalcanti
A New Laocoön: Artistic Composites and the Talking Film, by Rudolph Arnheim
Theory of Film: Sound, by Bela Balazs
Dialogue and Sound, by Siegfried Kracauer
Slow-Motion Sound, by Jean Epstein
Section 2: Modern Sound Theory
Notes on Sound, by Robert Bresson
Direct Sound: An Interview with, by Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet
Aural Objects, by Christian Metz
The Voice in the Cinema: The Articulation of Body and Space, by Mary Ann Doane
Part III: Practice
Section I: Practice and Methodology
Fundamental Aesthetics of Sound in the Cinema, by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson
On the Structural Use of Sound, by Noël Burch
Section 2: Pioneers
The Movies Learn to Talk: Ernst Lubitsch, René Clair, and Rouben Mamoulian, by Arthur Knight
American Sound Films, 1926-1930,, by Ron Mottram
Applause: The Visual and Acoustic Landscape, by Lucy Fischer
Enthusiasm: From Kino-Eye to Radio Eye, by Lucy Fischer
Lang and Pabst: Paradigms for Early Sound Practice, by Noël Carroll
The Voice of Silence: Sound Style in John Stahl's Back Street, by Martin Rubin
Section 3: Stylists
Orson Welle's Use of Sound, by Penny Mintz
The Evolution of Hitchcock's Aural Style and Sound in The Birds, by Elisabeth Weis
The Sound Track of The Rules of the Game, by Michael Litle
Sound in Bresson's Mouchette, by Lindley Hanlon
Godard's Use of Sound, by Alan Williams
Section 4: Contemporary Innovators
Altman, Dolby, and the Second Sound Revolution, by Charles Schreger
Sound Mixing and Apocalypse Now: An Interview with Walter Murch, by Frank Paine
The Sound Designer, by Marc Mancini
Sound and Silence in Narrative and Nonnarrative Cinema, by Fred Camper