Chapter 468: The Birth of the Sound Film

As time reached 1908, Gao Da welcomed another piece of good news, which was the birth of the sound film.

Speaking of sound films, one must mention silent films; the difference between the two is only reflected in sound, and there is no other difference.

The birth of the silent film can be traced back to 1895, when the French Lumière brothers invented the film, which quickly spread to various European countries.

Films at that time had no sound at all; people could only watch them through specially made film projectors, and whether it was the viewing experience or the brilliance of the film itself, it could only be described as a complete mess.

Films at the time were generally not long, and coupled with black-and-white images and relatively backward technology, watching them even involved some stuttering.

If people from later generations were to watch such films, it is estimated that they would turn them off after just a few seconds.

But for people of this era, this was a rare and unique form of entertainment. Before the birth of film, people could not imagine that a series of actions could be recorded and played for others to see.

At the end of the 19th century, film caused a sensation throughout Europe, and various countries quickly established film-related companies to begin researching various types of film projectors.

During this period, Spain also established two film companies and filmed several historical movies with educational significance, telling the stories of how various Spanish ethnic groups united to drive out the heathens and how the Spanish people heroically resisted the corrupt rule of the Bourbon family.

These stories all adopted a narrative technique of seven parts truth and three parts fiction, and ordinary people had no ability to discern this at all. They would only feel that the stories told in the films were completely true, thereby imposing their own likes and dislikes onto the characters appearing in the films.

Gao Da had also watched a silent film once, but the experience of watching a silent film was truly too terrible, which also made Gao Da give up the idea of vigorously developing silent films.

But this did not mean that Gao Da had completely given up on the film industry. After determining that the value of silent films was not that great, Gao Da immediately increased investment in Spanish film companies, ordering them to develop sound films to promote the progress of the film industry in Spain.

The most primitive sound films were not that complicated; the earliest sound film can be traced back to a film shown in Paris in 1900.

The sound film developed by Spain used technology similar to that of this film; to put it plainly, it was adding a phonograph on the basis of a silent film, playing the sound from the phonograph at the same time as the film was playing, to achieve the effect of the film having sound.

Although this method was somewhat cumbersome, it was indeed the simplest way to realize sound films.

After several generations of updates to the phonograph technology, the Spanish film companies officially announced the commercialization of sound films and were about to start filming Spain's first sound film.

Regarding sound films, Gao Da's expectations were still quite high.

The cultural propaganda role that film can play is unparalleled, and in this era, it is also the most effective means of cultural dissemination.

In addition to promoting Spanish culture externally, within Spain, filming related movies also helps Spain integrate all the ethnic groups within the country.

The sound film technology was in the hands of Spanish film companies, so naturally, the Spanish film companies had the final say on how to film movies.

And these Spanish film companies were all established behind the scenes by the royal family; in other words, whatever type of film Gao Da wanted to shoot, he could shoot.

Speaking of making movies, what Gao Da most wanted to shoot were naturally films about Spanish history, focusing on the integration of various Spanish ethnic groups. By fictionalizing the history of all current Spanish ethnic groups, he would make all Spaniards believe that whether they were Spaniards, Catalans, Basques, Portuguese, or even those assimilated Moroccans, everyone shared the same ancestors and naturally belonged to the same ethnic group.

Regardless of whether these lies would be exposed in the future, at this moment, with the spread of the films, a large number of people would believe the claims in the films and accept the concept of Spain as a unified great nation.

Spain itself was a product of the integration of Castile and Aragon, so it naturally lacked specificity. This was the best time to stuff various messy ethnic groups into the framework of the great Spanish nation. If this could be achieved, the future Iberian Peninsula would only have the unified great Spanish nation, and others, including the Catalans, Portuguese, and Basques, would vanish into thin air.

Integrating the nation's ethnic groups into a unified great nation would also be conducive to strengthening stability within Spain and reducing the risk of national division.

In the process of great ethnic integration, cultural propaganda is a very important means, and the role of film is also quite important.

Following Gao Da's order, the two Spanish film companies immediately began filming movies about Spanish history.

Just like the silent films shot before, all films uniformly adopted the method of seven parts truth and three parts fiction to increase the credibility of the films, allowing more people to believe the history told by the films through subtle influence.

This is like the famous *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* and *Records of the Three Kingdoms* of later generations; one is a very famous historical novel, and the other is the official history in the true sense.

Because the former is more famous, more people will subtly bring the fictional plots of the novel into the official history and believe them deeply.

Although a small number of people who have read the official history clearly understand the fictional nature of the novel, most people do not understand it. When they talk about this period of history, the first thing they think of is the plot of the more famous fictional novel.

What Gao Da wanted to do was to use similar means to make fictional history famous within Spain, allowing a history more favorable to the current Spain to replace the original history.

Wanting to achieve this was still very simple. After all, the reason people knew *Romance of the Three Kingdoms* was a fictional novel was because there was the official history *Records of the Three Kingdoms*, but the history-related films shot by Spain had no official history to prove them false, so the public would naturally believe the content of the films more.

The history of the last few decades was fine, as some people had experienced it personally, and they naturally had a certain ability to judge.

But for most people, more distant history was a very vague past; most people had no impression of it at all and could only understand this period of history through word-of-mouth stories and certain written records.

As films spread widely within Spain, the stories passed down by word of mouth among the Spanish people would certainly add some plots related to the films.

And the written records could be directly modified by the Spanish government, and even history textbooks in schools could be modified, allowing the new generation of Spanish children to learn the new history directly.

In this way, the Spanish government could achieve a complete modification of history related to ethnic integration, promoting the great integration of the nation.