Can sound be primary in narrative film?

I agree with the previous post about sound in film and that it plays an important role nowadays.

On my own train of thought: we need to take into account that film is a VISUAL medium primarily (celluloid at the beginning had no sound strip and first film performances had no live backing either…) So film with sound is really like a multi-media projection as opposed to film, per se – if we were to be picky about distinguishing. So even though sound or lack of it in film is very important IMO it cannot be primary.

Here I’ll give you an example of a narrative film that fails to fulfil its intention because its focus on sound sets the visual as secondary and you don’t come out with anything other than a nice ‘atmosphere’. I am taking this as a feature film example, and not taking into account the sound/image relationship of music videos, experimental work...

In the films of French/Algerian director Tony Gatlif, I’d say music plays an irreplaceable role.

He has just recently done the film Transylvania (which will probably screen at the AIFF this year). NOTE: Even though he is a director I say ‘done’ since he writes, directs and compiles/composes/arranges the music – so an all round auteur.

In a speech he gave in Prague last year for the Czech release of the film, Gatlif said that in it he tried to show the similarity between Roma and Romanian traditional music(s) (ie. music of 2 different ethnicities living in the same country). He said it to rebut claims that he was misrepresenting Romanians by showing them as uncivilized/unruly peoples by likening them to loose behaviour of gypsies (not that all of them are).

The film kind of collapsed on itself, in terms of reception and critique. Those spectators, obviously, did not take any note of the musical intention. And why should they? They went to SEE a film and instead were served up (generalized) visual representations with a nice soundtrack. The imagery was generalised by the author and the film lost focus as a result. Those who praise the film, were either seeing his work for the first time or were just dazzled by the exotic appearance of the content – cinematography and music.

My reasoning? Precisely because in Transylvania he tried to override the image (and story) with music. Unlike in his previous films, generic imagery of superstition, love and underdeveloped characters WERE ARRANGED TO music. So in effect, the (beautiful) imagery becomes the slave. His speech automatically suggested to me that everything comes second to the music in this particular film.

Why would I complain? Well, at (many) times it almost felt like watching a VERY LONG music video (no hostility towards music video, but a statement/realisation that this is intended as a narrative feature film). Sure the images and music are dazzling enough, but they work INDEPENDENTLY. I often found myself forgetting about or ignoring one and focussing on the other. Sure it had moments but the synergy wasn’t there. Moreover a number of times during the speeches during the Czech premiere, the soundtrack was heavily ‘advertised’ and it made me think that the film was really just a vehicle for the soundtrack…

IMO Transylvania undermined his previous 'film essays' on music and their interaction with the image.

I’d say that Transylvannia is a step down from his (perhaps best to date) 2004 film Exils because the latter is a great example of image WORKING WITH sound WORKING WITH image... In Exils, the sound is sometimes diegetic, sometimes not, sometimes it moves the story, sometimes it develops a character, and sometimes it sets the place or comments on a situation. The image performs similar tasks but it is on a par with the sound – it is never drowned by it. So together they COOPERATE to create the meaning of the film.

The imagery is highly symbolic, and at many points of the film without re-editing the sequence, the image and/or story would not make sense without the music. Likewise the music is many times re-defined so that, like Amanda B’s entry which showed music created by kitchen utensils, it would not make sense on a soundtrack (for example) without the image accompanying it (in the film Gatlif uses windshield wipers, bottles and other objects in the characters’ surrounding to suggest music – moreover, he almost completely erases the diagetic/non-diegetic divide)

One other point of interest is that lyrics are almost always given subtitles if the country of screening does not speak the language of a particular song – showing how important the lyrics are – sometimes they are almost like dialogue and sometimes almost like narration. I think that lyrics in his films play such an important role, that if you missed them, you would be left in a vague position as to what the film was about thematically and sometimes narratively (see Vengo)

His films raise interesting issues – always – whether he intends it or not. Gender, authorship and origin, authenticity vs representation, music and image relationship…I’d recommend seeing his films. Ones which I know are available in NZ are: Latcho Drom, Vengo, Gadjo Dilo, Swing, Exils. I also recommend seeing them in order of production because then you understand the latter films better and get to see the exploration, development, maturation and further experimentation of Sound and Image. It isn’t revolutionary but IMO it is successful.

A BIT OF A SPOILER:

The most rewarding part of Exils is the second to last scene which is about a 5-minute single take of a Sufi gathering in Algeria. The first time I watched it I don’t think I blinked nor breathed for the entire sequence. If you turn the sound off while watching it, like the driving scene in Psycho, you wouldn’t get much.

The first scene is also interesting, because it’s ‘full frontal’ male nudity, yet IMO it is mostly devoured of sexual glamour – precisely because of the music and lyrics at that point which still don’t overpower the image. The nude body thus represents something else because the sound guides our interpretation.

You may also want to see one of the last scenes in Gadjo Dilo where the scream of a woman in her burning village is not her voice but the voice of a well known singer singing a very potent and well known song which is in sync with the character’s actions and feelings… It appears at first as non-diegetic sound, so to speak, but on closer inspection of themes it could just as well be diegetic… Gatlif creates no distinction…

Phew! Hope I didn’t bore you! xxx