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

Silent Hill (2006) and the expressive use of video game score

Academic Film literature has already established that a significant amount of a Horror film's tension can be constructed through its score. I really enjoyed the class example of Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) - where the simple visual sequence of Marion driving lost most of its 'punch' simply by muting the film. But I am interested in how the style of video game score, a subject area still adolescent in its academic exploration, can enhance tension in these films.

I missed Silent Hill (2006) in its theatrical run but I impulsively purchased the DVD last week and was quite pleasantly surprised! I was expecting the same rushed, low art, mass appeal-style adaptation like Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004) and Doom (2005), but as Rose awakens from her crash and enters the town in search of her daughter - i found that a very different kind of score begins to consume the audioscape, giving the film a much more expressive feel. Interestingly enough I discovered from Wikipedia that some of the score from this scene is a direct sample from the video game!

As Roze gazes through the mist and begins to call out for her daughter and for help, the music drives up subtly but dramatically. As this non-diagetic audio track quickly overpowers her diagetic cries for help, I already feel that her situation is hopeless in a new and different way than I have previously experienced with horror. The music falls silent with the clang of a metal pipe as the welcome sign to Silent Hill is revealed. Then a more classical horror score takes over - with elements of clanging metal, a low bassy growl, and a sinister-silophone children's tune all layered under her diagetic footsteps. But as she enters the center of town we witness a series of disorienting tracking shots accompanied by an alien-electronic humm. As these stabilize visually we re-enter the video game score style - kicked off by an audio sample i could only describe as "the non-diagetic sound that accompanied each of Neo's footseps as he entered the lobby in The Matrix". This next sequence builds on this, using this video-game audio mode to pick up the pace as Rose catches a glimpse of her daughter and hurriedly follows in pursuit. But the space expands and Rose is left isolated oncemore - which again cues a more passive and traditional horror score.

I find this interplay between the traditional mode of scoring and the video game mode facinating and this is the first film i've seen thats used it so effectively. If anyone wants to defend the scores from Resident Evil or Doom i'm keen to start a debate thread here :)