II. Cinematic Soundscapes
1. Sound Theory
Sound Practice
Rick Altman
•
Professor in Cinema
and Comparative
literature at University
of Iowa
•
Also written books on
the musical film
genre, and edited a
book on sound theory
and practice that we
will read from later
this semester.
Sound Theory Sound Practice
Edited by Rick Altman (1992)
With essays by James Lastra,
Michel Chion, and others
Cinema as Text (Traditional Film Studies)
Cinema as Event (Altman’s Model)
CINEMA AS EVENT
• From production to reception, and vice versa
(think flying donuts!)
• Multiplicity
• Three-Dimensionality
• Materiality
• Heterogeneity
• Intersection
• Performance
• Mutli-Discursivity
• Instability
•
•
•
•
Mediation
Choice
Diffusion
Interchange
SOUND AS EVENT
• The production of sound is a material event:
vibration, medium, changes in pressure – the
composite nature of sound
• The sound narrative: naming of sound, “our
ears tell us,” Rashomon phenomenon
• The recording of a sound event: representation,
spatial signature, double
(recording/reproduction)
• “…recordings are thus always representations,
interpretations, partial narratives that must
nevertheless serve as our only access to the
sounds of the past” (p.27)
Fallacies In Film Sound Theory:
•
•
•
•
•
Historical
Ontological
Reproduction
Nominalism
Cinema as index
SOUND SPACE
• Image scale vs. sound scale in film
• Problem of sound space in Hollywood, 3 main
approaches: 1) manipulation of exhibition
space, 2) manipulation of production, 3)
development of multi-channel capacity
• Point of Audition
• Sound as anchor
A New Model for Technological History
(Tripartite Historical Model):
1. Multiple identities derived from pre-existing
reality codes (theatre, vaudeville, radio,
silent film music, etc.)
2. Jurisdictional struggle – speech is the
primary vehicle
3. Development of new reality code based on
technological specificity – point of audition
and intelligibility; new mode of cinematic
unity and new subject position for the
Hollywood audience.