In Movies Is Sound Subordinate to Image?

I've been exploring the relationship between sound and the visuals in film all my life. Sound within the film text is not simply the translation of visual components. The correlation between sound and film is part of the very definition of film itself. Sound in cinema serves as an augmentation, or a creative extension to the visual constituent of the medium. Of course the traditional roots of cinema are found in the moving image without sound or silent cinema, yet sound was never absent; it was represented on screen by the use of inter-text. However, a sonic element to film was achieved but only communicated through visual plinths. This created a film art of its own as it left the spectator to decide for him/herself what sounds they could ‘hear’ and what voices the characters could potentially sound like. In this respect the spectator could manipulate a creative sound of their own, although they would only hear it in their own heads.

I guess it can be argued that even silent cinema was never truly silent, as there would always be a virtual soundtrack provided by sounds from the natural environment. In practice of course early day cinema would be accompanied by an orchestra playing live music to the audience. When considering the presence of music within the film text music provides two main functions. Firstly it supplies the film with a musical accompaniment and secondly it emotionalises the narrative within the film, with the flexibility to interrupt, temporally disrupt, expand or abbreviate during the film. To explain this further in a moment I will look at the film Coffee and Cigarettes (2003).

The use of music within film has the power to manipulate emotions, music can be employed to translate emotions into meaning within the parameters of the film context. It can also be used by producers to help create a desired mood in the spectator and has the ability to enhance the spectators emotional experience of the film, inducing deep emotional responses.

Music is very often composed or chosen to induce particular emotional responses in the spectator. The film Coffee and Cigarettes (2003) is constituted by eleven short vignettes where each scene is independent of each other but a theme connects them all together. The music used is different in each vignette and is selected from already produced music, there is no independent music score. Each track has been chosen carefully and is only used in a background capacity but nonetheless gives each scene more character and meaning, the music enhances each scene and experiments with both non-diegetic and diegetic situations. The effect of the music helps to influence the spectator’s understanding, albeit subtly, of the time period in which the scene is set, as well as giving meaning to the socio-economic group of the characters. In the scene ‘Somewhere in California’ we are presented with a diner setting where Iggy and Tom are meeting up. They talk about the merits of combining music with medicine while drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes celebrating that they have ‘given up’ smoking. Due to various communication misinterpretations it is in actual fact a conversation fraught with awkwardness and an uncomfortable feel.

There are some films which employ music that does not emotionally augment the story of the film, this can create a kitsch effect by reducing the visuals to a more trivial status. There are some films where no music has been incorporated such as those made by the Dardenne brothers in Belgium, which have proven to be very successful. In films where the diegetic and non-diegetic, or fictional reality and non-fictional reality, blur or are more complicated the music can become a paradoxical feature. In the spoof western film Blazing Saddles (1974) directed by Mel Brooks in one scene the sheriff rides across the dessert on his horse with his trusty Gucci bag by his side. The scene is uplifted by the ill fitting jazz music which seems to be incidental music for the scene. As the sheriff continues his journey we then, surreally, see the performers of this music on screen, they are sat playing their instruments in the open dessert. This scene demonstrates how the diegetic and non-diegetic reality can collide with each other on screen, the sight of the band playing live in the dessert and more importantly playing the inappropriate and completely out of context Paris in the Spring. In many ways the song revolutionises the whole scene, what was a conventional song was made unconventional by the creation of a new context by the fact this song was selected to accompany these particular images.