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If electronic transmission of reserve material is used for purposes in excess of what constitutes "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement. • FILM, • • A SOUND ART • • ffllCHEL CHIOI • ·• TRANSLATED ev cL1uo,1 GDRBmAn • COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS ~ New York COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS Publishers Si?ce 1893 New York Chichester, West Sussex Copyright © 2003 !es Editions de l'Etoile Translation © 2009 Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Chion, Michel, 1947- [Art son ore, le cinema. English] Film, a sound art/ Michel Chion ; translated by Claudia Gorbman. p. cm.-(Film and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-231-13776-8 (cloth: alk. paper)-ISBN 978-0-231-13777-5 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Sound motion pictures. 2. Motion pictures-sound effects. 3, Motion pictures-Aesthetics. I. Title. I!. Series. PN1995.7C4513 zoo9 791.4302'4-dc22 2008054795 e Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. This book is printed on paper with recycled content. Printed in the United States of America C 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared. CHAPTER 1 When Film Was Deaf (1895-1927) • THINGS MOVING WITHOUT NOISE - SEA AND SURF, leafy boughs waving in the wind, an insect crawling by- • these were among the things one could see moving in the first "movies" be­ • hind the animated gestures of the actors. Such inadvertent contributions of • nature were part of what enchanted the public in the early days of the cine­ • • matograph. The public knew the actors had been hired to play their parts and • • that the locomotive was awaited by the camera. But that the sea, the leaves, • the butterflies, and all manner of large and small things not part of the cast, not intentionally staged or framed, nevertheless participated in the image's movement-this was a striking thing. The image was therefore not hierarchi­ cal; it bespoke the democracy of movement, in which everything that moves is cinema. In addition to this astonishment, well documented, was a second surprise both more obvious and more secret: these things were moving without mak­ ing any sound. Of course there was nothing surprising about photographs be­ ing silent, since these were understood to be images frozen in time. But for an event living in time to take place in total silence was more disconcerting. The origin of film music has even been explained as deriving from a need to fill this lack with auditory movement to go along with the visual movement. Subsequently, film music has tended to function as the sound of that which moves without sound: emotions, cigarette smoke, gestures, and so forth. Hence the expression "deaf cinema" that I put forward some years ago as a better name for "silent cinema": there were words and noises, but they could not be heard.1 When Marcel Proust imagines in 1920 the perception of the "totally deaf" person, he does not refer explicitly to the cinematograph, but he does evoke HISTORY • the sensations that could be experienced at that time in the presence of the represents not just the noise but • silent-film screen: weapon had been fired? • The paradox and charm o It is with ecstasy that he walks now upon the earth grown almost an accorded fairly early on to aur Eden, in which sound has not yet been created. The highest waterfalls un­ fold for his eyes alone their ribbons of crystal, stiller than the glassy sea, like sound (such as an insistent alar • the cascades of Paradise .... And, as upon the stage, the building on which ing) by means of a short refrain • the deaf man looks from his window-be it barracks, church, or town hall­ twenty seconds, alternating wit is only so much scenery. If one day it should fall to the ground, it may emit The suggestion of sound was a cloud of dust and leave visible ruins; but, less material even than a palace on the stage, though it has not the same exiguity, it will subside in the magic role in poetry, fiction, even pain universe without letting the fall of its heavy blocks of stone tarnish, with twentieth century. In the work , 2 anything so vulgar as sound, the chastity of the prevailing silence. sound of an instrument often re P. evokes (not imitates) the sound SUGGESTING SOUND WITH IMAGES high piano notes is water, those spare theme played with the rig Isabelle Raynauld has noted that as early as Melies there were already many the silent cinema, instead of sou 3 allusions in cinema to sound and music. The characters in deaf cinema were for a sound: the image of a bell speaking, sometimes even more than they would speak in a sound film, since can make a particular theme on they had to make visible the activity of speaking. For modern spectators all the In Eisenstein's Strike (1925) as gesticulating in the earliest fiction films (between 1910 and 1915) has no other sually by means of insistently reg purpose. The idea was not so much to translate through coded, mimed ges­ The recurring shot has a double tures the content of what was being said-since that could be achieved with a is constant (because the challen storyteller present in the theater or, later, with intertitles inserted into the film; continuous through the scene, n it was rather to show with the whole body that one was speaking. In sound hence the use in certain films of s film one would become able to shoot someone from behind (as Fellini likes to a visual refrain, the image of this do and, following his example, many Russian directors),4 and all one would chaotic and stormy sequence. need is a voice to establish the idea of an internal voice, thus making the voice Such refrain-shots that evoke 5 into a "sensory phantom." mal and rhythmic meaning inde In one of the first narrative films, also often called the first western, Edwin they therefore depart from theit S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery (1903), shots are fired, and the detonations that the sound film wou ld have are represented visually by the smoke coming out of the guns. The smoke sound. In other words, this shot, one figurative function and becomes to write and shoot scenes that i for having this kind of refrain-im Similarly, the construction of cer and so forth) calls for certain rhy · pleasures that supplement the sto Note that a scene's refrain-ima In Jacques Feyder's Therese Raqu a visual leitmotif, as do the imag WHEN FILM WAS DEAF 5 represents not just the noise but the action itself: how else could we know the weapon had been fired? • The paradox and charm of deaf cinema resides in the importanse it accorded fairly early on to aural phenomena. It could render a continuous • sound (such as an insistent alarm, church bells ringing, or a machine operat­ ing) by means of a short refrain-shot that would be repeated every fifteen or • twenty seconds, alternating with images of those who are hearing it. • The suggestion of sound was in the air at the time: it plays an important role in poetry, fiction, even painting, and especially in the music of the early twentieth century. In the work of Debussy, Manuel de Falla, and Ravel the sound of an instrument often replaces a noise. An instrument sometimes even evokes (not imitates) the sound of another instrument. This tinselly string of high piano notes is water, those shivering strings are the wind, this nakedly spare theme played with the right hand is a shepherd's flute, and so forth. In the silent cinema, instead of sound for sound, spectators were given an image for a sound: the image of a bell suggests the sound of a bell, just as Debussy can make a particular thenie on the piano suggest the song of a horn. In Eisenstein's Strike (1925) a sequence of a workers' revolt is structured vi­ sually by means of insistently repeated closeups of the factory siren going off. The recurring shot has a double function. First, it's a reminder that the noise is constant (because the challenge is to make us understand that the sound is continuous through the scene, not just when we see the images of its source­ hence the use in certain films of superimpositions). And second, by becoming a visual refrain, the image of this sound source confers unity on an otherwise chaotic and stormy sequence. Such refrain-shots that evoke a constant sound become charged with a for­ mal and rhythmic meaning independent of what they actually represent, and they therefore depart from their immediate . narrative reference-something that the sound film would have much more difficulty achieving with real e sound. In other words, this shot, once it has delivered its content, is freed from its figurative function and becomes an element of montage.

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