The Cinematic Voice Transcript Neil Fox [00:00:30] Welcome to the Cinematologists podcast. I'm Neil Fox, and I'm pleased to say joining me as always is Dario Llinares. Hello Dario. Dario Llinares [00:00:38] Hello Neil. It's great to talk to you. I'm really looking forward to this episode and talking to you about it. Neil Fox [00:00:44] Absolutely. This is a long time coming, eagerly awaited episode. And I'm pleased to say it's finally here. And I think that our listeners are in for an absolute treat. And yeah, you've done an amazing job pulling us together. So do you want to let us know what is in store? Dario Llinares [00:00:59] Yep. So, this is our episode on The Cinematic Voice, which basically has been about six months in the making. I had the idea about a year ago that I wanted to do another kind of audio-essay style of podcast, and I was kind of thinking, you know, what would lend itself to basically aural sensibility of podcasting, but perhaps kind of triggered this sense of the “audio-cinematic”, which is something I'm writing about right now. So, something that has a cinematic, experiential flavour to it, but is without the images, which is obviously a tricky thing to kind of manage. And yeah, I got in contact with various film critics, scholars that you will hear on this episode and I won't give away who they are. It will come up on the episode and I thank them very much at the end. And yeah, we're just gonna get into it, aren't we, Neil? And then you're gonna make some comments hopefully, and we'll have a discussion about it in more detail at the end. Neil Fox [00:01:57] Yes, I think it's best to just get into the meat of the episode because I think it's really an extraordinary piece of work. So, congrats on that. And hopefully people will feel the same. So, at long last, this is the cinematic voice. Dario Llinares [00:02:19] Ever since the movies began to talk, the cinematic voice has shaped our perception of the filmic world. Al Jolson in the Jazz Singer not only instigated a watershed moment, but his first utterance would turn out to be prophetic. The Jazz Singer (1928) [00:02:33] Wait a minute, wait a minute. You ain't heard nothing yet. Dario Llinares [00:02:40] We certainly hadn't. In the era of silent pictures, often considered the purest form of visual storytelling, the voice is a kind of absent presence. Its materiality not sounded but alluded to through the exaggerations of actors mute mouthing and the functional necessity of intertitles. If sound transformed or perhaps more accurately, re-created cinema, the possibility of enunciation of sounded thought, aligned the medium with the experience of human consciousness. Blackmail (1929) [00:03:26] A good clean honest whack over the head with a brick is one thing. There's something British about that. But knives? No, knives is not right. I must say that's what I think and that's what I feel. Dario Llinares [00:03:28] Not only that, the sounded voice expanded the audio-visual toolbox. Most obviously the synchronization of voiced dialogue to the embodied figure produced a sudden efficiency. That of informational exposition and individual characterisation. And in turn, hearing the image speak highlighted the essential 'lack' of the silence or mute film. Paradoxically, the synchronisation of image and sound is one of modern cinema's essential illusions. The voice does not come from the mouth of the character, but from the audio equipment in the auditorium, from your television speakers or your laptop. It is part of the dispositif: The configuration of space and technological apparatus that creates the cinematic experience. Such an acknowledgment underpins Rick Altman's often quoted assertion that sound cinema is a form of ventriloquism. Dead of Night (1945) [00:04:23] I knew you'd come back. - Not for long my boy, not for long. You're going to stop in jail for years and years and years and years. That wouldn't suit me. - But you'll tell them the truth, you'll tell them it wasn't my fault. What sort of dummy do think I am. You shot him, didn't you? - Yes. But that was in self-defense. He was trying to rob me. - Tell that to the judge. Poor Sylvester, such a charming fellow. Dario Llinares [00:04:57] Talking pictures soon became ingrained as the norm and audiences became attuned to a seamless synchronization. The synchronization of voice to the physical body of the speaker, usually to enunciate dialogue, has created a Voco- centrism. In his 1990 book, The Voice in Cinema, Michel Chion, perhaps the foremost theorist on the role of sound in cinema, suggests that the voice is not the same as all other sounds. Quote, "The presence of the human voice structures, the sonic spaces that contain it". To have and Have Not (1944) [00:05:32] You know, you don't have to act with me, Steve. You don't have to say anything and you don't have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle don't ya Steve? You just put your lips together and blow. Dario Llinares [00:05:56] It is in our nature to search for the human voice above everything else. Along with conveying vocal information, another key element of the voice is to materialise a character. An actor's performance of the dialogue is perhaps the most obvious way we might define a cinematic voice. The Trial (1962) [00:06:16] Some commentators have pointed out that a man came to the door of his own free will. - And we're supposed to swallow all that. It's all true? We needn't accept everything as true. Only what's necessary. Dario Llinares [00:06:30] Yet Barthes notion of the "grain of the voice" is as much a part of the DNA of a star's aura as anything we might be drawn to visually. A performance of dialogue is not to be burned into cinematic iconography through the mere contents of words. It is the signature aural resonance that gives the linguistic basis its life. We must therefore appreciate the interplay between the acoustics of the voice, the very timing and structure of delivery and the words spoken. But Chion makes a distinction between the voice and speech, the articulation of the scripted information. And for that matter, from the soundtrack as a whole. Quote: "In every audio mix, the human voice instantly sets up a hierarchy of perception". Dirty Harry (1972) [00:07:17] I know what you're thinking. Did he fire six shots or only five? Well to tell you the truth in all this excitement I kind of lost track myself. But being this a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world and would blow your head clean off. You've got to ask yourself one question. Do I feel lucky? Well do ya punk? Dario Llinares [00:07:37] In this scene from Dirty Harry, Clint Eastwood's gravelly rasp is also calm and precise. The carnage surrounding the failed robbery signified by the ear- piercing alarm is counterpoint to Eastwood's supercool tone. Yet even in this scene, with a cacophony of sounds, the voco-centrism is clear. When the voice is disembodied, however, we experience an even more profound sense of its power. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) [00:08:06] Hello, HAL do you read me? Hello, HAL do you read me? Do you read me HAL? - Affirmative Dave, I read you. - Open the pod bay doors HAL. - I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that. - What's the problem? - I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do. - What are you talking about? - This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardise it. - I don't know what you're talking about HAL. - I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen. - Where the hell do you get that idea HAL? - Dave, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move. Dario Llinares [00:09:13] Acousmetré, as the unseen or as yet to be embodied voice, is everywhere in cinema, bestowing on the filmmaker a range of sonic movements inside and outside the image, a space of tension and uncertainty which the audio-viewer has to negotiate. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) [00:09:29] I'll go in through the emergency airlock. - Without your space helmet Dave, you're going to find that rather difficult. Dario Llinares [00:09:39] For Chion, Acousmetré asserts ubiquity, panopticonism, omniscience and omnipotence. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) [00:09:46] This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye. Dario Llinares [00:09:51] In this episode of the Cinematologists Podcast, we will explore the complexities of the cinematic voice. We take Chion's lead in addressing the cinematic voice as a phenomenon in its own right, analysing its use and effect as a sonic presence attached to images in complex ways. We will address the relationship between the materiality of the voice and the politics of who gets to speak, how, and who listens.