Cinema is an audiovisual art. In this definition, 50% of the term is occupied by the word audio. The sound immerses the viewer into what is happening on the screen. It has become commonplace for us, but what role can it play?? What artistic value does it represent?? (text version below)
Story
In 1927, The Jazz Singer appeared on the screens. This is the first sound film. Although it sounded revolutionary, in reality the only soundtrack in the film was songs sung by the hero. The type of narration itself has not changed: the dialogues between the characters were still accompanied by captions, it was a revolution for the sake of revolution. I propose to look at a number of original solutions that have not become part of everyday life, but are still capable of surprising.
Scary suspense
One of the innovators here was again the well-known Alfred Hitchcock. Just remember one famous scene from Psycho. The heroine takes a shower and all we hear is the murmur of water. Even when the killer quietly approaches the curtain, we still only hear water and then a loud, unexpected sound. In this way, the director builds up suspense, something that makes us sit in front of the screens, clutching the arms of our chairs.
The most interesting thing is https://all-british-casino.co.uk/bonus/ that if we analyze modern horror films, we will see the same construction of intense scenes with which they want to scare you. For example, in the same “It” almost all the jump scares are built on the principle of suspense from Hitchcock: intense music, then silence and a “scream”.
It is not surprising that the horror genre has constantly seen enthusiasts trying to transform the existing model. You don’t have to look far for an example, this is “A Quiet Place” by John Krasinski. This picture elevates silence and silence to absolute, because the monsters hunting for heroes are sensitive to any sound. In fact, the same suspense system that I mentioned above is at work here, but in Krasinski’s film the constant condition of silence increases tension, adds adrenaline and keeps the viewer alive for the entire 90-plus minutes.
This is original!
Let’s turn to more inventive solutions. For example, one of the representatives of the French New Wave, Jean-Luc Godard, creates the most famous awkward pause in cinema in the film “Band of Outsiders.”. Sitting at the same table and having exhausted all topics for conversation, the characters fall silent for exactly 36 seconds, and completely all the sound in the film is turned off.
The exact opposite technique is used by Robert Altman in the 1975 film Nashville. In one of the scenes, several characters are talking at the same time, forming an absolute cacaphony sounds. The viewer, in order to catch anything, must focus on only one character. Experiments with acoustic space became possible in the seventies of the twentieth century thanks to Dolby Stereo technology. These were huge budget expenditures, but the producers went for it, because in that era it was necessary to compete for viewers with television.
No less interesting, and, in my opinion, the most daring experiment with sound was created by the creators of the film “The Artist”. The film was released in 2011 and, despite the fact that it was black and white, in addition to this it was also silent. The film told about the unsuccessful career of an actor who was not ready for the arrival of sound cinema. The absence of sound plays a very important artistic and compositional role here. Only in the finale, in the last few seconds, do we hear the hero’s breathing and voice (and actually the first sound in the film). This gives us hope that the character was able to overcome obstacles and rehabilitate his career.
What conclusions can we draw??
Sound is an integral part of cinematography. With its help, viewers are completely immersed in the atmosphere of what is happening. However, in skillful hands, sound becomes an artistic instrument, turning a film into a canvas for creativity.
Best comments
I wonder why they downvoted? By the way, maybe it’s worth attaching a video to the blog? It turns out I was subscribed to the channel and when I saw the preview here I started thinking: where have I already seen this??
Sound in cinema is an interesting topic. I agree with the comment above. There weren’t enough videos or described fragments to make it more clear. You can also talk about sound in games in a similar vein, although this is probably something else. Overall a good blog, I hope to continue.