The Basic idea here was to view the first half-hour of a film I had not seen twice (Once with no picture and once with both picture and sound as normal) in order to isolate the sound design of the film. I had viewed Francis Ford Coppola's "The Conversation" and wrote a brief essay of my thoughts here.
Richard Morrissette
MDIA 1020
In the
viewing of Francis Ford Coppola’s film, “The Conversation”, the first thing
that becomes apparent between viewings is the different feelings that the film
gives off. Without sound and visual cues as to what is going on, the film
becomes much more abstract. The sound design is interestingly conceived, and
standing alone it can still convey the setting, situations and even can give
one a mental image of a character traveling through the sounds. Walter Murch’s
prowess as a sound designer is shown with a clever mix of contemporary jazz,
bustling cityscape, and bits of overheard conversation.
The story
carries over rather well with a few exceptions. The characters are established
and even the sound of a crackling microphone can correspond to when the
conversation is being recorded and being played back. The street performance
and jazz music can instantly transport one into the city (though which city the
movie takes place in remains unclear). These elements of the story, the sounds
of a bustling city mixed with the dialogue of characters, feels akin to older
noire serial dramas played over radio, rather than the seventies thriller it is
with the picture.
The piano music that is played later in the viewing
creates a lot of unease that doesn’t carry over in the film with picture. The
listeners can find themselves paying very close attention for sounds that give
away the action of the characters and finding only the piano. Not knowing what
a character is doing creates a tension in the listener. This kind of tension is
the same type that made the films like Steven Spielberg’s “Jaws” popular;
giving the shark minimal screen time in the film gives it a much higher
intimidation factor.
Upon
viewing the film with picture, it becomes clear that there were many elements
that were missed in the first viewing. For example, the faces of characters are
all left up to the imagination of the listener. A curious thing happens in
which without knowing who the actors are which portray the characters in the
film, a listener would create different faces to match with the voices they
would hear. If one hears the stand alone voice of Gene Hackman in his portrayal
of Harry Caul, it could just as easily be attributed to a man much younger and
visually indistinct from other actors; Caul’s partner might have had the image
of Steve Buscemi before the picture was added.
Certain
emotions that are parts of the story are also lost in the sound recording. Caul
plays a saxophone as a hobby in the movie while he is alone in his apartment;
this is completely missed without the visual stimulus telling us that we are
actually hearing Caul play the saxophone along to the jazz song in his
apartment. Other clues are missed which lead the listener to have a slightly different
view oh Hackman’s character in the movie. While it is clear that in both
viewings Hackman is a careful man who knows the risks of being in the trade of
a surveillance expert, it takes watching the film with both sound and picture
to realize that Caul is obsessed with his own privacy to the point of being
uncomfortable socially. Actions he takes such as periodically lying about possessing
a phone in his apartment and hiding when he enters Ann’s apartment are
completely missed without the picture and we are left with a character with
minimal emotion and action.
Other parts
of the story are left unappreciated with a sound only viewing. For example, the
mime in the beginning of the film is missed entirely, as well as the indication
of surveillance experts in the crowd gathering recordings. While these elements
are not required to get the general idea of the story, they make for
interesting watching and are a part of Coppola’s vision in his script, and so
should be included. Some actions also have a different meaning between the
viewings. Caul finding the bottle of wine in his apartment can be missed
entirely when listening only to a sound recording, which makes the resulting
phone conversation much harder to follow. The alarm that goes off when he opens
the door to his apartment is also something that can blend into the background
noise in the first viewing.
All in all,
the viewings created two similar but distinct films. The story of The
Conversation can be inferred by its sound design, but some of the key elements
that give feelings and emotion to the characters are left behind in visual cues
and cinematography that can only be viewed as the film was intended, with both
picture and sound.
Bibliography
Alten, S. (2012). “Influences of Sound on Meaning”. Working
with Audio. Cengage Learning.
Know, D. (June 26, 2013). “The Robot Shark Technology of
Jaws”. Tested. Retrieved From http://www.tested.com/art/movies/456576-robot-shark-technology-jaws/
Murch W. (2003). Worldizing: A sound design concept.
Retrieved From http://www.filmsound.org/murch/murch.htm
Williams, E. (2013). Basics of Sound Design. Retrieved From http://vimeo.com/channels/mdia1020
No comments:
Post a Comment