Martine Huvenne completed her doctorate degree in musicology in September 2012 (University of Amsterdam) :
‘Sound as inner movement in the transmission of experience in film: a phenomenological
approach’
This doctoral dissertation on ‘Sound as inner movement in the transmission
of experience in film: a phenomenological approach’, presents the research results
about the singularity and defining characteristics of perceived sound in film and
the way sound guides the viewer/listener in experiencing (and perceiving) a film.
The director, through choices regarding sounds, regarding the nuances in the sounds
and deciding on the auditory spaces, through the composition of sounds and the mixing,
can transfer an experience and steer the way a film is perceived. The task of the
viewer/listener is to fix his or her attention when confronted with a multitude
of complex informations and to constitute sound as intentional object. The perception of a film
is an active event in which each viewer/listener establishes his or her individual
coherence.
The aim of this research was to provide a contribution to film theory and
artistic film practice concerning aspects of the sound that do not lie at the very
surface (i.e. being less than immediately obvious), but that are potentially determinative
and motivating when perceiving a film in its totality. Many implicit dimensions
of the (experience of) sound, thus not immediately capturing our attention, lack
until now a detailed theoretical and conceptual study and analysis. Whoever has
sat at the editing and mixing table at the final stage of a film, is, however, familiar
with the implicit dimensions of the (experience) of sound. The slightest nuance
– adding a sound or removing it – can have a huge impact on the film as a whole.
The leitmotiv of this research consists of three aspects: (1) the sensory
perception of recorded sound and sound as energetic movement in relation to the
images, (2) the com-pository nature of film in which sound
takes up a specific position in relation to music-compositional ideas and (3) the
perception of the viewer/listener which is correlated with the experience the director
wishes to convey in the compositional aspects of the sound and the film.
The thesis of this research is introduced by means of the opening scene of
Un condamné
à mort s’est échappé (1956) by Robert Bresson and Bresson’s ideas on film. Bresson’s way
of film-making does away with causal relations between the filmic elements; as such
he introduces a new status of sound in film, sound being on a par with the images.
Film for Bresson is cinématographe (the writing of movement),
which enables him as director to convey in a nuanced way his inner involvement with
what he shows in his films to the public. I have investigated this new status of
sound in further depth through case analyses of sound in Elephant (1989) by Alan Clarke, Gerry (2001) by Gus Van Sant and
Three
Monkeys (2008) by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. A closer look at the theme has generated the
insight that, as long as one takes the viewing as ‘dominant perceptive attitude’
as point of departure, the sound can be rendered the status of accessory to the
image, as was elaborated by Michel Chion (1990, 2003). Due to this, however, sound
remains subordinate to the image. Gilles Deleuze disconnects the evident link of
image and sound in his film theory (1983, 1985) and introduces the concept of the
heautonomy of sound and image. Deleuze puts an interspace in between viewing and
listening, a space that is made into a unity by the viewer/listener in the act of
perceiving. However, Deleuze does not explain how this unity actually comes about.
This study provides an alternative and novel phenomenological approach of sound
in film, an approach that ties in with the essay ‘L’ écoute filmique’ (1999) by
Véronique Campan.
A phenomenological study of the sound in film implies a study of auditory
perception in and of film that is not necessarily object-directed. Sound can also
be experienced or lived in a non‐object-directed way.
The conceptual framework of this approach is Edmund Husserl’s genetic phenomenology,
as interpreted by Dan Zahavi (2003) and the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty
in which the resonant body takes up a central position. In Husserl’s genetic phenomenology
the emphasis is on the intentional act that is motivated by kinaesthetic experiences
and which is not yet reflectively constituted in origin. A thematic experience will
only happen under the condition that the kinaesthetic experience and inner time
awareness have occurred. Following this view, it is possible to consider a pre-reflective,
non-thematic awareness of sound. I am expanding on this through Merleau-Ponty’s
‘thinking in movement’ which is a steppingstone towards a conceptual thinking and
which continues to co-exist with it. Via Merleau‐Ponty’s phenomenology, a perspective
is offered to engender the unity of a composition. The bodily scheme serves
as a basis to orient oneself towards the world; the space first and foremost is
given form in the bodily motor system. The unity of situational space is not defined by a
geometrical or objective ‘system’ imposed from outside, but by bodily intentionality
that leads to a passive synthesis. This passive synthesis in its turn can lead to
an active synthesis (an object-directed intentionality). By making passive and active
syntheses in listening co-exist and by putting the emphasis on transmodality, sound
as inner movement can establish a connection between inner and outer worlds. As
such the sensory perception of the transmodal sound can evoke motor as well as visual
images.
Sound in film is a fairly complex phenomenon since the listening act of the
director (in the sound recording) and possibly the listening of the character in
the film and the listening of the viewer/listener have to be taken into account.
Moreover, listening to film is always a combined action with watching the film.
To discuss this complexity, I introduce the concept of the audiovisual chord that
is established in audiovisual perception. An audiovisual chord can be constituted
as the result of various viewing and listening perspectives. An audiovisual chord
can be regarded as a intersecting or assembly point of lived spaces in the field
structure of time, as Husserl describes the structure of the inner time consciousness.
After all, sound can evoke the experience of lived spaces. Through these evocations
inner worlds can be conjured up through sound in different and more concrete ways
than through the score. The body of the viewer/listener resonates with the energetic
movement of the sounds. In transferring an experience, sound acts as an inner movement
that evokes lived spaces and universes that do not necessarily crop up as reflective
mental images; rather, in their vibrating openness they make the body of the viewer/listener
alert and receptive without bringing about an object-directed intentional act. This
is what Merleau‐Ponty (1945) calls a synchronizing modulation: the viewer/listener
attunes his or her body to what he or she is hearing.
With this phenomenological approach I take two unconventional standpoints
that I further elaborate on: the spatiality of sound as parameter of the recorded sound
that positions the listener in relation to a sound and the perception of sound
through the resonant, positioned body of the viewer/listener. As a consequence of this,
the motor aspect of sound as energetic movement becomes the point of departure.
Through analyzing films and the creative practice, this comprehensive study
of the auditory space and the spatial perception in film brings into focus the difference
between a musical composition and a sound com-position. The listener is positioned
differently in relation to sound than to musical compositional elements. This has
its effects on the com-posing of sounds. To render the spatiality of the recorded sound, I made a distinction
between environmental sound, the sounds of the surroundings, soundscape, aural architecture, the distance between the
source
of the sound and the point of perception. The auditory (egocentric and allocentric) space that comes about in
the listener depends on various factors. Next to the spatial aspect, the motor aspect
of sound plays a key role. Perceiving sound occurs in a transmodal way: whilst listening
to a sound the other senses are also appealed to. Sounds also bring out tactile,
visual and motor impressions. The neurophysiological and neurophenomenological insights
of the last decades throw a different light on aisthesis (sensory perception). One
has gained a deeper understanding of the mutual connection between viewing and listening,
and movement has gained an increasingly central position in the perception and the
establishing of meaning (Varela, Thompson and Rosch 1919; Berthoz 1997; Noë 2006;
Thompson 2007; Gallagher & Zahavi 2008).
In the final chapter I have further developed the consequences of pre-reflective
embodied listening within the framework of cinematic creation and perception. It
was important to me to connect the insights that have stemmed from my practice with
the analyses and the theoretical system that I have developed in my research. Through
a consistent approach with the emphasis on the experiencing of the recorded sound
next to the perception of sound in film I have brought in some novel perspectives
to discuss sound in film, viz. the first-person perspective in describing how a film is perceived and in analyzing
how a film is created; the superposition of the auditory and visual spaces that
are brought together as a polytopos in perception (and not in
the composition of the filmic elements); the audiovisual chord as a time object and a moment
in a lived time field and the possibility to make inner and outer worlds connect
in sound. By putting the emphasis on pre‐reflective embodied listening, I have provided an in‐depth
analysis of sound as inner movement in film and opened it up for further
discussion.
