Film Sound and Genre Analysis

Five Ideas

• Sounds are immediately analyzed and distributed perceptually, with important sounds prioritized.
• Vococentrism: voices are prioritized over other sounds.
• Loose approximations are acceptable in matching sound to visuals for better access.
• Acousmêtre: disembodied film voices (neither completely inside nor outside) can strongly imply omniscience (as seen in some genres).
• Deaf cinema can be studied as dead cinema, where the deaf audience may also lose access to emotion and feeling in the story.

Nowell-Smith

• Melodrama is a modern genre that contrasts with ancient tragedy.
• Key elements of tragedy include kingdom, true king, succession, and political power.
• Melodrama elements include family, true parent, inheritance, education and powerlessness.

Similarities

• Questions are asked about who holds power (between a leader and the people) whether tragedy is presented by showing people in power, or a melodrama showing people without power
• Tragedy represents people of power, and melodrama represents the powerless. Women in tragedy are seen as suffering more than men where failure is the cause of pain.
• Unexpressed emotion may be shown in a film.
• Tendency to privilege conservative official cultural ideas.
• Genre reveals truths that realism hides.

Wood

• Monsters represent repressed aspects of society.
• Societal norms are challenged, and conventional views about families and their roles are critiqued.
• Monsters act as doubles who mirror the victims, but are also repressed aspects of society.
• Monsters can be politically progressive or reactionary.

Nichols 1

• Realism in a film relates to how familiar and apparent events are.
• Truth in a story can be considered to be either familiar or unexpected.
• Familiarity = real, or familiar events.
• Unexpected/surprising events may appear true depending on expectations.
• Indexicality is the trace of a particular event.
• News, Pornography, Ads, Homes and Movies as visual index.

Ariel Lecture

• Neorealism refers to the post-WWII Italian film movement, focusing on everyday settings, themes of poverty and the common man,
• Neorealist filmmakers are concerned with the moral aspects inherent in everyday life and offer no solutions.
• Focus on the use of ordinary life to create realism.
• Neorealists employed aspects of simplicity in their work.
• Four characteristics of neorealism include on-location shooting, material necessities, non-professional actors, and non-contrived plots.

Berger

• Animals represented human's connection with nature.
• Changes in society (and social thought) led to a diminished view of animals as reflections of humanity.

Films

• Singing in the Rain (1952): A meta-cinematic musical that reflects the shift from silent to sound films and highlights its impact on American culture.
• Illusions (1982): A low-budget film that critically looks at World War II, with racial and gender critiques.
• Stella Dallas (1937): Explores social issues and changes to the female family unit. The family is challenged in a societal way. The family is critiqued through the portrayal of how society pushes and pulls the mother. The mother changes as the societal pressure impacts the way she acts.

Night of the Living Dead

• Portrayals of people (humans) transformed into monsters/ghouls.
• Shows a transformation from workers to consumers, with consumption as an aspect of consumerism highlighted.
• A shift from traditional workers to consumers.

When a Stranger Calls

• Depicts typical horror elements such as suspense, tension, and the use of sounds (like phones).
• The film shows a concern with the impact that external forces have.
• There are themes/consequences associated with the family.

Umberto D.

• Neorealism's focus on everyday lives and issues, and the effects that everyday life has.
• Neorealism is portrayed in the story and films use realism as a part of their story to challenge perspectives concerning the story.
• This film was shot on-location.
• The film used non-professional actors, mirroring everyday life as experienced by many.
• Non-diegetic sound was excluded, reflecting the realistic tone of the movie.

Wendy & Lucy

• The film highlights contemporary social and ethical issues (in a very straightforward way).
• It is based in America and examines social norms and perceptions of what is good and bad.
• This film focuses on issues connected to everyday life.
• The film used on-location settings and non-professional actors, to illustrate realism.

Close-up

• Actors adapt to new social class standards, represented by an emphasis on forgiveness and reenactments.
• The social class and the actions they take are contrasted.
• Reenactments highlight emotional and societal themes including forgiveness and how individuals struggle to forgive.
• The film examines empathy, compassion, and how people interact (to resolve the events).