Notes on
Michel Chions
Audio-Vision!
Nuno N. Correia, 2013"
[email protected]"
Chion on Persona"
The house lights go down and the movie begins.
Brutal and enigmatic images appear on the screen:
a film projector running, a closeup of the film going
through it, terrifying glimpses of animal sacrifices, a
nail being driven through a hand. "
"
Then, in more "normal" time, a mortuary. Here we
see a young boy we take at first to be a corpse like
the others, but who turns out to be alivehe moves,
he reads a book, he reaches toward the screen
surface, and under his hand there seems to form the
face of a beautiful woman. (Chion 1994, pp. 3-4) "
Chion on Persona"
Stop! Let us rewind Bergman's film to the beginning
and simply cut out the sound, try to forget what
we've seen before, and watch the film afresh. Now
we see something quite different. "
"
First, the shot of the nail impaling the hand: played
silent, it turns out to have consisted of three
separate shots where we had seen one, because
they had been linked by sound. What's more, the
nailed hand in silence is abstract, whereas with
sound, it is terrifying, real."
Chion on Persona!
As for the shots in the mortuary, without the sound
of dripping water that connected them together we
discover in them a series of stills, parts of isolated
human bodies, out of space and time. And the boy's
right hand, without the vibrating tone that
accompanies and structures its exploring gestures,
no longer "forms" the face, but just wanders
aimlessly. "
The entire sequence has lost its rhythm and unity.
Could Bergman be an overrated director? Did the
sound merely conceal the images' emptiness?"
Audiovisual Contract"
Sound does not correspond "naturally" to an image."
!
Audiovisual contract:"
"a kind of symbolic contract that the audio-viewer
enters into, agreeing to think of sound and image
as forming a single entity" (Chion 1994, p.216)."
"
Added Value"
Added value: "
"the expressive and informative value with which
a sound enriches a given image "
so as to create the definitive impression, in the
immediate or remembered experience one has
of it, "
that this information or expression 'naturally'
comes from what is seen, "
and is already contained in the image
itself" (Chion 1994, p.5)."
Added Value"
Added value works reciprocally: "
on the one hand, "sound shows us the image differently
than what the image shows alone"; "
on the other hand, image "makes us hear sound
differently than if the sound were ringing out in the
dark" (Chion 1994, p.21)."
Added value is the most important of the relations
between sound and image (Chion 1994, p.5). "
Synchresis"
Based on the idea of synchronization (and also
synthesis), Chion created the notion of synchresis:"
"the forging of an immediate and necessary
relationship between something one sees and
something one hears at the same time" (Chion
1994, p.224)."
Synchresis"
According to Chion, synchresis allows for numerous
combinations of possible sounds with possible
images: "for a shot of a hammer, any one of a
hundred sounds will do" (Chion 1994, p.63)."
But random associations may not generate
synchresis: "play a stream of random audio and
visual events, and you will find that certain ones will
come together through synchresis and other
combinations will not" (Chion 1994, p.63)"
Senses as Channels"
Chion states that there is no "sensory given" that is
isolated from the start: "the senses are channels,
highways more than territories or domains."
He clarifies this, stating that "when Kinetic
sensations organized into art are transmitted
through a single sensory channel", they can convey
all the other senses via that one channel. (Chion
1994, p.137). "
He exemplifies with the inherent visuality of concrete
music, and the implied sound behind silent movies. "
Bibliography"
Chion, M., 1994. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen,
New York: Columbia University Press."
!
"
"
"
"
Notes by Nuno N. Correia, 2013"
www.nunocorreia.com"
