The Voice in the Cinema
The Voice in the Cinema
The first three chapters of the book entitled La voix au cinéma (1984) authored by Michel Chion deals with a special form of image and sound, being dominated by their very absence. Dealing with acousmatic beings, that is sounds without bodies, distinguishes more than one forms of its appearance. He then finds particular interest in the one that finds no fixed point on the screen, thus devoted to an existence simultaneously of inside and outside. Most often this being acquires some magical features (omniscience, control over events, providing objects with traits of human beings etc.), placing the public into an atmosphere of powerlessness. In this esthetical interplay of image and sound powerlessness becomes an acoustical and a visual quality at the same time, that directs and organizes the relation of the spectator to the image through the absence, thus generating an aesthetically productive tension between spectator and image, until the latter unveils its identity.