গল্পপাঠ: আগ্রাসনের বিনোদন ও বিনোদনের আগ্রাসন--

গল্পপাঠ: আগ্রাসনের বিনোদন ও বিনোদনের আগ্রাসন--

CONVERSATION : THROUGH THE SOUND TRACK

CONVERSATION  :  THROUGH THE SOUNDTRACK

The film CONVERSATION made in 1974 by Francis Ford Coppola , is an epitome in sound designing . The film revolves around a lonely man who has been hired for recording eavesdropping. So the man’s job is here to record sound ! And that challenges the spectators igniting their skill to become an active audience so to be compatible with the sound-centric film journey where images follow the sound track , chiefly.

This essay will examine the characteristics of sound designing as have been employed in the  neurosis - scene of the film  “ Conversation “. And it’s a film about people where people are being watched. The scene where Caul the protagonist is behaving out of paranoia certainly strikes us with the very theme of this particular film. The sound scape designed by Walter Murch, famous editor of Hollywood, has been masterly crafted to keep an analogy with the theme.

Before we delve deep into sound analyses, we’ll try to recognize the sources of the sound used in this scene.

The sound sources :

By sources it is generally meant the “ location “ from where the sound originates. It gives us a very clear sense of both spatial and temporal awareness. This scene has successfully used both the diegetic and non-diegetic sounds to build up the character and the ambience. The layers of sound tracks have also exploited A) vocal sound ,  B) environmental sound ( ambient , sound effects , and Foley sound ) C) Music and D ) silence .

A) In this scene we hear Caul , the protagonist is conversing on a phone call. This is the only use of a vocal sound. The sound track of this telephonic conversation begins with a synch sound with Caul saying the “ Hello “ which is immediately followed by  the sound of a  sound recorder playing blank. Coppola and Walter Murch remind us about the theme of the film ! The sound track gets more interesting as the conversation ends with a non-diegetic sound of saxophone. The shot shows that the saxophone is held by Caul, who is certainly not playing that but Murch adds the extra non diegetic layer to create the sense  of neurotic atmosphere.

B) Environmental sounds are the most complex usage in a scene especially when it is devoid of dialogues. The whole scene is about the inner world of the protagonist which hardly has a vocal sound or dialogue. The sound track has employed a tons of layers to compliment this situation. The sound of diegetic telephone , the sound of non diegetic saxophone and the sound recorder , the  diegetic noise of breaking  furniture and other stuff , all are example of creation of a perfect role of sounds as a narrative device.

C) Music : The scene begins with a piece of music. The shot focuses on a black vintage telephone and a saxophone is heard playing in the background. The shot starts panning from the telephone and ends up capturing Caul the protagonist in a mid close shot.  He is seen playing the saxophone.  The use of saxophone seems very apt as it connotes the performers’ involvement and loneliness. The very act of saxophone playing philosophically separates the player from the outer world.

Coppola has successfully added the piano as a background music for this scene. A loner is easily identifiable with this piece of Piano.  Both these classical pieces of  piano and the saxophone create a very slow and lonely ambience to keep the verisimilitude of the scene.

D) Silence does the same justice to the scene as the other sound tracks. Before he Caul begins his paranoiac activities we hear a pause – a pause of silence. And it speaks. It speaks the inner silence and hollowness of the character.

The camera in this film along with this soundtrack is perfectly analogous and ignite spectator’s voyeurism. Yes , Coppola and Murch  successfully  make every individual in us an essential voyeur  as we watch the scene.

SHOMINGEKI : more than a film journal

I first came to know about Shomingeki through Facebook . I was on the page of Aparna Sen where I found that. There was an article posted on Shomingeki about Aparna Sen. Sen being one of my adored artists  could easily arrest my attention and I started following the blog. The man posted the blog and who was the blog writer as well was Rudiger Tomczak , a Berlin based film critc and author . I can hardly remember though when and how we became FB friends . Yes ,  Rudiger Tomzcak is my friend , a rare preternatural species , who drinks cinema , eats cinema , smokes cinema and probably sleeps with.

 Rudiger Tomczak the is the founder of SHOMINGEKI  a  film journal published from Berlin . Shomingeki is a Japanese ( or pseudo Japanese ) term coined by the Western scholars to denote the work and arts of the working class people those revolve around their lifestyles. For the last 17 years Shomongeki has been serving the world of Cinema , the world-cinema , the world of less and much appreciated cinemas and the under world cinemas. Shomingeki is a film journal and to put it in Rudiger's manner :

" In diesem deutschsprachigen Blog sind alte und neue Texte oder Texte aus vergriffenen Ausgaben meiner Zeitschrift shomingeki zu finden. Englische und in Ausnahmen französische Texte sind auf meinem anderen Blog: shomingekiblog zu finden. "


Shomingeki was first published in the year 1995. It has been long 17 years that the editor and the writer  has tirelessly engaged himself in publishing both the blogs and the magazine. Only a true cinephile could do this under some contagious spells of pure cinema !

Long live SHOMINGEKI !! Long live CINEMA !!

http://shomingekiblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/17-years-shomingeki.html


http://shomingeki-deutsch.blogspot.de/2013/01/die-zufallige-entdeckung-eines-neuen.html

LOST HIGHWAY

shomingekiblog: Notes on Red, by Anamika Bandopadhyay, India: 200...

shomingekiblog: Notes on Red, by Anamika Bandopadhyay, India: 200...: for Thér è se Gonzalez It is hard for me to understand why the whole Nandigram-issue remained relative unknown outside of India. ...

CHHAYA BAAJEE: JOURNAL ON FILM / DREAM / MEMORY

CHHAYA BAAJEE: JOURNAL ON FILM  /  DREAM  / MEMORY: THE LAST OF ENGLAND - AN INSIDE VOYAGE WITHIN THE DOMAINS OF DREAM , MEMORY AND CRITICISM


 1987, UK — 88 minutes, color and black & white

The Last of England is not as manipulative as a conventional feature; you know – jump here, be frightened here, laugh.... Apart from being stuck with my film for 85 minutes, my audiences have much greater freedom to interpret what they are seeing, and because of the pace, to think about it. I have my own ideas but they are not the beginning or the end.... I learn an immense amount from audiences. I can go backwards and forwards across a a shot 30 times and then see the film another 20 or 30 times and still miss things. For me the voice of the audience is interpretive, teaching me what I have done. I don't work for a passive audience, I want an active audience.... In any case audiences are much more adventurous than is given credit   - DEREK JARMAN 

The last of England by Derek Jarman  is a complex essay on celluloid. A chaos, a celebration , an experience of birth , an experience of death and destruction , It's an inward journey within our postmodern existence. Jarman carries the legacy of the " howls " of the Beat generation and we listen to those cult poetic expressions as a narrative commentary as he invokes Allen Ginsberg :

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by

madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn

looking for an angry fix

And we spectators start delving deep into memory, digging up the world's past. The film operates within the two levels of experience and memories. The binaries of personal and collective, Nation State and world politics , home movies ( e.g some super 8 footages recorded by his family , where he is seen as a kid ) and stylized sets  (e.g a very stylized theatrical presentation of Shakespeare's much famous " The Tempest " ) are interwoven with dreams and memories. The sequences are restless and  dreamlike and they exert a hypnotic stance on its spectators. It travels back and forth between the past and the present , Jarman's childhood and  youth , Jarman's family home videos , which serve a very major role in the film.The film travels almost seamlessly within the territory of dream and dream like sequences. Some moments of destruction ( e.g demolition of big apartments , war footages  ) create a sense of nightmarish atmosphere though , again somewhat inevitable for dreams.

He talks about England . He reinvents the history, the history of post-war trauma but ends up being tormented in great pain with the generations' frustration. Likewise , the tale of England , as the film suggests , does fail to limit itself within the trajectory of the history and politics of England. It spreads , as the film progresses and crosses the boundary of a Nation State and reaches everywhere. In the final section , we find him constructing images of some Indian deities ( the elephant god Gnaesha )  and motifs. And we understand that Jarman has actually failed to confine himself within a definite history of England , he has been tranformed into a citizen of the world , like his predecessor T.S. Eliot. It reminds me how Eliot in his ground breaking text ' The waste land ' draws on from the vast universe of culture  which finally leads to conclude reciting from The Upanishad, the ancient Indian book of metaphysics :

London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down

Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina 

Quando fiam uti chelidon - O swallow swallow 

Le Prince d'Aquitaine à la tour abolie  

These fragments I have shored against my ruins

Why then Ile fit you.  Hieronymo's mad againe. 

Datta.  Dayadhvam.  Damyata. 

      Shantih shantih shantih 

The spectator immediately starts witnessing  the pervasive presence of Eliotian metaphors and images because it is inevitable. We realize that as a commentator of his age , as an artist , he is carrying the legacy of his European ancestors , Eliot , Skaespeare , Virgil , Dante.


This observation triggers me in making a connection between the Beatnic artists , Eliot and India.  The Beatles were highly influenced by the metaphysics and culture of India. Their connection with Mahesh Yogi and the great musician Ravi Shankar is a part of history now. Eliot was immensely influenced by Upanishads and Ginberg experienced an anarchic , chaotic , psychedelic celebration of youth with his Indian friends and holy mentors. It engages my thoughts. Trying to find a Freudian socio-psychoanalytical argument behind this commonality.