Film-Philosophy
Journal | Salon | Portal (ISSN 1466-4615)
Vol. 6 No. 4, March 2002
Gerwin van der Pol
Michel Chion's Blessing in Disguise
Michel Chion _The Voice in Cinema_ trans. Claudia Gorbman New York: Columbia University Press,
1999 ISBN 0-231-10822-2 (alk.paper) ISBN
0-231-10823-0 (pbk) 183 pp. The English translation of Michel
Chion's _The Voice in Cinema_ gives one reason to reflect on
the presence of Chion in film-sound studies. It is a happy
thought that film-sound studies have matured to such an age,
that it has reached a moment in its life when there is no
longer only a future, but already a past to look back upon.
Chion is one of its heroes. And he deserves his unquestioned
importance by his eloquent and personal writing on sound in
film, his gift of finding and analysing remarkable
soundscenes, and also by being, as a result of his success,
one of the few promoters of film-sound studies. But to me,
Chion should be understood as a blessing in
disguise. It is exactly in this capacity as
godfather that I do want to question him. Despite the
flawless nature of his books, they contain the seeds of
doubt. A strange thing happens in rereading Chion, which is
a task far less enjoyable than reading Chion. The first
reading is one of amazement and recognition; he describes
scenes with an enthusiasm that makes you want to see and
hear the film immediately. He is a master in describing a
film using only the soundcues, for example _Citizen Kane_
(Orson Welles, 1941), revolving around the word 'Rosebud' he
analyses very convincingly the changes of Kane from the
written (the newspapers) to the oral (his 'singing' Susan).
The multitude of descriptions and their ascribed theoretical
terms (mostly neologisms by Chion himself) suggest a
theoretical importance and conclusiveness that his work
actually lacks. Suspicion arises during rereading, when all
those examples no longer have the necessity to end up in
Chion's definition: any other list of examples probably
would end up in different definitions. Although Chion's
definitions clearly fit the examples, the definitions
themselves are defined by the examples. There is no surplus
value, or other use. *Acousmatic being*, the term introduced
in _The Voice in Cinema_, and often quoted, is a case in
point. It is the sound of someone who is heard but not seen,
exemplified by The Wizard in _The Wizard of Oz_ (Victor
Fleming, 1939) before he is unmasked. To Chion, and his many
disciples, every disembodied voice is as 'the wizard before
he is unmasked'. This definition is relatively unproblematic
in Chion examples, but with the films Chion does not
mention, the label 'acousmatic being' hardly helps to
explain the function of the disembodied voice, and usually
only leads a film theorist to be blind to many more
interesting functions of the disembodied voice in a
particular film. Another problem arises from the
anthropomorphic nature of this term -- for example: 'more
acousmatic being than ever' (111); or, even more intriguing
is: 'The day the acousmatic beings had doubts, when they no
longer behaved like voices that knew and saw everything'
(55). It is logically impossible for a being to be more
itself, or not itself at all. If 'acousmatic being' is
defined as 'without doubts' then a doubtful acousmatic being
is complete nonsense. My line of critique is of course
indebted to David Bordwell and Noel Carroll, who have their
strong doubts about being so generalizing about a few film
examples. Their other complaint is the ambivalent nature of
the psychoanalytical approach, of which Chion is an adept
practitioner. Probably the two arguments stem from the same
root: using one psychological case-study as standing for the
nature of humankind involves the same way of theorizing as
using a selection of film examples to 'prove' this theory.
So instead of understanding the 'sign' as indeed standing
for something else (in semiotics), to Chion this absence
becomes a Lacanian lack, and this absence should only be
understood as such. This explains Chion's foregrounding of
the 'acousmatic being'. Chion seems very open-minded in his
choice of films, from Marguerite Duras to John Carpenter. In
the epilogue he justly defends his use of film examples
outside the canon, something for which he is heavily
criticised. But perhaps the real problem with his choice of
films is not the *inconsistency* with the film canon, but
his *consistency* in choosing films that themselves ponder
on the importance of film sound. That is, films that are
aware that it is not necessarily self-evident that sounds
attach themselves to images, and, more literally, all those
films that make microphones, gramophones, the voice, the
silence, etc., their (visible) subjects. Any analytical play
with these films will result in a readable insight into the
film; it is probably harder *not* to find a meaningful play
with soundsigns. There is of course always room for play and
entertainment in the field of film-sound studies, but actual
work is necessary to proceed. This focus on the aberrant
could finally touch upon issues of the status quo (probably
ninety-five percent of all films), but that is still a path
to be taken in the field. Only a few works have spotted the
road on the map, for example: Theo van Leeuwen's _Speech,
Music, Sound_ (Houndsmill: MacMillan, 1999), and Sarah
Kozloff's _Overhearing Film Dialogue_ (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 2000). Openly criticizing Chion is not meant
to erase his name from film-sound studies, but to inscribe
him with a different use-value. What is the lesson to be
learnt from _The Voice in Cinema_? What happens when we read
Chion with the above objections in mind? Are we bothered by
these objections? When the inclination to make them explain
the 'cinematic apparatus' has disappeared, his examples
become more open to debate, and they can be used to explain
the more general workings of sound. As no other in
film-sound studies Chion labelled these workings
'soundphenomena'. Instead of worshipping all those terms,
and ending up with a Chionian canon, it would be wise to
analyze the ordinary film and see how many terms actually
are useful as working tools. One of the aspects Chion should be
praised for, something unfortunately not copied by his
disciples, is his knowledge of early cinema, making
connections between now and then that are still inspiring.
This stands apart from the contemporary practice of using
early film history as a magical box out of which you can
summon-up every 'proof' you need for understanding the
present. And, despite his Lacanian inclination, for the most
part Chion surveys the subject of sound with a fresh ear.
And the fact that he hardly makes use of the theoretical
canon (from Eisner to Eisenstein and further) is admirable.
It makes his theorizing less harmful, and more easily
adaptable to other strands of theorizing (such as
cognitivism), than the complex and wrong rereadings and
quotations one finds in the majority of more theoretical
film-sound literature; with notable exceptions like Rick
Altman, James Lastra, and Jeff Smith. Despite my reservations about the
generalisations Chion is tempted to make, I do enjoy his
enthusiasm. There is something courageous in his
over-simplified descriptions, such as the fact that in the
big Hollywood productions 'it's amazing to consider the
extravagant luxury of the means devoted to the screenplay
and production mobilised in order for everything to be lost
and spent in a woman's scream' (77). Whatever the doubts
about its general truth-value, it is a thought that somehow
seems inevitable. _The Voice in Cinema_ contains many of
these statements, on muteness, dubbing, and playback, that
have still not lost their glamour, and which explain Chion's
reputation within film-sound studies. University of Amsterdam, The
Netherlands Copyright © _Film-Philosophy_
2002 Gerwin van der Pol, 'Michel Chion's
Blessing in Disguise', _Film-Philosophy_, vol. 6 no. 4,
March 2002
<http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol6-2002/n4vanderpol>.
Save as Plain Text Document...Print...Read...Recycle
Join the Film-Philosophy salon,
and receive the journal articles via email as they are published. here
Film-Philosophy (ISSN 1466-4615)
PO Box 26161, London SW8 4WD, England
Contact: editor@film-philosophy.com
Back to the Film-Philosophy homepage
