Jana orta

ERASERHEAD, 197

This midnight movie is the rst full-length lm of David Lynch, a well-known director particularly popular
for his ability to create surreal and weird environments, and uneasy moods as well. In references to his sound
design for Eraserhead, Lynch states that The sound, picture, and ideas have to marry. If an idea carries with
it a mood, sound is critical to making that mood1, that is exactly what the director attempts to reach in this
lm: he plays around with images and sound that creates the perverse world that Henry - the main character -
dwells in.
Sound is really important in securing a lm’s atmosphere and also in portraying the right idea to an audience,
and this is wonderfully reached by Lynch thanks to a variety of sound effects such as mechanical hums,
slithering puppy sounds, radiator hissing, soft wind, whooshing dins, vociferous alien baby cries (…)
creating this way, a frightening and nightmarish setting: a world far removed from the concept of beauty.

The lm sequence that I have chosen to analyse goes from the minute 47:00 to 50:06 :

This scene starts with the main character lying on his bed and we hear an unseen howling wind that evokes
intrigue the whole time and, at the same time, helps the contextualisation. With this low-frequency sounds
combined with this rusted, deteriorating quality the director pretends to immerse the audience into the
darkness that permeates the character. What is more, while he is in the bed, thinking, just about to dream, and
he moves to a side of it, we can also hear some smooth movement of his face into the cushion.

We can see that he is captivated by something, and just at the moment we know that he is looking at the
radiator, while he close his eyes to start dreaming, the low intense industrial soundtrack increases, at the
same time that the camera is approaching to the radiator. We can also distinct some new sounds, a screeching
industrial noise that makes us feel claustrophobic: this new sounds unsettles and makes us anticipate
something that is unwanted - the following scene -

Next, we see an entrance to his dream: a door opens ahead of us evoking the sound of a heavy machinery -
like an elevator - creating an uneasy atmosphere. Then, when we are inside his unconsciousness, there is a
happy organ music that starts playing when the rst bulb lights up - the soundtrack could perfectly t the
music of a circus - and we can also feel the irony of the scene, almost comic.

A girl starts a little dancing and during a few long seconds we only hear this happy music: the directors keeps
us intrigued until we can perceive what she is about to do with these alien bodies that falls upon the oor,
near her and, as we thought, she crushes them smiling, one by one.
Just one second before the rst crush, the music stops and then we hear the smash, and then, when she
nishes the rst smash the music restarts from the point it stopped and continues playing until the following
crush - the last one - with the same methodology

This sequence ends with a similar wind as the one that opened the scene. The dream nishes when the
mysterious girl is absorbed backwards by this wind, so it not unseen anymore. It is important to point out too
that the sound of the whole sequence is diegetic sound and music as well. We had no dialog.

1 Richardson, Mark. “Interviews: David Lynch.” Pitchfork. Pitchfork Media Inc., 6 Aug. 2012. Web. 11 May 2015.
<http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/8910-david-lynch/&gt;.
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 Jana orta

On balance, we had these eerie sounds scattered throughout the lm, and although there is not a huge amount
of music in it, we have the organ music created by Fat Waller. In fact, the biggest impact of the lm is the
non-music subgenera’s like this abstract noise, the drove, ghostly echoes, dark ambient (…) that makes us
crave and escape from the diegesis - the plot -.

The whole weird and unidenti able sounds made the mood surreal and uncomfortable the whole lm and,
this sequence, in particular, shows a surreal blend of nightmare and fantasy that only the subconscious could
truly concoct. This is how this dark world truly alien in nature is reached.
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 Jana orta

AMÉLIE, 200

This French lm of Jean-Pierre Jeunet does not show the world as the one the rest of us live in, but the one
inside of Amélie. Amélie’s daydream is full of brighter colours, odder coincidences and little sounds that
speaks in volumes. In other words, it is a charmingly odd tale where we nd an undercurrent of dark humour
that complements perfectly with the other face of the lm: the sweetness of the main character, a sweetness
that we feel thanks to her vision of the world.

In this lm, the sound is what brings the imagery to life: the more important the moments being portrayed on
screen are - to the characters -, the more detail seems to have been put into the sound. The main purpose of
the music seems to be to draw the audience into the lm’s world and to keep reality from intruding painfully
upon them

The lm sequence that I have chosen to analyse goes from the minute 0:00 to 2:54

The opening scene starts with an uplighting, happy, typical and French instrumental music that generates a
nostalgic feeling thanks to a voice over - really dry - that begins to introduce the main character to the
audience - it is a non-diegetic sound with no reverberation. This sequence is a collage of memories that
follows the creation of Amélie and her mother giving birth to her. The music used, is fast paced as to relate to
the quick progression of time passing of the beginning of Amelie's life.
Every sound is magni ed, for instance, the sound of a car crossing the rst shot of the scene, moving forward
until we see it disappear or the breathing of an old man sitting in a chair. All plenty of details.

The sound is also employed to illustrate tiny moments, for example, when we see a younger Amélie pushing
her lips into the mirror and we can appreciate the sound of her lips kissing it, sliding through it. Also the
sound of the pieces of a domino falling down the table or her ngertips sliding through a glass of wine…
These diegetic sounds used are echoey and distorted implying that the imagery is a memory that Amelie
particularly favours. This part is made of non-diegetic music: is a soft piano instrumental, which is calming
and relaxing, indicating that the focus is on a particular period in Amelie's life.

We can appreciate also a moment when Amélie is sucking the last remnants of milkshake out of her glass:
this sound is completely relatable as we all remember doing this as a child. This makes the audience feel
nostalgic even though it is about another persons childhood as the clever use of sound instantly allows the
audience to connect with the movie. This recorded sound, especially when it is out of context, gives the lm
some of its most touching and surreal moments.
Every little sound is distinct, serving to emphasise the delight and the excitement of the moment.

This is a lm about nostalgia, memory and love, a lm that delights in the oddities of life and the notion that
not everything has an explanation or even requires one. The sound mix lets the music sweep the viewer up in
the lm’s world, and pulling back to reveal the tiny little sound touches that light up and augment the most
tender and oddest moments of the lm.
Moreover, the use of sound helps our insights into the characters pleasure and peeves, in other words, in
Amélie’s absurd ights of fantasy.
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