The Construction of a Soundtrack in the film Amélie

BY JULIE GRAY

 

In order to discuss the use of audio in film, this week's paper will examine Amélie and the manner with which the film creatively uses the soundtrack to actively contribute to the construction of the narrative. Amélie is a fictional piece that utilises a convergence of varying cinematic sound devices, affording the spectator both a heightened sense of unity and a distinct disparity between the traditional experience of image and sound as presented in film. This is realised through the particular use of voice-over, synchronous voice, and atmospheric sound effects. Amélie effectively generates a particular filmic experience arising essentially through the soundtrack that toys with the traditional dialectical relationship between the soundtrack and the image in film.

 

Music in film makes an integral and obvious contribution to the 'mood' of a narrative. For the purpose of this discussion I will acknowledge the music design of this film as taking on a traditional omni directional and omnipresent position, which, by definition, picks up on the idea that the sound of the film is not the focus.[1]Whilst the music provides a component of the film that is not the focus, the other aspects of sound design, that is, voice-over, synchronous voice and atmospheric sound, are presented in the forefront of Amélie, hence my discussion privileges these aspects of the sound design.

 

Amélie from Montmartre [2] is a contemporary French production directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The story traces the journey of a young woman Amélie Poulain, as she finds herself empowered by acts of random kindness. The film premise presents the story of a journey of self, which advocates that by fulfilling the perceived inadequacies of lives around you, self will be afforded the same fulfillment thus realising the destination of your journey.

 

 

 

The dialectical positioning of voice-over and synchronous voice in Amélie

 

The film begins with the establishment of a mythological relationship drawn between Amélie's conception and seemingly incidental events that synonymously occur, for example, the commentary tells us that the rate of the bluebottle fly's wings flapping is 14,670 beats per minute and dancing wine glasses were moved by the wind under a tablecloth that nobody sees. This pre-credit sequence is constructed in a manner that uses the voice-over to position the images and draw links between these events and Amélie's place in relation to these events. The significance of the voice-over as the driver of the narrative via this explanatory positioning is predominantly maintained throughout the film. Without the narration the images could often be perceived as ambiguous or nonsensical in certain parts. The narration in this instance provides the 'pointers' (what should the audience focus on in this frame) and, in a very literal sense, supports James Monaco's anticipation of what the 'sound' in film can provide: "Ideally, the sound of a film should be of equal importance with the image."[3] The sound in Amélie animates the image via the voice-over, fueling both the interpretation and progression of this narrative as represented through the film medium.

 

 

 

Preceding the opening sequence of this film, the commentary continues to provide a voice of authority. The voice narration sets up a relationship between the voice-over and the audience by its position as the textual dominant, together with the use of images as illustrative of the content of the commentary. A voice-over commentary holds strong ideological links to that of an authoritative disembodied 'other': the voice comes from that which is outside of the space of what is represented on the screen. As Mary Anne Doane suggests, this positioning endows the voice-over with a certain level of authority. "As a form of direct address, it speaks without mediation to the audience, bypassing the "characters" and establishing a complicity between itself and the spectator-together they understand thus place the image."[4] This is especially so in traditional documentary film practice where the voice-over traces it's roots to the Griersonian method of documentary construction where the male voice-of-god prevails, and inadvertently constructs the viewing position as pregnant with the expectation that the voice-over will provide the voice-of-reason.[5]

 

The voice-over in Amélie not only places the image, as Doane suggests. Moreover it places the links between the images, rendering the voice-over in this context, an aural storyteller and editor. The exact meaning of the montage of images in relation to Amélie are explained to the audience which illustrates a shift from notions of traditional forms of Russian montage in cinematic practices. This style of editing adopts the philosophy that the clash of image produces meaning and is an ideal that much of European Cinema predicates their editing processes on. The continuity editing form adopted by American Cinema, places strong emphasis on the images speaking for them and, in doing so, attempts to veil the artifice of filmic construction.[6] Interestingly Amélie could be considered as adopting this americanised style of a literal editing approach via the use of voice-over because it operates as an integral explanation to support the images. However the use of voice-over, in this sense, turns back on itself as it speaks from the perspective of a person who is not directly involved with the narrative it refers too: a disembodied other. The process of positioning a voice-over can actually be considered as drawing attention to the artifice of the filmic construction. As Penny Mintz explains: "The narrator is twice removed from this spatial reality. Not only are his words ideational, consequently flattening the screen image, but his intrusion upon the story reminds us of the unreality of the whole filmic event."[7]

 

 

But is this voice-over positioned in a removed spatial reality? In part it is, but as we are drawn into the comfort of the traditional viewing position of voice-over and images providing illustration or counterpoint, this position is apprehended. The voice-over frequently oscillates between a removed position of 'other' and one that places the voice-over in direct relationship with the dialogue as delivered by the on-screen body of Amélie. What inevitably unfolds in this film is an interesting blurring of the demarcation between what is presented on screen as synchronous sound and what is presented as asynchronous commentary. The voice of reason becomes the voice that articulates Amélie's thoughts but remains in an ephemeral state because of the obvious differences in relation to position of commentary as disembodied, as well as the obvious demarcation of genders (the voice is male and Amélie is female). This effectively disrupts a traditional experience of voice-over that, in Amélie, presents itself as both representative of and distinct from the subject.

 

This is illustrated in many scenes in the film where the commentary operates as an independent narrator and at other points where it interacts with the screen subject. An example of the interaction between voice-over and the character of Amélie can be found in the scene where Amélie reads from a book on, what appears to be, a bus. The asynchronous commentary announces the specific text that Amélie is reading: Amélie synchronously repeats this voice-over as a screen monologue immediately after the audience hears the voice-over. The voice-over becomes the representative of subject in a sense that it positions the voice-over as Amélie's thoughts. Through Amélie's repetition of this book text as processed in the mind, the voice-over articulation of what Amélie is reading becomes authenticated by the dialogue of the character and effectively through this unification of the mind, unifies the body of the narrator and the body of the character.

 

The realisation of this unity is also played out in Amélie by shifting the traditional power of a voice-over commentary, which is based on a direct mode of speaking to the film spectator, through repositioning the source of the direct address. The voice-over explains that Amélie goes to the movies some Fridays. However rather than representing a dialectical relationship between commentary and the screen-body of Amélie, which is done in other instances, the relationship between the commentary and the film spectator is positioned as equal in terms of the power accredited to directly engaging a film audience. Preceding the commentary that explains Amélie's position in this image, Amélie directly addresses the film spectator to share her thoughts on the movie going experience. " I like looking back at people's faces in the dark," Amélie tells us in a whisper, for the image suggests she is in a movie theatre and her fetish is not being shared with the other moviegoers. This is an insight that Amélie has candidly shared, but the whisper means that the information is just for us. Amélie draws the audience into that place. A dialectical tension emerges between asynchronous and synchronous sound.

 

The tension in the positioning of voice-over in Amélie can also be examined in relation to the imaginative and introverted qualities that Amélie displays throughout this film. The voice-over is the voice that positions the whimsical tendencies that Amélie demonstrates in a manner that suggests there are valid reasons why these events should unravel. The shift between on-screen voice and voice as commentary demonstrates the elusive sense of 'reality' that Amélie tends towards.

 

 

The contribution of Sound effects to the Narrative of Amélie

 

 

As Monaco suggests: " The so-called "noise" of the soundtrack-"sound effects"-that is paramount. This is where the real construction of the sound environment takes place."[8] 'Noise' in Amélie is a masterful inclusion in the soundtrack construction of this film. Whilst the points of interest are overtly frequent, for the purpose of this discussion I will be focusing on the scenes where the sound design team of Amélie, meshes atmospheric noise with voice-over to elucidate the importance of sound in the positioning of both a passage of time and the signature of it's location. " It is the pervasiveness of sound that is its most attractive quality. It acts to realise both space and time. It is essential to the creation of the locale; the "room sound", based on the reverberation time, harmonics, and so forth or a particular location is its signature."[9]

 

Amélie is realising her quest to manufacture situations that provoke emotional responses in certain people around her. The quest focuses on the trials and tribulations of the lady who lives downstairs in her apartment block: a self-proclaimed woman "born to cry". Whilst the lady had been married her husband, a salesman for Ladybird Insurance, had been sleeping with his secretary. Subsequently he had been killed in a car accident and left her bitter. The lady holds onto a series of love letters that her husband had written to her whilst he was in an army camp in the early stages of their relationship pre-infidelity. She reads one of these letters to Amélie to illustrate the devotion that her husband once felt for her.

 

Amélie leaves the room and time passes. Amélie then notices news reports of a mailbag that has been uncovered amongst the remnants of a plane crash found on Mt Blanc, from the 1960's.This event encourages Amélie to sneak into the lady's apartment and take her letters which she then reads. Filmic time compresses this experience as Amélie reads the love letters. This is done through particular sound signifiers that communicate that the audience is hearing Amélie read parts of a series of letters. The progression of the narrative in this scene is structured by the soundtrack that dominates the image as it shifts us through time via the recognition of atmospheric noises altering with each part of the letter Amélie reads. The voice-over actualises a time past as it presents the letters through a voice that is assumed to belong to the body of a dead man. The noise that is layered behind this voice-over shifts time into a specific context.

 

Amélie then goes about cutting fragments of the letter to reconstruct a new letter. The fragmented memory and associated emotions that the lady downstairs holds in relation to her husband are metaphorically reconstructed by Amélie as she pieces together a new letter that effectively can work to reconstruct an alternate memory the lady has of her dead husband. The letter is carefully photocopied, dipped in tea for an aged look, dried and resent with apologies from the postal service for the untimely delay of the delivery of this letter which was found in a lost mailbag amongst the plane crash remnants.

 

As the woman reads the letter, the soundtrack constructs continuity in relation to the words on the page via the voiceover however the context that the pieces of the letters were written in, is also layered on the soundtrack. The 'noise' becomes a series of obviously fragmented environmental sounds, for example, bells, horns, crickets, birds, gunfire etc. emanating from each line or piece of another letter that Amélie has constructed. Sound has literally actualized a time however this time is constructed through Amélie's sense of what is needed to reconstruct this woman's life. Amélie unites the woman with her dead husband's memory so she can bury him. Through the use of this method of audio construction, the disruption of the viewing space is evident however the purpose is clear.

 

 

In Conclusion

 

 

 

Sound in Amélie experiments with the politics of film sound in that it shifts the traditional experience of the soundtrack whilst operating as an integral aspect of the film narrative. In an ideological sense this film draws on consumable codes and conventions in a quest to provide the sound experience as one that generates a tension between a comfortable cinematic aural position and one that disrupts this position with its use of voice-over, synchronous recording and atmospheric noise. This convergence can be identified in many films however what is particularly unique about Amélie is the apparent simplicity of the film, that is, image and music which, when considering the soundtrack, draws attention to the complexity of the positioning of the other components of the soundtrack. It is the voice-over oscillating between the position of disembodied 'other' to an embodied on screen character without a change in vocal qualities but rather through a channeling force that results in a repositioning of the relationship between the audience and the voice. It is also the manner with which the character of Amélie engages in a direct relationship with the audience.  And finally, it is also the masterful use of noise that functions as an integral driver of this narrative.

 

This discussion is an attempt to generate a way of thinking about audio and film that steps outside of the privileging of the image and the limitations placed on our examination of film sound via the traditional ideological frameworks that prevail. Effectively what emerges is a way of listening within the filmic experience that challenges and disrupts the traditional politics of the soundtrack without drawing away from the narrative.

 

 

Recommended Additional Reading

 

The following text is recommended for further reading but not required. It is a solid compilation of essays that includes the work of notable theorists and practitioners in the field of film sound. It is a bit light on digital technologies (nb 1985) however the underpinning philosophical frameworks are strong and it also gives some insight into the development of sound in film, which is important for students.

 

Elizabeth Weis and John Belton (ed)  'Theory and Practice Film

Sound' (1985) New York, Columbia University Press.