In this essay I will discuss how the use of sound creates narrative space. I will analyze two sequences constructing one of the main episodes in Andrei Tarkovsky’s film The Sacrifice, Andrei Tarkovsky, 1986, Sweden. I will argue that the role of sound in this particular scene does not only affirm and support the palpable space-time continuum established by the moving images but instead it works on a different phenomenological plain in which it delineates and materializes the unfathomable spiritual dimension present in the film. I will support my arguments with references to ideas and concepts of Michel Chion and Andrea Truppin as well as other theoreticians who examined the nature of Tarkovsky’s soundtrack.
First, I consider vital to mention that in his book Tarkovsky always speaks about his understanding of film as an art domain similar to poetry. He considers himself to be a poet more than a cinematographer. Hence his works are initially intended to be audio-visual poems and are intrinsically imbued with a certain constructive approach that denounces the conventional, casuality-defined, prosaic building of narrative films. All the expressive means and devices in Tarkovsky’s film are conceived to semantically operate in a similar manner to the words in poems. The representation is rarely direct or literal and often manifests itself through figures and tropes. Consequently, what the sound in The Sacrifice is after is not to construct an objective reality but rather to ‘capture pure poetic states of soul’ (Le Fanu, 1987, p. 127). It can be argued that in his use of sound Tarkovsky shares common grounds with, the adored by the Russian, prominent coryphaeus of art cinema Robert Bresson. Apropos of the latter’s utilization of sound John Belton reasons the term ‘abstract realism’ (2008, p.26) in which ‘realistic elements…reveal their abstract essence.’ Now, one could dispute that the notion of ‘realism’ is inherently in opposition to the fundamental principles of poetics. However, I would argue that despite the attempts of some Russian constructivists like Hlebnikov to invent new languages by fabricating fictional words, the constructive elements of the poem itself – words are realistic in their gist. Words are semiotic units referring to concrete notions and thus they are ‘realistic’ entities which become abstract only in their interaction with each other. Similarly the sounds in Tarkovsky’s films, as well as Bresson’s, frame the intangible or the spiritual but in their objective acoustic characteristics are deeply rooted in the physical reality. They are not artificially synthesized products.
The difference between the two auteurs in their use of sound may be seen as that in Bresson’s works the real attains an abstract dimension while in Tarkovsky’s – the abstract is portrayed as realistically as the ‘real’. In other words the difference in the evocation of spirituality is that Bresson’s points at the spiritual within the material objects while Tarkovsky endows the ethereal with physicality. Truppin arrives to a similar opinion stating that ‘sound in its ability to exist independently of its source, free of a concrete, visually perceivable object firmly attached to this world, can transcend the material towards otherwise inaccessible realms of experience.’ (Truppin, 1992, p. 248). A logical deduction to the implications these artistic attributes of the aural generate in terms of narrative space is to investigate the nature of the narrative space in the film. In my analysis of the two episodes in The Sacrifice I will attempt to discern and outline the presence of the ‘transcendental, unlocatable space’ (Truppin, 1992, p.246) that the sound evokes – an ‘oneiric space’ (Johnson and Petrie, 1994, p.240) that exists beyond the visible but within the diegesis of the film.
The episode of interest for this study is the first ‘dream sequence’ starting with Alexander’s visit to the Little Man’s room and finishing with his ‘waking up’ and the appearance of Otto. A key aspect to the spatial characteristics of all the sounds in the sequence is what Chion calls ‘internal sound’ (1994, p.76). Since the segment is quite obviously a depiction of Alexander’s inner turbulence - his thoughts, sentiments and fears, the logic of sonic elements in it is mainly defined not by external factors of the environment but by the immaterial – the existential battle within the protagonist’s soul. I will initially discuss the first part of the sequence ending with Alexander’s vision of his daughter walking unclothed in her room.
In the first two shots in Little Man’s room, as well as the beginning of the third one, just before Alexander’s prayer to God, one hears the quiet footsteps of Alexander as well as even quieter sounds of him breathing which one can easily classify as both off-screen turning into on-screen sounds and ‘objective internal sounds’(Chion, 1994, p. 76). These sounds may be seen as naturalistic point of view sounds that function to establish the centrality of Alexander’s personage. However, they are subdued by a dominant sound –a distinct, loud and rich in texture tinny clank. The sound is entirely off-screen and the spectator is given little clue about its source. The sound is of little importance for the syuzhet, however it has its artistic function. Its very formal acoustic characteristics – sharpness, richness in high frequencies and irregularity change the atmosphere of the images themselves. Chion refers to sonic ‘temporalization’ of the image through sound and argues that a sound characterized by ‘irregularity’ and ‘unpredictability’ tends to animate the image and saturate it with temporal charge (1994, p.14-15) The tinny clank in these first shots illustrates that well. The visual stillness is disrupted by that undefined alerting sound and thus the aural space attains deepness and contrast. The tinny sound can be seen as a figurative sonic element that denotes Alexander’s wild anxiety sonically juxtaposed with an indifferent silent world. The sound’s detachment from the concreteness of the visual space is also defined by its unchanging loudness – its audio levels are constant regardless of the altering visual perspective. In that way this sound, diegetic as it is, may be regarded as one coming ‘from another dimension’ (Chion, 1994, p.124) – the immaterial realm of the spiritual. As the scene progresses, in the third shot, a very long and rather complex one, the viewer is presented with the moment in which Alexander turns to God in despair. The whole aural plane of perception is concentrated on his spoken plea. As Alexander starts his confession the resonant footsteps of the beginning of the shot gradually muffle and almost completely disappear. That indicates a change in the sound space but is not supported anyhow by the visual one. The two seem to be almost completely disconnected and devoid of spatial unity. In affirmation of that observation one can detect the same effect in the relation between the visual and the aural in Alexander’s long speech. His voice sounds extremely naturalistic, almost exaggerated and one can here the unusual in conventional films, lip sounds. Furthermore the sighs and gasps that accompany the spoken words are also very well perceptible. The loudness of the sound and its extreme particularity give it an hyper-natural sounding that related to the image appears unnatural. The immediate perceptual impression is that both the sound source and the point of audition are positioned within the psyche of the character. The camera moves from close-up to medium long shot, but the sound does not follow. Through that dialectic clash of the two perceptual channels Tarkovsky generates a certain sensation of omnipresence of the voice – it exists in the visual space but also beyond it. This is an example of what Petric identifies as a ‘sight and sound counterpoint’ (1981, p. 23). By means of dualistic collision and the ‘dissolution of spatial and temporal continuity’ (Petric, 1981, p.24) Tarkovsky materializes the spiritual space. The visual and the sonic spaces are indeed synchronized and have matching points, yet the aural seems to spring from beyond the visible suggesting the presence of ‘unseen worlds’. (Truppin, 1992, p. 246)
This sub-episode shot of the prayer is concluded with Alexander retreating to his couch and lying to repose himself. Two key sounds indicate the finale of the sub-scene – the coin rolling on the floor and the mysterious female voice. The first one is functionally and formally quite similar to the clatter sound in the beginning of the sequence. The sound source remains off-screen and through its acoustic characteristic and ‘spatial signature’ (Truppin, 1992, p.241) the sound both denotes the objective space within the room and connotes the incorporeal realm of the spirit. The slight reverb and loudness, peculiar for the sound again imbue the aural field with contrast. Moreover, the sound attains a certain abstract value through its interplay with the image. It can be argued that the insignificant for the narrative sound of a coin rolling turns into what Balazs refers to as the ‘sound of silence’ (Balazs, 1952, p.118). Silence in film as the Hungarian argues is not simply the lack of sound but is an illusion of quietude achieved by means of the utilization of sound’s spatial implications. In the particular case the distinctly heard sound of the coin, which in everyday environment is a rather unnoticeable one, related to the considerable vastness of the visual space arises the sense of silence. Evidently the metaphoric value of the sound is predominant. One may see is an allegorical aural entity indicating Alexander’s pledge for silence, but also as an alert that breaks the calm and that forebodes the impending storm.
The second important sound – the enigmatic woman’s calling is a more complex one. Technically it is less realistic since it is a synthesis of a female voice and the Japanese flute heard later in the movie. At that stage of the film the sound does not have any evident material source within the diegesis of the work but it is also inadequate to typify it as a pure non-diegetic sound for it does not execute the traditional function of the latter – to enhance and comment on the picture. Thus one could characterize this sonic unit as one spatially positioned in the liminal zone between the non-diegetic and the off-screen. Chion notes that in The Sacrifice ‘one can hear sounds that already seem to come from the other side, as if they’re heard by an immaterial ear.’ (Chion, 1994, p. 123) I would argue that this particular one is a good justification for the statement above. The sound in a way indicates the presence, or maybe the omnipresence, of an unseen character. In that way it attains the status of a peculiar leitmotif of a ghostly herald of the apocalypse. Interestingly this recurrent leitmotif is heard again in the very end of the film, though slightly altered. In the finale of the film the mysterious calling turns more material and attains the corporeality of a human voice as its both acoustically more realistic and the its source is revealed to the spectator – namely the shepherd girl. Thus it becomes a rather mundane on-screen auditory unit. That shift in the nature of the sound is indicative of its bond with the psychological state of Alexander. The sound becomes real and clearly defined only after the narrative of the film has reached the point at which what is portrayed onscreen is objective reality detached from Alexander. At that point Alexander is objectively presented as a madman and the sound itself is emptied of its abstract properties and objectified. The sound, therefore, is irrevocably linked to the psychological state of the protagonist. Hence in the scene I’m discussing its spatial signature constructs not the objective reality but the spiritual sphere of Alexander’s soul. The undisputed ambiguity of the leitmotif seems to intentionally create an aura of "ontological undecidability. (Zizek, 2000, p. 245) As in probably all films by Tarkovsky, the dreamlike and the real are in constant interplay and what’s more the real and the illusory are reduced of defined boundaries and are fused into a unified yet amorphous whole which visually manifests itself only partially while the entirety of its multidimensional geometry is assembled in the soundtrack.
In the following shot the spectator is presented with Alexander’s daughter walking naked in a room. The dominant sound is the ‘shepherd’s calling’ while the sounds of the cracking of the wooden beams of the floor under the girl’s feet functions metaphorically to produce the already discussed notion of ‘silence’. In the end of the shot we notice the emergence of a sound of dripping water that like the female voice runs invariably throughout the whole sequence until Alexander’s waking up and hence also appears to be completely disconnected from the picture. With the exception of the short black and white shot of Little Man’s room the cinematography of the scene until this moment is decided in colour. Conversely, the rest of the dream sequence is marked by a complete chromatic shift to black and white which openly indicates a change in the nature of the visual space which becomes less logical and coherent and becomes entangled in an audio-visual polyphony build harmonically as well as through counterpoints. The last six black and white shots, therefore, construct a defined individual sub-scene.
First, it is important to mention that in this last segment the visual space itself becomes destabilized and curved into illusory shapes. In turn, in the sonic space in the first four shots of the segment one could notice a particular split in the sonic space. The positioned on the first plane sounds are on-screen, while the second layer is one entirely comprised of off-screen ones. This outlined off-screen space however is not in direct relation to the on-screen one – namely it is not space that surrounds the frame of the pictures but one completely detached from the space-time continuum of the visuals. The sounds from this domain are effectively subjective internal ones. Such acoustic units are clearly ‘disengaged with the present’ (Chion, 1994, p. 124) and are ‘used to expand the temporal and spatial placement of the image, dissolving any specific denotations in the atmosphere that surrounds it.’ (Bird, 2008, p.159) I shall proceed with a specific illustration of this argument.
In the first shot of the segment we see a slow motion shot of Alexander turning away and running down the corridor of an evidently different house- deserted and derelict. In the middle of the corridor there is a puddle and the ripples on its surface bring the dripping sound to the on-screen area. Had the same sound not continued throughout the sequence one could see it as a real sound acting as an acoustic bridge between the two adjacent shots and through its spatial signature indicating a space-time coherence between them – the corridor is right next to the room, so the dripping is heard in the room itself. The visual incongruity between the shots, thought, erases both possibilities. The dripping then goes off-screen again as in the following shot we see first Alexander sitting on a stool and himself again walking outside. An obviously diegetic on-screen sound of footsteps in the snow accompanies the appearance of the protagonist while the mysterious shepherd from the seminal sound area balances the realness of the space. The sound of the footsteps finds its logical continuation in the following shot in which the camera follows in close-up the feet of Alexander slowly stepping in the mud and again footsteps, but this time louder and more textured ones fill the sonic space. This sound is marked by similar acoustic characteristics to the voice of in the ‘prayer scene’ – extreme distinctness and richness of timbre.
Furthermore, the logical audio-visual relation ‘loud and crisp’ – ‘close-up’ seems to evoke a sense of realism. In the context of the constant alteration in the matching points of the aural and the pictorial, though, that logic is misleading. The soundscape seems to be an entangled riddle begotten and carried through by irrational principles, it is ‘mystifying rather than orienting’ (Truppin, 1992, p. 238). The feet splashing in the mud and later the sound of Alexander pulling out something that looks like a wet clout are marked by extreme naturalism and their source onscreen is obvious, yet the created atmosphere is not at all realistic. The sound though split in two somehow achieves harmony. The dripping tonally blends with the footsteps and the cloth-pulling and acoustically they are harmonious. Thus the relative dichotomy of the sound in the scene seems just an irrelevant analytical facilitation. Overall, the sound may be seen as a unified whole that stemming from the sphere of the irrational and immaterial – the human spirit, goes through the surface of the visual and in contact with it generates a poetic audio-visual space.
It can be argued that Tarkovsky’s transcendental space is an allegorical entity not accessible to the empirical means of cognition. It is ontologically vague and undefined and entirely dependent on reciprocal interaction between creator and spectator therefore its meaning is accessible only hermeneutically. Apropos of that Tarkovsky himself stated that the ‘metaphor is a being-within-itself, it's a monomial. It falls apart at any attempt of touching it’. (1981)
In the remaining shots of the sequence the spectator is again presented with a audio-visual mix of spatial congruity and illogicality. The point of view shot makes the gasping sounds and the Alexander’s calling for Little Man objective internal sounds, yet the accompaniment of tinkling glasses, dripping and ‘shepherd song’ subjectify the reality. The spiritual is not just vaguely abstract for the three sounds are not entirely ghostly. They are diegetic but chronologically out of place - they all appear as on-screen ones, earlier or later in the film. This consistent process of materialization of the spiritual is Tarkovsky’s ‘abstract realism’. Rejecting the absolute unearthliness of this dream sequence, Turovskaya argues that is not a pure abstraction but a ‘paraphrase of general reality’ (1989, p.145). Concluding the sequence, the acousmatic rumbling noise of the unseen airplanes again strikes with its contextual complexity. In the long point of view shot it emerges from the uneasy stillness of the aural space and slowly grows louder and louder imaginatively coalescing on a semantic level with the sound of tinkling crystal. In the interplay tinkling glasses – jet plane rumble the established causal relationship triggers a reciprocal actualization of both sounds. The image indirectly underpins this increasing realism by showing leaves and snow being swept away by gusts of air. The ethereal metaphor of apocalypse is rendered with rough, visceral materiality. The rumble escalates in two climactic loud blasts synchronized with the image of the barn doors being thrown open and Alexander rousing startled. Thus the jet rumble is a peculiar sound-bridge that in a way gathers up the acoustic content of the whole sequence and concentrates it in that final image of Alexander’s awakening. The subordination of the audio-visual space to the character’s spiritual state is lucidly designated. In the end the conflicting units of sound and picture and the scattered pieces of the space-time continuum in this complex cinematic equation are reduced to a common denominator – the character of Alexander.
Conclusively, I reckon that every attempt to fit The Sacrifice into a defined rational scheme is futile. The film in its content denounces the power of pure reason and this statement is fortified by the film’s form and structure. The examination of narrative space in Tarkovsky’s work, therefore, should not simply be reduced to analytical scrutiny of its physical characteristics. The illusion of material space is intrinsic to the medium of narrative film but in The Sacrifice the material in its very physical properties contains the seeds of the divine. And these seeds are planted by the sound. The image needs matter, sound doesn’t and if one could allegorically link that to the eternal dualism spirit – matter, then the spirit’s natural ambiance is acoustic. Bresson confirms that – ‘The ear goes more towards the within, the eye towards the outer.’(1986, p.61). It seems that Tarkovsky ‘listened’ to his master.
Bibliography
Balazs, B., 1954. ‘Theory of Film: Sound’. In: Weis, E. and Belton, J. (eds.), 1985. Film Sound: theory and practice. New York: Columbia University Press
Belton, J., 2008. ‘The Phenomenology of Film Sound: Robert Bresson’s A Man Escaped’ from N/A, Lowering the boom: critical studies in film sound p. 23-35, Urbana, IL. :University of Illinois Press
Bresson, R., 1986, Notes on the Cinematographer. Los Angelis California: Green Integer
Chion, M., 1992. Audio-Vision: sound on screen. New York: Columbia University Press
Johnson, V.T. and Petrie, G., 1994. Tarkovsky: A Visual Fugue. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press
Petric, V., ed., 1981. Film and Dreams. South Salem, NY: Redgrave Publishing
Turovskaya, M., 1989. Tarkovsky: Cinema as Poetry. London: Faber and Faber Limited
Tarkovsky, in interview Le noir coloris de la nostalgie with Hervé Guibert in "Le Monde", 12 May 1983 [Pol. trans. Malgorzata Sporek-Czyzewska].
Truppin, A., 1992. ‘And Then There Was Sound: The Films of Andrei Tarkovsky’ from N/A. Sound theory, sound practice p. 235-248, New York: Routledge
Žižek, S., 2000. "The Thing from Inner Space". In Sexuation. Renata S. (ed). Durham and London: Duke University Press
First, I consider vital to mention that in his book Tarkovsky always speaks about his understanding of film as an art domain similar to poetry. He considers himself to be a poet more than a cinematographer. Hence his works are initially intended to be audio-visual poems and are intrinsically imbued with a certain constructive approach that denounces the conventional, casuality-defined, prosaic building of narrative films. All the expressive means and devices in Tarkovsky’s film are conceived to semantically operate in a similar manner to the words in poems. The representation is rarely direct or literal and often manifests itself through figures and tropes. Consequently, what the sound in The Sacrifice is after is not to construct an objective reality but rather to ‘capture pure poetic states of soul’ (Le Fanu, 1987, p. 127). It can be argued that in his use of sound Tarkovsky shares common grounds with, the adored by the Russian, prominent coryphaeus of art cinema Robert Bresson. Apropos of the latter’s utilization of sound John Belton reasons the term ‘abstract realism’ (2008, p.26) in which ‘realistic elements…reveal their abstract essence.’ Now, one could dispute that the notion of ‘realism’ is inherently in opposition to the fundamental principles of poetics. However, I would argue that despite the attempts of some Russian constructivists like Hlebnikov to invent new languages by fabricating fictional words, the constructive elements of the poem itself – words are realistic in their gist. Words are semiotic units referring to concrete notions and thus they are ‘realistic’ entities which become abstract only in their interaction with each other. Similarly the sounds in Tarkovsky’s films, as well as Bresson’s, frame the intangible or the spiritual but in their objective acoustic characteristics are deeply rooted in the physical reality. They are not artificially synthesized products.
The difference between the two auteurs in their use of sound may be seen as that in Bresson’s works the real attains an abstract dimension while in Tarkovsky’s – the abstract is portrayed as realistically as the ‘real’. In other words the difference in the evocation of spirituality is that Bresson’s points at the spiritual within the material objects while Tarkovsky endows the ethereal with physicality. Truppin arrives to a similar opinion stating that ‘sound in its ability to exist independently of its source, free of a concrete, visually perceivable object firmly attached to this world, can transcend the material towards otherwise inaccessible realms of experience.’ (Truppin, 1992, p. 248). A logical deduction to the implications these artistic attributes of the aural generate in terms of narrative space is to investigate the nature of the narrative space in the film. In my analysis of the two episodes in The Sacrifice I will attempt to discern and outline the presence of the ‘transcendental, unlocatable space’ (Truppin, 1992, p.246) that the sound evokes – an ‘oneiric space’ (Johnson and Petrie, 1994, p.240) that exists beyond the visible but within the diegesis of the film.
The episode of interest for this study is the first ‘dream sequence’ starting with Alexander’s visit to the Little Man’s room and finishing with his ‘waking up’ and the appearance of Otto. A key aspect to the spatial characteristics of all the sounds in the sequence is what Chion calls ‘internal sound’ (1994, p.76). Since the segment is quite obviously a depiction of Alexander’s inner turbulence - his thoughts, sentiments and fears, the logic of sonic elements in it is mainly defined not by external factors of the environment but by the immaterial – the existential battle within the protagonist’s soul. I will initially discuss the first part of the sequence ending with Alexander’s vision of his daughter walking unclothed in her room.
In the first two shots in Little Man’s room, as well as the beginning of the third one, just before Alexander’s prayer to God, one hears the quiet footsteps of Alexander as well as even quieter sounds of him breathing which one can easily classify as both off-screen turning into on-screen sounds and ‘objective internal sounds’(Chion, 1994, p. 76). These sounds may be seen as naturalistic point of view sounds that function to establish the centrality of Alexander’s personage. However, they are subdued by a dominant sound –a distinct, loud and rich in texture tinny clank. The sound is entirely off-screen and the spectator is given little clue about its source. The sound is of little importance for the syuzhet, however it has its artistic function. Its very formal acoustic characteristics – sharpness, richness in high frequencies and irregularity change the atmosphere of the images themselves. Chion refers to sonic ‘temporalization’ of the image through sound and argues that a sound characterized by ‘irregularity’ and ‘unpredictability’ tends to animate the image and saturate it with temporal charge (1994, p.14-15) The tinny clank in these first shots illustrates that well. The visual stillness is disrupted by that undefined alerting sound and thus the aural space attains deepness and contrast. The tinny sound can be seen as a figurative sonic element that denotes Alexander’s wild anxiety sonically juxtaposed with an indifferent silent world. The sound’s detachment from the concreteness of the visual space is also defined by its unchanging loudness – its audio levels are constant regardless of the altering visual perspective. In that way this sound, diegetic as it is, may be regarded as one coming ‘from another dimension’ (Chion, 1994, p.124) – the immaterial realm of the spiritual. As the scene progresses, in the third shot, a very long and rather complex one, the viewer is presented with the moment in which Alexander turns to God in despair. The whole aural plane of perception is concentrated on his spoken plea. As Alexander starts his confession the resonant footsteps of the beginning of the shot gradually muffle and almost completely disappear. That indicates a change in the sound space but is not supported anyhow by the visual one. The two seem to be almost completely disconnected and devoid of spatial unity. In affirmation of that observation one can detect the same effect in the relation between the visual and the aural in Alexander’s long speech. His voice sounds extremely naturalistic, almost exaggerated and one can here the unusual in conventional films, lip sounds. Furthermore the sighs and gasps that accompany the spoken words are also very well perceptible. The loudness of the sound and its extreme particularity give it an hyper-natural sounding that related to the image appears unnatural. The immediate perceptual impression is that both the sound source and the point of audition are positioned within the psyche of the character. The camera moves from close-up to medium long shot, but the sound does not follow. Through that dialectic clash of the two perceptual channels Tarkovsky generates a certain sensation of omnipresence of the voice – it exists in the visual space but also beyond it. This is an example of what Petric identifies as a ‘sight and sound counterpoint’ (1981, p. 23). By means of dualistic collision and the ‘dissolution of spatial and temporal continuity’ (Petric, 1981, p.24) Tarkovsky materializes the spiritual space. The visual and the sonic spaces are indeed synchronized and have matching points, yet the aural seems to spring from beyond the visible suggesting the presence of ‘unseen worlds’. (Truppin, 1992, p. 246)
This sub-episode shot of the prayer is concluded with Alexander retreating to his couch and lying to repose himself. Two key sounds indicate the finale of the sub-scene – the coin rolling on the floor and the mysterious female voice. The first one is functionally and formally quite similar to the clatter sound in the beginning of the sequence. The sound source remains off-screen and through its acoustic characteristic and ‘spatial signature’ (Truppin, 1992, p.241) the sound both denotes the objective space within the room and connotes the incorporeal realm of the spirit. The slight reverb and loudness, peculiar for the sound again imbue the aural field with contrast. Moreover, the sound attains a certain abstract value through its interplay with the image. It can be argued that the insignificant for the narrative sound of a coin rolling turns into what Balazs refers to as the ‘sound of silence’ (Balazs, 1952, p.118). Silence in film as the Hungarian argues is not simply the lack of sound but is an illusion of quietude achieved by means of the utilization of sound’s spatial implications. In the particular case the distinctly heard sound of the coin, which in everyday environment is a rather unnoticeable one, related to the considerable vastness of the visual space arises the sense of silence. Evidently the metaphoric value of the sound is predominant. One may see is an allegorical aural entity indicating Alexander’s pledge for silence, but also as an alert that breaks the calm and that forebodes the impending storm.
The second important sound – the enigmatic woman’s calling is a more complex one. Technically it is less realistic since it is a synthesis of a female voice and the Japanese flute heard later in the movie. At that stage of the film the sound does not have any evident material source within the diegesis of the work but it is also inadequate to typify it as a pure non-diegetic sound for it does not execute the traditional function of the latter – to enhance and comment on the picture. Thus one could characterize this sonic unit as one spatially positioned in the liminal zone between the non-diegetic and the off-screen. Chion notes that in The Sacrifice ‘one can hear sounds that already seem to come from the other side, as if they’re heard by an immaterial ear.’ (Chion, 1994, p. 123) I would argue that this particular one is a good justification for the statement above. The sound in a way indicates the presence, or maybe the omnipresence, of an unseen character. In that way it attains the status of a peculiar leitmotif of a ghostly herald of the apocalypse. Interestingly this recurrent leitmotif is heard again in the very end of the film, though slightly altered. In the finale of the film the mysterious calling turns more material and attains the corporeality of a human voice as its both acoustically more realistic and the its source is revealed to the spectator – namely the shepherd girl. Thus it becomes a rather mundane on-screen auditory unit. That shift in the nature of the sound is indicative of its bond with the psychological state of Alexander. The sound becomes real and clearly defined only after the narrative of the film has reached the point at which what is portrayed onscreen is objective reality detached from Alexander. At that point Alexander is objectively presented as a madman and the sound itself is emptied of its abstract properties and objectified. The sound, therefore, is irrevocably linked to the psychological state of the protagonist. Hence in the scene I’m discussing its spatial signature constructs not the objective reality but the spiritual sphere of Alexander’s soul. The undisputed ambiguity of the leitmotif seems to intentionally create an aura of "ontological undecidability. (Zizek, 2000, p. 245) As in probably all films by Tarkovsky, the dreamlike and the real are in constant interplay and what’s more the real and the illusory are reduced of defined boundaries and are fused into a unified yet amorphous whole which visually manifests itself only partially while the entirety of its multidimensional geometry is assembled in the soundtrack.
In the following shot the spectator is presented with Alexander’s daughter walking naked in a room. The dominant sound is the ‘shepherd’s calling’ while the sounds of the cracking of the wooden beams of the floor under the girl’s feet functions metaphorically to produce the already discussed notion of ‘silence’. In the end of the shot we notice the emergence of a sound of dripping water that like the female voice runs invariably throughout the whole sequence until Alexander’s waking up and hence also appears to be completely disconnected from the picture. With the exception of the short black and white shot of Little Man’s room the cinematography of the scene until this moment is decided in colour. Conversely, the rest of the dream sequence is marked by a complete chromatic shift to black and white which openly indicates a change in the nature of the visual space which becomes less logical and coherent and becomes entangled in an audio-visual polyphony build harmonically as well as through counterpoints. The last six black and white shots, therefore, construct a defined individual sub-scene.
First, it is important to mention that in this last segment the visual space itself becomes destabilized and curved into illusory shapes. In turn, in the sonic space in the first four shots of the segment one could notice a particular split in the sonic space. The positioned on the first plane sounds are on-screen, while the second layer is one entirely comprised of off-screen ones. This outlined off-screen space however is not in direct relation to the on-screen one – namely it is not space that surrounds the frame of the pictures but one completely detached from the space-time continuum of the visuals. The sounds from this domain are effectively subjective internal ones. Such acoustic units are clearly ‘disengaged with the present’ (Chion, 1994, p. 124) and are ‘used to expand the temporal and spatial placement of the image, dissolving any specific denotations in the atmosphere that surrounds it.’ (Bird, 2008, p.159) I shall proceed with a specific illustration of this argument.
In the first shot of the segment we see a slow motion shot of Alexander turning away and running down the corridor of an evidently different house- deserted and derelict. In the middle of the corridor there is a puddle and the ripples on its surface bring the dripping sound to the on-screen area. Had the same sound not continued throughout the sequence one could see it as a real sound acting as an acoustic bridge between the two adjacent shots and through its spatial signature indicating a space-time coherence between them – the corridor is right next to the room, so the dripping is heard in the room itself. The visual incongruity between the shots, thought, erases both possibilities. The dripping then goes off-screen again as in the following shot we see first Alexander sitting on a stool and himself again walking outside. An obviously diegetic on-screen sound of footsteps in the snow accompanies the appearance of the protagonist while the mysterious shepherd from the seminal sound area balances the realness of the space. The sound of the footsteps finds its logical continuation in the following shot in which the camera follows in close-up the feet of Alexander slowly stepping in the mud and again footsteps, but this time louder and more textured ones fill the sonic space. This sound is marked by similar acoustic characteristics to the voice of in the ‘prayer scene’ – extreme distinctness and richness of timbre.
Furthermore, the logical audio-visual relation ‘loud and crisp’ – ‘close-up’ seems to evoke a sense of realism. In the context of the constant alteration in the matching points of the aural and the pictorial, though, that logic is misleading. The soundscape seems to be an entangled riddle begotten and carried through by irrational principles, it is ‘mystifying rather than orienting’ (Truppin, 1992, p. 238). The feet splashing in the mud and later the sound of Alexander pulling out something that looks like a wet clout are marked by extreme naturalism and their source onscreen is obvious, yet the created atmosphere is not at all realistic. The sound though split in two somehow achieves harmony. The dripping tonally blends with the footsteps and the cloth-pulling and acoustically they are harmonious. Thus the relative dichotomy of the sound in the scene seems just an irrelevant analytical facilitation. Overall, the sound may be seen as a unified whole that stemming from the sphere of the irrational and immaterial – the human spirit, goes through the surface of the visual and in contact with it generates a poetic audio-visual space.
It can be argued that Tarkovsky’s transcendental space is an allegorical entity not accessible to the empirical means of cognition. It is ontologically vague and undefined and entirely dependent on reciprocal interaction between creator and spectator therefore its meaning is accessible only hermeneutically. Apropos of that Tarkovsky himself stated that the ‘metaphor is a being-within-itself, it's a monomial. It falls apart at any attempt of touching it’. (1981)
In the remaining shots of the sequence the spectator is again presented with a audio-visual mix of spatial congruity and illogicality. The point of view shot makes the gasping sounds and the Alexander’s calling for Little Man objective internal sounds, yet the accompaniment of tinkling glasses, dripping and ‘shepherd song’ subjectify the reality. The spiritual is not just vaguely abstract for the three sounds are not entirely ghostly. They are diegetic but chronologically out of place - they all appear as on-screen ones, earlier or later in the film. This consistent process of materialization of the spiritual is Tarkovsky’s ‘abstract realism’. Rejecting the absolute unearthliness of this dream sequence, Turovskaya argues that is not a pure abstraction but a ‘paraphrase of general reality’ (1989, p.145). Concluding the sequence, the acousmatic rumbling noise of the unseen airplanes again strikes with its contextual complexity. In the long point of view shot it emerges from the uneasy stillness of the aural space and slowly grows louder and louder imaginatively coalescing on a semantic level with the sound of tinkling crystal. In the interplay tinkling glasses – jet plane rumble the established causal relationship triggers a reciprocal actualization of both sounds. The image indirectly underpins this increasing realism by showing leaves and snow being swept away by gusts of air. The ethereal metaphor of apocalypse is rendered with rough, visceral materiality. The rumble escalates in two climactic loud blasts synchronized with the image of the barn doors being thrown open and Alexander rousing startled. Thus the jet rumble is a peculiar sound-bridge that in a way gathers up the acoustic content of the whole sequence and concentrates it in that final image of Alexander’s awakening. The subordination of the audio-visual space to the character’s spiritual state is lucidly designated. In the end the conflicting units of sound and picture and the scattered pieces of the space-time continuum in this complex cinematic equation are reduced to a common denominator – the character of Alexander.
Conclusively, I reckon that every attempt to fit The Sacrifice into a defined rational scheme is futile. The film in its content denounces the power of pure reason and this statement is fortified by the film’s form and structure. The examination of narrative space in Tarkovsky’s work, therefore, should not simply be reduced to analytical scrutiny of its physical characteristics. The illusion of material space is intrinsic to the medium of narrative film but in The Sacrifice the material in its very physical properties contains the seeds of the divine. And these seeds are planted by the sound. The image needs matter, sound doesn’t and if one could allegorically link that to the eternal dualism spirit – matter, then the spirit’s natural ambiance is acoustic. Bresson confirms that – ‘The ear goes more towards the within, the eye towards the outer.’(1986, p.61). It seems that Tarkovsky ‘listened’ to his master.
Bibliography
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