Friday, March 27, 2009

Simple pedagogical example in Paris, Texas

Exaggerated, and therefore unusually clear, examples of offscreen sound occur one after the other in Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas (1984). At the beginning of DVD ch. 16 (01:10:50), Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) walks past a club playing tejano music; we see the club only several seconds after the scene starts, and volume levels even rise and fall accordingly. Cut to daytime as he walks on a particularly long highway overpass; immediately we hear a man yelling; Travis continues to walk and only 30 seconds later does the man come into the frame as Travis pauses briefly before going on -- and the man's voice goes offscreen again.

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