A Man Escaped (Bresson, 1956)

While teaching our film music and sound course, I often introduced scenes from Jacques Tati's Monsieur Hulot's Holiday (1953) and My Uncle (1958) as a novel way of reinforcing the idea that sound can be a varying, vital, sometimes unavoidable element of a filmmaker's creative method. Monsieur Hulot's indecipherable dialogue and many outrageous sound gags are hilarious.

Robert Bresson's contemporaneous A Man Escaped (1956) is of a different order altogether: a French Resistance fighter in Lyon jailed by the Nazis recounts his methodically worked-out scheme to escape. David Bordwell and Kristen Thompson write that the soundtrack is "a central factor in shaping our experience of the whole film. .  . through Bresson’s control of what sounds we hear, what qualities these sounds have, and what relationships exist among those sounds and between sound and image."

Throughout the film, sound has many important functions. As in all of his films, Bresson emphasizes the sound track, rightly believing that sound may be just as cinematic as images. At certain points in A Man Escaped, Bresson even lets his sound technique dominate the image; throughout the film, we are compelled to listen. Indeed, Bresson is one of a handful of directors who create a complete interplay between sound and image.

Bordwell has generously posted a PDF of the case study essay from which I have just quoted. The essay was deleted from an earlier edition of Bordwell and Thompson's Film Art: An Introduction and has been posted for free download here: link. [Link checked on 3-01-2024.] Go the lower part of the page, under the heading "Film analyses from earlier editions of Film Art."

A Man Escaped is included in the excellent Criterion Collection series of DVD editions, and the entire essay posted by Bordwell (excepting only the scene example at the end) is included on the Special Features disk. An actor reads the text in voice-over while stills or clips are offered in the imagetrack. The PDF essay also includes a set of questions at the end; these could serve as the starting point for class discussion, assignment, or even paper topic.

The essay's headings are:

Fontaine’s Commentary
Sound Effects and Narration
Sound Motifs
Music
A Sample Sequence
Summary [and Questions]

About the music, they write that "another auditory motif involves the only nondiegetic sound in the film—passages from a Mozart mass." The work is the C Minor Mass, K. 427. Both Kyrie and Agnus Dei (which Mozart did not write) are said to be used -- I recognized only the Kyrie. Apart from the expected positions at beginning and end, brief excerpts (usually about 10 seconds or less) are heard at or near these timings: 20:28, 28:30, 40:00, 48:40, 51:40, 61:05, 69:00, and 100:00.

Writing exercises and analyses using Film Art: An Introduction

When we first conceived the idea of a film music and sound textbook nine years ago, we modeled the work on David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's Film Art: An Introduction, not only for its rare combination of high standards and clear presentation but also for its focus on film analysis. As Bordwell puts it,

[The book is] aimed at undergraduate students and general readers who want a comprehensive and systematic introduction to film aesthetics. It considers common types of films, principles of narrative and non-narrative form, basic film techniques, and strategies of writing about films. It also puts film art in the context of changes across history.  (description on website: link)   [link checked on 3-08-2024]

 Film Art is now in its 11th edition. With the various content transformations along the way, several short analyses were deleted, but David has generously posted them to his website (at the same link as the quote above). Here is the list of film titles, in reverse chronological order:   [list checked on 3-08-2024]  

The Prestige. dir. Christopher Nolan, 2006.
Hannah and Her Sisters. dir. Woody Allen, 1985.
Desperately Seeking Susan. dir. Susan Seidelman, 1985.
Fuji. dir. Robert Breer, 1974.
Tout va bien. dir. Jean-Luc Godard, 1972.
High School. dir. Frederick Wiseman, 1968.
Innocence Unprotected. dir. Dušan Makavejev, 1968.
Last Year at Marienbad. dir. Alain Resnais, 1961.
A Movie. dir. Bruce Conner, 1958.
A Man Escaped. dir. Robert Bresson, 1956.
Day of Wrath. dir. Carl Dreyer, 1943.
Stagecoach. dir. John Ford, 1939.
Clock Cleaners. dir. Walt Disney, 1937.
The Man Who Knew Too Much. dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1934.

 Since each of these analyses was intended as a self-contained section within a chapter, we can look at them as models for student analysis and writing exercises, even if only one of them focuses on sound (and none on music). These essays will be immediately relevant to chapters 8 and 15 in Hearing the Movies, and the compare-contrast writing exercises in Chapters 8 and 10, of course, but may be useful elsewhere for readings, assignments, or background reading for student projects. Of course, many similar analyses in the current edition of Film Art can be used for the same purpose!

Lady Windermere's Fan

Lady Windermere's Fan (1925), with the historically informed performance of Martin Marks in the Treasures series, provides the main case study in Chapter 4 of Hearing the Movies (second edition), 127-35.

The esteemed film scholar David Bordwell analyzes one of the scenes we discuss in detail: see his blog post (after the introductory paragraphs). The race-track scene (HtM, 132-33) is the third of four scenes in the film's first act. After some preliminaries, Mrs. Erlynne appears (at about 17:25) and is immediately the center of attention. The film's director, Ernst Lubitsch, uses an extended series of point-of-view shots in what Bordwell calls "a sequence built entirely around crisscrossed character looks."

To mimic musically the visual narration that puts all the attention on Mrs. Erlynne, Marks brings in a title-allusion: a quote from the overture to Victor Herbert's operetta, The Only Girl. As we note in Table 4-6 (HtM, 133), he plays the march that closes the movement.

Marks follows up with one of the film's important associative themes, Madeleine, which had been introduced in the previous scene. (See the melody in HtM, Figure 4-21). Madeleine is tied to Mrs. Erlynne, and specifically to her somewhat precarious position in society.

Shortly before 19:00, Marks switches to one of several gavottes he employs for "wit" or elegant comedy. The gavotte is an old-fashioned dance that gently mocks the upperclass characters throughout the first act. Bordwell shows details of the POV shots and angles for this sequence, during which three older women spy on Mrs. Erlynne and one of them observes a gray hair—at which moment, Marks of course changes to a piece called Le Secret (music in HtM, Figure 4-23).

Review sites for film books

David Bordwell has written another excellent essay on the state of the field, this time on the mismatch between the volume of publication in film studies and the number of book reviews. Citation: Film History 22 (2010): 257-64. Bordwell mentions two open access online journals that make a serious effort to review film books. Here are links for both of them:

Senses of Cinema.
Screening the Past.

Essays from early editions of Film Art: An Introduction

David Bordwell has posted PDF versions of a number of interpretive essays (case studies of individual films). These were included in early editions of Bordwell and Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction, but were not carried over into more recent editions. Most are concerned with narrative construction; some are presented specifically as samples of film criticism.

Here is the link to his site: David Bordwell. This is not the home page; it's the page for Film Art. Find the essay download buttons about half way down the page.

And here is a list of the essays, which are written with clarity and concision and thus might serve not only as starting points for student projects but as models for their writing. I have noted points relevant to sound.

The Man Who Knew Too Much
dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1934. From Film Art, 2nd edition (1988): 292-295.
--Described as "a model of narrative construction," this film -- like its 1956 remake -- has a famous scene in which an assassination is attempted during a concert.

Stagecoach
dir. John Ford, 1939. From Film Art, 4th edition (1992): 366-370.

Hannah and Her Sisters
dir. Woody Allen, 1985. From Film Art, 4th edition (1992): 376-381.
--"Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters examines the psychological traits and interactions among a group of characters." One paragraph in the essay discusses the varied treatment of intertitles, which serve to introduce (and so articulate) scene or section changes. Sometimes the intertitles are silent, sometimes spoken by characters.

Desperately Seeking Susan
dir. Susan Seidelman, 1985. From Film Art, 4th edition (1992): 381-387.

Day of Wrath
dir. Carl Dreyer, 1943. From Film Art, 4th edition (1992): 387-391.
--In a web of motifs of all kinds, the musical motif or theme plays a role. Here it is the familiar chant melody Dies irae.

Last Year at Marienbad
dir. Alain Resnais, 1961. From Film Art, 4th edition (1992): 391-396.
--"Abrupt changes on the sound track accentuate the film's discontinuities."

Innocence Unprotected
dir. Dušan Makavejev, 1968. From Film Art, 4th edition (1992): 401-406.
--"It is useful to think of its form as a collage, an assemblage of materials taken from widely different sources." Among those are songs and song performances.

Clock Cleaners
dir. Walt Disney, 1937. From Film Art, 4th edition (1992): 418-420.

Tout va bien
dir. Jean-Luc Godard, 1972. From Film Art, 4th edition (1992): 436-442.
--Three principles of separation--interruption, contradiction, and refraction--operate throughout this film, affecting not only narrative and images but, to an equal degree, sound.

High School
dir. Frederick Wiseman, 1968. From Film Art, 5th edition (1996): 409-415.
--This documentary is in cinema verite style; it "uses no voice-over narration and almost no nondiegetic music."

More on Sound in Film Art: An Introduction

Here are three sample comments on sound from Bordwell & Thompson's Film Art: An Introduction. These were taken from the 6th edition (2001) but also appear in the 7th (2003); the current edition is the 8th (2006).

(timbre) ". . . in the opening sequence of Rouben Mamoulian's Love Me Tonight, people starting the day on a street pass a musical rhythm from object to object--a broom, a carpet beater--and the humor of the number springs in part from the very different timbres of the objects." (in the section "Timbre")

(frequency; timbre) " In The Wizard of OZ the disparity between the public image of the Wizard and the old charlatan who rigs it up is marked by the booming bass of the effigy and the old man's higher, softer, more quavering voice." (in the section "Timbre")

(manipulation of diegetic/nondiegetic relation) "In American Graffiti, a film that plays heavily on the distinction between diegetic and nondiegetic music, offscreen sounds of car radios often suggest that all of the cars on a street are tuned to the same radio station." (in the section "Resources of Diegetic Sound")

Link to Film Art on Bordwell's website: David Bordwell. And to the publisher: Film Art, 8th edition (this link goes to a table of contents).

Sound and Music in Film Art: An Introduction

Although they tend to downplay their contribution to film sound research and pedagogy, David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's chapter on sound in their best-selling Film Art: An Introduction is excellent. As with all the chapters in the book, Chapter 9 is clearly organized, with a wealth of brief comments on individual films, plus a few longer analyses. Their approach to the topic is very compatible with HtM, and the chapter or its analytic essays could easily serve as additional reading in a course for which HtM is the principal textbook.

In the Supporting Materials section, I have added a Word file that gives a detailed table of contents for Chapter 9 in the 7th edition (the current edition is the 8th (2006)), along with a list of all the films mentioned in the chapter, keyed to topics.

Link to Film Art on Bordwell's website: David Bordwell. And to the publisher: Film Art, 8th edition (this link goes to a table of contents). Filmsound.org quotes a few definitions of terms from the FIlm Art sound chapter: definitions. The sound chapter from the first edition of Film Art (1979) was reprinted (without images) under the section "Practice and Methodology" in the anthology Film Sound: Theory and Practice, ed. Elisabeth Weis and John Belton (1985). This venerable anthology is still in print (Columbia University Press).

Why the Jargon?

Students often wonder why we use such terms as "diegetic" and "nondiegetic" when filmmakers themselves rarely use that sort of vocabulary to talk about their work. David Bordwell offers a nice response to this complaint:

No doubt, we should be attentive to the ways in which filmmakers think and talk about their work. There’s a lot to be learned from shop talk and insider information–hence the enduring value of interviews, DVD commentaries, and the like. Yet no activity explains itself. Often practitioners do things intuitively, without making their background ideas explicit. We can often illuminate a filmmaker’s creative choices by spelling out the unspoken premises behind the work.

So the point of using (academic) terminology is (or ought to be) to illuminate something that cannot be—or is at least not easily—articulated in the vocabulary used by the industry. A productive answer to a student's complain about "diegetic," then, would want to explain how thinking about music's "source" can get in the way of, or obscure thinking about, its relationship to narrative.