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Moving Lips: Cinema as VentriloquismAuthor(s): Rick AltmanSource: Yale French Studies, No. 60, Cinema/Sound (1980), pp. 67-79Published by: Yale University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2930005 .

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Rick Altman

MOVING

LIPS: Cinema as Ventriloquism

Conventionalwisdom

has it that

he sound track n classicalnarrative

films s by and large

redundant.We see a door

slam,

we

hear

a door

slam; the sound intensifieshe senseofreality nitially roducedby

the image,

it anchors

he visual reference o a

slamming

oor

in

our

auditory sense system, t

precludes any

distantiation hich might

possibly

be

producedby

the

sight

f a

slamming

oor

unaccompanied

by

its familiar

ound-but

all in all

nothing ntirely

ew is

contri-

buted

by

mimetic

ound, whence the

acknowledged

ack of

ndepen-

dence of

the

sound track.

Nearlyevery

riticwho has written bout

sound in filmhas made claims ofthis ort. n an effort oprovide

new

starting

oint fortheoretical onsideration

f

the sound

track,

will

challenge

the

most

cherished ssumptions

f

conventional ound

analysis.First,

will

show thatthe

conventions

f

classicalnarrative

have

a

strong endency o make the

image redundant.

Next,

I will

demonstrate the

inadequacy

of the

very notion of

redundancy.

Finally,

I

will postulate

a

new

model for the

conceptualization

f

sound-image

relationships

n

the

cinema: the sound track

is a

ventriloquist ho, by moving is dummythe mage) ntimewith he

words he

secretly peaks, creates the

illusion that the words are

produced by the

dummy/image hereas n

fact he

dummy/images

actually reated n order o

disguise he

ourceof the ound. Far from

being subservient o the

image,

the

sound trackuses the

llusion f

subservience o serve

ts

own

ends.

Redundancy

of

the

mage

If

we were to

formulate

escriptive ules defining he

probability

with

which

any given phenomenon

mightappear

in a

classical

narrative

ilm t

any given

moment,

we

would

undoubtedly

oon

be

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Yale FrenchStudies

led to

a

rule such as this: an individual who speaks will in all

probability e the object of the camera's, and thus f theaudience's,

gaze. In the politicalworld, he right o free peech

conveys certain

politicalpower;

in the narrative

world, he right

o

speech

nvariably

conveys

narrational

power,

for

by

convention t carries with

t

a

secondary right, he right o appear in the image. While

thereare

many exceptions

to

this

rule,

even withinthe world of classical

narrative inema e.g. Russell Rouse's The Thief 1952/,

n

which he

protagonistnever utters word during he entire

movie, or Jean

Cocteau's

Les

Parents

erribles,

n which

he istener ather hanthe

speaker regularlyppears

on the screen n

dialogue cenes),

n

general

we may say

that ctors

gain

the

right

o

a

place

in

the magebyvirtue

of

having previously btained

a

spot

on

the sound track.

speak,

therefore am seen. The

most

blatant

pplication

f this

principle

and the heart

f

classical ecoupage-is the hot/reverse-shot

equence

in

which

the

camera is alternately ointed

at

each

speaker

in

a

dialogue situation.

Why,when so many heoreticians

ave called for

relationship

f

counterpoint

etween

sound

and

image,

should

classical

narrative

films rely so heavily on

a

strategy

f

pointing he camera

at

the

speaker? What advantage

could

possibly

come

from

doubling

the

words with

an

image

of the

actor who

produces

them? n order

to

answer these questions it is necessaryto reflect n instant n

the

general

status of

language

in

narrative

cinema.

Among sounds,

language clearly reigns supreme. The Jazz Singer is

commonly

acknowledged as

the

first ound

film

not because

it was

the

first

o

bring

sound to

film

Don

Juan had done

that a

year

earlier),

but

because

it was

the

first o

bring ynchronized ialogue,

.e.

language,

to film.

Before

the

experiments

f the sixties

in

direct sound

recording, hardly

a

word

was

uttered

n a narrative

ound

film

without

carefully lanned

simultaneous

eduction

n

the evel of all

other ounds music,background oise, synchronizedffects). ound

editing

s

first

nd foremostword

editing;

ts

primary urpose

s

to

assure

the

clarity

f the

film's

dialogue.

This

emphasis

on

dialogue

derives

quite obviously

from

the

role

played by dialogue

in

the

constitution

f

the

narrative ine.

Without

he

dialogue

the

images

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Rick Altman

are ambiguous, incomplete,underdetermined. ut such

a

formu-

lation smisleading, ecause it mplies hat he ame mageswouldbe

used

with nd without

ialogue.

This

s, however, arfrom eingthe

case. Perhaps

the

single

most

mportant

ifferenceetween

ilent nd

sound narrative

films

ies in the latter's ncreased

proportion

f

scenes devoted to people talking-devoted, that s, to moving ips.

The more

we expose the importance

f

dialogue

in narrative

cinema, however, the less comprehensible ecomes the practice

f

pointing

he camera

at

the

person talking.

f

it

is the

dialogue,

the

language, the wordswhich ount, henwhy how ips moving n time

with the sound track? We can best answer this

question by recog-

nizingthe effect f those moving ips: they ransferhe origin f the

words,

s

perceivedby

the

spectator/auditor,

rom ound "track" nd

loudspeaker to a character withinthe

film's

diegesis. To put

it

another

way, pointing

he camera

at the

speakerdisguises

he

source

of the

words, dissembling

he

work

of

production

nd

technology.

But such a recognitionreveals, finally,the imprecisionof the

language I have been using. To say "pointing he camera

at the

speaker"

is to

have already been deceived by the ideology

of

synchronized

ound.

"Pointing the camera

at

the (loud)speaker"

is preciselywhat does

not

happen

n this ase.

Portraying oving ips

on the

screen convinces

us

thatthe individual husportrayed-and

not the loudspeaker-has spoken the words we have heard. The

redundancy

f the

mage-seeing the "speaker"

whilewe hear "his"

words-thus serves a double purpose. By creating new myth f

origins,

t

displaces

our

attention ) from he technological,mech-

anical,

and thus industrial tatus

of the cinema, and 2) from he

scandalous

fact

that

sound films

begin as language-the screen-

writer's-and not

as

pure image.

Both

of

theserepressed reas requiremore xtensive ommentary

than

can

providehere. n thecase of themasking f technology,t s

important o recognize how the dissimulation f sound technology

complements

and

reinforces

he

better known maskingof image

production.When we say that ound s redundant, hat t anchors he

image,

that it

adds nothing,we are really saying that the major

function f

sound,

considered rom

he standpoint f the mage, s to

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Yale FrenchStudies

convince the viewer

that the

image exists

independently f the

technologywhichwouldmark t as a fiction. imilarly,when say

thatthe

mage

of a

"speaker"

is

redundant,

am

really laiming

hat

such an image, viewed

from he standpoint f the soundtrack, erves

to convince the auditor

that sound exists

independently f any

technology

which

might

mark t as a

fabrication.

he best way to

convince

a

jury

that

a

liar s telling he truth,

s everyPerryMason

fan

knows,

is to find another

liar

to corroborate he

first

iar's

testimony.mage and

sound: as long as each

reinforcesheother's ie

then we will not hesitate o believe themboth.

This complementary

ideology, whereby ach track helps to hide

the work of the other,

mustnecessarily scape any theory

which

postulates

he

primacy

f

eitherone

of

the

tracks.

The

repression

f the screenwriteras received

ess

comment,

ut

it derivesfrom no less importanttrain n the

history

f film

heory.

From

the

early days

of

sound,

theoreticians

ave warned

gainst

he

mixingof the cinema's pure image orientationwith the degraded

language

and

practices

of

the theater. For the coming

of sound

represented he long-feared

eturn f the cinema's theatrical epres-

sed.

As the thirties

rogressed, owever,

t became

ncreasingly

lear

all

over

the world that

anguage,

far

from

being

anathema to the

cinema

experience,

ay

at its

very

heart.Unable

to

suppress anguage,

cinema theory

transferred

ts

resentment

o

the source

of

that

language, banning he

screenwriterternally

rom

eriousconsider-

ation. With the auteur "theory"the screenwriter as finally one

away

with

ll

together,

nd

the

scandal of

anguage's

dominance ver

and

independence

from he

mage

was further

epressed.

As another

in a

long

ine of

attempts

o

repress

inema'stheatrical

rigins, uteur

criticisms

a

proper omplement

o the screen's

moving ips

which

o

effectively isguise

the role-indeed the

very

existence-of the

screenwriter.

One further unctionmustbe attributed o classical narrative

cinema's

tendency

o

"point

the camera

at the

speaker."

Whereas

early

critics

roposed

to

preserve

he

unity

f the medium

by simply

neglecting,dismissing,

r

marginalizing

he sound

track,

classical

narative inema

performs

he

same

operation

n

a farmore lever nd

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Rick Altman

convincingmanner.Cinema,

it

s

often

laimed,

s a mixed

rt,

for

t

reaches ts audiencethrough woseparate

hannels, udio

and

visual.

Yet

no one

will claim thatthose humanswho are

watching/listening

are

"mixed" by virtue

f

their bility

o

employ

imultaneously

ore

than one sense.

Classical

narrative

inema

takes

advantage

of this

factby usingthe

model of

human

unity

n

order

o

bridge he

mage-

sound gap. The

moving ips

whichanchor

the

sound on the

image

track,

and which

appear

to be

producing

the

sounds

we

hear,

simultaneously ermit the cinema to

constitute

ts own

unityby

identifyinghetwo tracks f the cinematic pparatuswithtwo well

known spectsof

human

dentity.

aradoxically, hen,

he

pectator-

who knows there s no contradiction

etween

seeing

and

hearing-

serves

as

cinema's

mirror,

he

speculum

n

whichthe film

ynchro-

nizes its

motor

kills,

stablishes tsown

dentity,

nd thus ccedes to

the

Symbolic

realm of

langauge.

This "reverse

pecularity" hereby

cinema constitutes

ts

own

unity

s a

necessarypart

of the

process

whereby

the

spectator/auditor

ehearses his own

mirror-stage

x-

perience.

Of

course

the

unity

ffirmed

y

this

nterchange

s

no

more

actual

for cinema

than t

is for the divided

auditor/spectator.

f the

human

audience accepts the cinema's

unity,

t

is because it cannot

affirm

ts own

without

dmitting

he

cinema's;conversely,hecinema

appears to assent to the

unity

f the

human ubjectonly

n

orderto

establish its

own unity. This collusion

resembles the

symbiotic

relationship

discussed earlierwhereby mage and

sound count on

each otherto erase each other'smode of production.Only when

mirrored

n

the other

does each side seem

complete.

As

common as the

practicemay be, "pointing he camera at

the

speaker"

is

only specialcase

of

the

moregeneral ressure n classical

narrative inema to

identify isually

he source of a sound. Among

the

most basic

of

camera

movements,

efined

s a

function f

the

narrative,

s the

tendency o move the camera to a

sound, to point t

at the

area from

whichthe sound is coming thus

turning ff-screen

sound into

on-screen

sound). Now,

as

we well know from the

IFor

the

metaphor of

specularity, s applied

to the

cinema, see

Jean-Louis

Baudry,

"Ideological

Effects f the

Basic

Cinematographic

pparatus,"trans.

Alan

Williams,

Film

Quarterly,

8

(Winter,

1974-75),

39-47.

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preceding nalysis, hisformulations entirelymproper, ecause the

camera does not actually oint t the mmediate ourceof thesound,

but ratherpoints at the character machine,movement, tc.) which

we are to consider as the source of the

sound. In otherwords,the

camera movement

s

here again

at

the service f the

deologywhich

masks the film's mage-sound plit.At this

point

a

few xamples re

in order.

Renoir's La

Regle

du eu reveals he

extent o which he earchfor

a sound source can be central o shot

composition n the workof a

director

enowned

for

his visual

sense.

At

the verybeginning

f

reel

two

(in

16

mm.)

the

servants

of

the chateau are

seated

at the

downstairs

able. As

we watch

he servants at and listen o them alk

about aristocratic onventions, he

"Minute Waltz" fades n on the

sound track. s thismusicdiegetic r not?

t's certainly

ot on-screen

music,

but it

could

be

wafting

own from

pstairs,

where

one

of

the

guests mighthave just

sat down to the

piano.

This

suspicion

eems

confirmedwhen the camerafollows chumacher p the stairs-we

seem

to

be

using

the waltz as a sound

bridge

o the next cene.

But

half-wayup the stairsSchumacher ncounters

Marceau,

whom we

follow back down.

As the scene

continues,

he camera

proceeds

to

wander,

as

if

ontinuing

o seek

out

the ourceof the till

nexplained

waltz. Finally,

t

lights

n a radio which

up

until henhad

remained

outside the frame. There

the camera

holds for an instant nd the

sequence ends, as

if

thisradio were the answer

o

the scene's sound

enigma. (Indeed,

if

we

have

followed

the

live/mechanical erfor-

mance dialectic

in the

film,

we find

strong

reinforcement

or

this

notion.)

A similar

henomenon

akes

place

in

a

far ess

traditionalmanner

in

Rohmer's Perceval. At

the

beginning

f the film

Rohmer estab-

lishes with the camera two loci, one

diegetic,

he

other the place

where sound effects nd musicare

produced.

As themovie

proceeds

we often ut-or evenpan-from thediegetic pace to the "sound"

space,

as

if

to

explain

the source

of

the

many aspects

of

the sound

track

unexplainedby

the

diegesis.

At one

point

we

even

cut to

the

"sound"

space

in order o witness he

fabrication

f

the

sound

effects

which

we

have previously ead as

"clanking

f armor."

Later

on

in

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Rick Altman

the same film, a similarprogression egulates

the dialogue-image

relationship.We often hear words spoken long beforewe know

where they ome from;

hese disembodiedwords re

then ssociated

with

a

specific haracter y means

of a

closer

shot and lip synch.

What

is

it

about

sound that encourages

ts off-screen r disem-

bodied use,

and seems to call

for

rapid

ocation

of

its source? Much

has been written

bout

the comparative

phenomenology

f

sound

and image, but no one, to myknowledge,has clearlydelineated ne

important asymmetry etween the two. At first, mage-without-

sound and sound-witfiout-imageould seem to be complementary

and

symmetrical ituations.

n

fact,

however, two considerations

make

these configurationsuite different.irst, n image without

sound differs rom sound

without n

image

n that he former

s

a

perfectly

ommon situation

n

nature

a

person standing uietly),

while

the

latter

s an

impossibilitysounds

are always produced by

something mageable).

Thus

the

completion

f the former

aradigm

depends on theobject within heimage (the person maychoose to

say something),

while the

completion

f the

latter

depends

on the

auditor (who must ook around and find

the source

of

the

sound).

Images

call forno action on the

part

of the auditor.Or,

to

put

t as

Bresson

has

been

reported o say,

"A sound

always

vokes

an

image;

an

image

never evokes a

sound."2

This fact stemsfrom

purelyphysical

difference etween

ound

and light.Under normalcircumstances

ight ravels n straightines

only; only highlypolished surfaces ike mirrorswill reflect ight

regularly nough to carry recognizable

mage arounda corner the

image consisting ot of

a

singlepointof ight ut of an area of ight).

Sound,

on

the other

hand,

travels

s

a

point

rather

han s

an

area,

and thus

provides

fewer

roblems

f reflection; ven without pecial

preparation, any

surface will reflect ather

faithfullyny

kind

of

sound.

It is this

difference

which

gives

us

the

illusion

of

"hearing

around corners" when we cannot see around corners.The conse-

quent

restrictionf

sight

o

those

things resent and conversely,

he

definition of

presence

in

terms of

visibility)

has an

important

2Noel

Burch, Theory f Film

Practice,

rans.Helen R. Lane

(New York:

Praeger,

1973), p. 90.

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counterpart

n

the non-restrictionf

hearing

to

visibly

present

sources. The ramificationsf sound's relative reedom s compared

to the mage are many;two

n particular

oncernus here: 1) sound's

ability to

be heard around

a corner makes it the ideal

method of

introducing he nvisible, he

mysterious,

he upernaturalgiven hat

image

=

visible

=

real); 2) thisverypower

of sound carries

with t a

concomitant

danger-sound

will

always

carry

with t the tension f

the unknown

until t is anchored

by sight.

As Bela

Balazs

has

pointed

out, there s

"a

considerable

differ-

ence between perceiving

sound and

identifyingts source."3 By

virtue of its ability to

remain sourceless,

sound carries with t a

natural tension.

Whereas images rarely

sk: "What sound did that

image make?" every sound

seems to ask,

unless it has previously

been

categorized

and located:

"Where did that ound

come

from?"

That is,

"What is the source

of that

sound?"

Far from

ver being

redundant,

ound has a

fundamental

nigmatic uality

which

onfers

on the image the qualityof a response,and thus a certain ense of

finalitysuch

as that ensed

when

the

radio s located

n the

Regle

du

jeu sequence).

The

image,

in terms

f sound, always

has

the

basic

natureof a

question.

Fundamental

o the cinema

experience,

here-

fore,

is

a

process-which

we

might

all

the

sound hermeneutic-

whereby

he sound asks where?

nd

the

mage responds

here

Once

again, however,

we

must be reminded f the

ideological

ploy

which

underlies this

hermeneutic.

he

loudspeaker

makes a

noise,

thusproducing ension,

nervousness,

rustration

n

the

auditor/

spectator.

He looks

around and sees

no

probable

source for that

sound except

the

mage

on the screen.

Lacking ny

other

ource,

nd

needing

to

anchor he sound

at all

costs,

he

accepts

thenotion hat t

comes

from he

image

when n fact

t

comes

from

he

oudspeaker.

This

rerouting

f

the

sound from

pparatus

to

diegesis

s

part

of a

fundamental

rogression

n cinema

whereby

he discours

onnecting

producersand consumers s maskedbythe histoire f thediegesis.4

3B6la Balazs,

Theoryof

the Film:

Character

nd

Growth f

a New Art (New

York:

Dover,

1970), p. 212.

4This

process

has been dealtwith n

a particularly

lear and succinct ashion

n

ChristianMetz,

"Histoire/Discours

Note sur deux

voyeurismes),"

n Le signifiant

imaginaire

Paris: Union generale

d'editions,1977), pp.

111-20.

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Rick Altman

The loudspeaker "speaks"

directly o the audience;

the sound track

provides a sophisticated iscours designed by the screenwriternd

sound technicians o

manipulate heir udience,

but thisdiscours s

recuperated to histoirewhen it is attributed o

characters n a

diegesis. Only

because thisdiegesis

eems so consummately naware

of the audience, however,

does it succeed in keeping

that

audience

fromdiscovering he realsource and purposeof this

ound track nd

image made especially

or heir leasure nd fixation.n otherwords,

the enigma initiatedby

the sound track s only a pseudo-enigma

designed o short-circuithe ogicalprogression herebyhe pectator/

auditor would continue

his search

until he

found the

technological

source of the sound. By providing he audience with

more ogical,

simpler, nd less threateningnswer o thequestion

Wheredoes the

sound come from?" he

mage diverts ttention rom he ound'strue

source, rerouting s instead through visible,but

fallacious, rigin,

as indicated n the following iagram:

screenwriter spectator/auditor

histoire

HE/SHE

Y OU

diegetic

ound

ources

loudspeaker

discours

This model

radically uestions

hestatus

f

theso-called ideology f

the

visible" as it

relates

to sound-image oncerns.Far frombeing

marginalizedby

the

visible, far frombeing a slavishly

edundant

accompaniment

o

His Majestythe mage, soundnow

appears to be a

far

more cleverJacques

thanhe at first eemed,for t s now apparent

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that sound uses the visible to furtherts

own cause. Asking all the

questions, while the image is allowed to reveal no more than the

answers, the sound

track attributes ts workto the image only

n

order

to

keep its own

responsibilityecret.Using the deology f the

visible as a front, he

sound trackremains

free to carry n its own

business.

The Sound Track as

Ventriloquist

The notion of redundancy, s we have seen, is hardly tenable

one. Far from roducing hesame thing

second time, redundancy"

creates

a

functional

upplement

which nvests tsexcess energy

nthe

masking

f

cinema'smulti-mediatatus.

n

otherwords, redundancy"

of

image

and sound is precisely imilar

o the "redundancy" f child

and

mirror

mage at the

mirror

tage-only

by neglecting he

important

ifferenceshich xist etween he

womirroredhenomena

are the child (and cinema) able to constitute heir dentity, heir

unity.

The

question

is

thus

no

longer

"Which is redundant."

but

rather "What is the

function

f

apparent

redundancy?"

How and

why does

cinema constitute ts

unity?"

and finally,

What

are the

conditions

necessary

for

us

to believe that sound comes

from he

image?"

These are

not familiar

uestions;except

for

passages

on

synchro-

nized sound

in

technical

ditingmanuals,they

re

hardly

ddressed

at all bythe cinemacommunitythough hey learly emainmplicitly

present

in

the technological

iterature

n

loudspeaker placement,

sound-transmittingcreens,

and the

use

of

stereo).

We find

much

more

help

with these

problems

n

a most

unexpected place:

the

manuals

and handbooks

describing

he fundamentals

f

ventrilo-

quism.

For the

ventriloquist's roblem

s

exactly

hat of the

sound

track-how

to

retain ontrol ver

the sound while

attributing

t to a

carefullymanipulated ifelike ummywithno independentifeof his

own. Indeed,

the

ventriloquist's

rt

depends

on the

very

factwhich

we have found

t the heart

of

sound

film:

we are so disconcerted

y

a

sourceless sound

that we would rather

attribute he sound

to a

dummy

r a

shadow

thanface the

mystery

f ts ourcelessness r

the

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Rick

Altman

scandal ofits production ya

non-vocal

technological

r

"ventral")

apparatus.

In order

to foster hispseudo-identification

f

the

sound source,

however, certain conditions

must be met. The

ventriloquistmust

avoid

moving his own lips, thus disguising he

true source

of

the

sound (in the theater his

functions fulfilled y

dissimulation

f

the

loudspeakers, often behind

a sound-transmittingcreen). He must

also be

able to move thedummyntimewithhis

voice-not only ip

movement

but

all

otherbodilymotion s well mustbe

rhythmically

consistentwith he sound this s the obvious functionf ip-synching

in

film,

nd the primary

easons why the camera

must

o oftenbe

pointed

at

the

"speaker").

"Throwing"

he voice thusrefers o the

process

whereby

ventriloquistureshis audience nto believing he

(strong but

mistaken)

visual evidence

ratherthan the

(weak

but

correct)testimony f the

ears.

What is

involved

here is

of

course

nothingmore thanthefamiliar

redundancy"

whichhas

proven

of

central mportance ll along. Unless theventriloquistan producea

believable "redundant"

lip

movement

n

the

dummy,

he cannot

induce us to transfer ur

allegiance fromthe aural to the visual

witness withinus.

Paradoxically, hen, a process which

ultimately

unifies he senses s

based

on

their onflict

nd

disagreement. nlyby

duping

our

powerful

visual

sense

to

be

a

false witness

can the

ventriloquist isguisehis own

responsibility

or

he

oundemitted.As

in

cinema, the so-called

deology

f

thevisible s so

self-confidenthat

it s easily ed to perjure tself olely o gain theright o be seen nthe

witness'

stand.

But

why

would

a

ventriloquist

ant

to perpetuate he llusion hat

not

he but his dummy s

speaking? Why give away one's right o

speech?

Any

confirmed an of

ventriloquism

an

easily providethe

answer. In fact,

ventriloquismmanuals often pell it

out clearly:

First of

all,

it is

most

important

o

analyze your

own character

arefully

o

that

when you create the dummy's haracter here s a good contrast.According o

Freud,

all of us

have hidden desires

that

we

suppress.

The most

successful

ventriloquists

ave

let these

hiddendesiresbe expressed n the personality f their

dummies.

5Darryl

Hutton, Ventriloquism

New York:

Sterling,

974), p.

28.

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Perhaps

the best known

example

of this

relationships providedby

Edgar Bergen, whose technique s aptlydescribed n these pointers

for the aspiring entriloquist:

You mustremember, owever, hatyourpartnerwillplay the ead in your ct and

usually

have

the best lines. His voice andpersonalityhould be richer nd stronger

thanyours.

That

internationallyamous entriloquist,dgar Bergen, s not so well

known as his

partnerCharlie

McCarthy.Bergen s,

or

seems, quite

a

shyperson

while

Charlie has all the cheek inthe world.6

This

splithelps us to understandwhy t s that he art nquestion

has come to be known s

ventriloquism.t is of course not the belly

which peaks at all, yetever

since the Greeks the attributionf one's

own voice

to

a

synchronized

ummyhas been identifiedwith the

belly. Called engastrimanteis

belly-prophets),

he

ventriloquistsf

ancient

Greece were takento be

prophets

nd

were said

to

emit heir

prophetic oice from he

belly:the head-voicemayproduce pparent

truths,

ut

the body-voice evealshidden ruth.

his

dentificationf

the ventriloquist's oice with the belly,the locus classicusof that

which s body (identified s it is with he

bodily

functions

f eating,

excretion,

and

sexuality),

squares surprisingly

ell

with

the role

traditionally

llotted to

the

ventriloquist's isguised

voice. Whereas

the head-voice

speaks

the

society'spolite language,

the

body-voice

speaks

a

more

sincere, ersonal,

nd

unguarded anguage, language

no longer watchedover by the

censorship

f

the consciousmind.

Returning

to the cinematicmodel which led us

to

the art

of

ventriloquism, e find

curiousreversal f

our

previous onclusions.

If the

image is able to speak

that

which he sound trackdare not

say

on its

own,

then we can

rightly

laim thatthe

mage represents

he

sound

track's

repressed,

he materialwhich t has hidden

from iew

until

that material an be attributed o another ource. But

earlier

claimed

quite

the reverse-in

view

of silent inema's

uneasy

birth

ut

of theater nd

the fear

of

many arly

heoreticianshat ound would

simplyplunge cinema back into the dread language-orientationf

theatrical

practice,

I

identified ound

as

the

image's repressed,

brought

back to the surface

with

the

coming

of sound.

By now,

6Douglas Houlden, Ventriloquismor Beginners

New

York:

A.S. Barnes,

1967),

p. 24. Emphasis is Houlden's.

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however, such a reversal should no longer appear contradictory.

Othershave stressed he role which oundplays n completingnd

reinforcinghe mage; have underlined hecomplementaryelation-

ship whereby ound uses the mage to mask tsownactions.Far

from

undermining

ach

other,

hesetwo

approaches

re

partof theoverall

strategy hereby, s we have seen, each track erves s

mirror

or he

other and the spectator for the two together.Neigher track

ac-

companies the other,neither rack s redundant; he

two

are locked

in a dialecticwhere each is alternatelymaster nd slave to the other;

this arrangement o suitsboth tracks hatthey tudiedly erpetuate

the mythof cinema's unity-and thus that of the spectator-as

if

(and they re right) heirvery ives depended on it.

The fundamental candal of

sound

film-and

thus the

proper

starting ointfor theory f sound film-is

that ound and

image

re

different henomena, recordedby

different

ethods, rintedmany

frames part on the film, nd reproducedby

an illusionisticechno-

logy. Voices are utteredby cardboardcones, by mechanical nstru-

ments, by machines designed to meet the challenge

of

a

world

n

which cities are too populous to be addressed by a single unaided

human voice. Cinema's ventriloquisms the product f an effort o

overcome the sound-imagegap,

to

mask the sound's technological

origin,

nd to

permit

he film's

roduction ersonnel

o

speak their

sub-consciousmind-their belly-without fearof discovery.

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