British Film Institute Film Sound Modernism

Despite the key contribution of sound to the development of cinema as a modern (and modernist) art form, analyses of the relationship between film and modernism often overlook the key role played by sound in film. Film Sound Modernism addresses this critical neglect by exploring how speech, music and sound effects have been used by filmmakers to articulate the conditions and experiences of modernity. Through a wide-ranging analysis of international films, including those from Taiwan, Mexico, Poland and Hong Kong, Andy Birtwistle approaches modernism as both a trans-historical and trans-national phenomenon. He provides close readings of key examples of experimental and art cinema, including The Forgotten Village (1941), L'avventura (1960), Riddles of the Sphinx (1977), The Terrorizers (1986) and Perestroika (2009). He then goes on to tackle topics including the use of environmental sounds in the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, Tsai Ming-liang, and Edward Yang, the voices of non-actors and artist filmmakers, and the ways in which forms of creative noise challenge the traditional division of the soundtrack into dialogue, music and effects. In doing so, he investigates the forms of sonic and audio-visual experimentation that developed within the medium and re-examines cinema's place within the broader history of modernism.