Sound in Film

After Thursdays lecture I have thought more about how much sound really means to me in relation to how to analyze the films I watch; I usually take into account the cinematography first, then the writing and dialogue, then the acting. Sound is usually last on my list of things to look for. While we watched the film in a different class, I revisited Once Upon a Time in the West and felt that the sound (or in this case, lack of sound) in the opening scene creates an entirely different feel to the scene than would have been if there had been a song in the background; the few sounds used in the scene work to create a tense environment, personalizing the characters as silent, dangerous men. The sounds of the dripping water and the fly in the background created an anxious environment for the viewer, as these two sounds create that same feeling when heard in real life (for me, at least). 

After the class I’ve noticed how sound has affected my mood and analysis towards certain scenes, without me even realizing. One film I recently watched that I thought of again after the lecture was a scene from Django Unchained; the scene in which Monsieur Candie cuts open the skull to show Django and Dr. King Schultz the two indents inside the skull. The entire scene during the dinner and the aftermath is characterized with mainly silence, just the voices of the characters making chit chat. Even before the skull I felt anxious in the scene, something that happens often to me when characters are speaking in complete silence. The sound of the skull being cut gave me chills, and after that scene the action explodes. The use of the sounds in the scene made me feel much more anxious about the scene than I would have been had there been some sort of score of music in the scene.