Listenings of the image: the resultants of sound in the semiotic components of the visual language

Abstract

This study analyzes the communicational and aesthetic effects produced in the relationship between the image and sound elements of the films Rosso come ilcielo by Cristiano Bortone, and A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick. The theoretical framework comes from thesound and listening modes included in Theory of Film Sound Production proposed by Michel Chion and they are related to semiotic bases of C.S. Peirce. Also used is Hans Belting’s concept of endogenous images, the contributions of Vilém Flusser about the construction of mental images, and concepts of aesthetic categories treated by Umberto Eco and Sánches Vazquez. Analyzing some sequences according to the wiretaps reduced, causal, and semantics, we can say that the sound adds important elements to the scene that contribute to the final result, of communicational or aesthetic value. It is concluded, in Rosso come ilcielo, the sonorous code effectively contributes to the enhancement of synesthetic relations of the film, besides acting as an element that generates sense in the narrative as it is put as the main element in building of the mental imagery at times that the plot deals with the impairment of the sense of sight. In A Clockwork Orange, it is concluded that the sonorous component is responsible for generating of the ambiguity present in most of the film, especially in times of application of civil and system violence. It can be said that in this film, music selection was instrumental in adding to the scene elements in contrast to the imagery, thus producing a sense of the grotesque, enhanced by the mixture of pleasure and horror and sometimes by the presence of the comic.