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The Creative Voice: Free Indirect Speech in the Cinema of Rohmer and Bresson

The Creative Voice: Free Indirect Speech in the Cinema of Rohmer and Bresson This article examines a particular use of the voice in cinema which conveys character reflexivity and generates expressive ambiguity in a film’s narrative point of view. Drawing on Pasolini’s notion of the free indirect style and Deleuze’s elaboration of this into his concept of the free indirect speech-act, two different creative uses of speech are analysed: one in Rohmer’s Claire’s Knee (1970) and the other in Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest (1951). The essay finds that when characters narrate their thoughts, feelings, actions or experiences in a reflexive manner (that is, to themselves, even if also to another), and this activity becomes for a time the primary event of the film, these characters step into the role of storyteller. They become both subject and object of their utterances which take on the style of the free indirect. With this, the voice enters into a new relationship with the image – directing, counterpointing, or disconnecting from it – changing the function of voice and image while seeming momentarily to supplant the film’s narration. The symbolic nature of language gives words the power to create images and meaning that cannot be captured or conveyed by the camera alone. Privileging http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The New Soundtrack Edinburgh University Press

The Creative Voice: Free Indirect Speech in the Cinema of Rohmer and Bresson

Heinemann, David
The New Soundtrack , Volume 2 (1): 39 – Mar 1, 2012
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Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
© Edinburgh University Press
Subject
Articles; Film, Media and Cultural Studies
ISSN
2042-8855
eISSN
2042-8863
DOI
10.3366/sound.2012.0024
Publisher site
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Abstract

This article examines a particular use of the voice in cinema which conveys character reflexivity and generates expressive ambiguity in a film’s narrative point of view. Drawing on Pasolini’s notion of the free indirect style and Deleuze’s elaboration of this into his concept of the free indirect speech-act, two different creative uses of speech are analysed: one in Rohmer’s Claire’s Knee (1970) and the other in Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest (1951). The essay finds that when characters narrate their thoughts, feelings, actions or experiences in a reflexive manner (that is, to themselves, even if also to another), and this activity becomes for a time the primary event of the film, these characters step into the role of storyteller. They become both subject and object of their utterances which take on the style of the free indirect. With this, the voice enters into a new relationship with the image – directing, counterpointing, or disconnecting from it – changing the function of voice and image while seeming momentarily to supplant the film’s narration. The symbolic nature of language gives words the power to create images and meaning that cannot be captured or conveyed by the camera alone. Privileging

Journal

The New Soundtrack – Edinburgh University Press

Published: Mar 1, 2012

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