Occult Aesthetics

Abstract

Occult Aesthetics: Synchronization in Sound Film focuses on an often overlooked aspect of audiovisual culture that is crucial to the medium's powerful illusions. This book examines the perceptual origins for audiovisual culture, as well as the technological basis of this psychological process. Concentrating on the connection between sound and image, it contends that attending to the musicality of film soundtracks can unlock the veiled 'occult' psychology invoked by the hidden marriage of the two. Most writing about film has abided by the illusionist perspective that considers it fundamentally as a representation of the world and often assumes that it is in essence visual. Approaching audiovisual culture from a more abstract than representational perspective removes the overly familiar aspects that have militated against sustained theorization of sound in films, and the notion of sound cinema more generally. The locking together of audio and visual exerts a synergetic effect: a secret and esoteric effect that can dissipate in the face of an awareness of its existence. This book focuses on the hidden and compulsive form of aesthetics that synchronizes sound and image into a seeming coherent whole that is massively absorbing and emotionally affecting. It concentrates mainly on mainstream films and includes analysis of instances of asynchrony and ambiguous synchronization, illustrating how far films vary the momentary relationship between sound and image matching. Occult Aesthetics marks a notable intervention in writing about audiovisual culture as the first dedicated study of the aesthetics of sound and image synchronization in film.

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