will be investigating the use of Walter Murch’s Sound design on Apocalypse Now (1979) and The Conversation (1974) whiles exploring the use of different sound aesthetics found in a scene from each film. Examining these different techniques will shed light on just how much it affects the nature of the film itself and it’s audience through an audio-visual perspective. Apocalypse now has a fascinating use of sound that conveys tension, character subjectivity and at times suggests a psychoneurotic mind state in which diegetic/non-diegetic sound and music together alludes. How does Murch use sound and music to push the films narrative? In what way does Murch’s theories on sound help us understand the way in which it helps shape its accompanying visuals on screen or vis-versa. This will form part of a theoretical inquiry into sound in cinema as a whole whiles looking at the possible outcomes of a film without the use of some of these groundbreaking methods.

Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola is set during the Vietnam war, Cpt. Willard travels up the Nung River in Cambodia to kill Colonel Kurtz as part of top secret mission that apparently ‘doesn’t exist’. Apocalypse Now is widely regarded as a timeless masterpiece, unsurprisingly gaining Walter Murch an Oscar for his work on the beautifully orchestrated sound mix. Right from the start Murch describes his approach to this film as ‘jumping with both feet into the fire’ (Jarrett & Murch, 2000). This expression sums up the immense task of moving from mono to a dramatic quadraphonic stereo mix - 5.1 surround mix precisely. The ‘sonic space’ that is created is a result of several layers of immersive sounds that ‘decorate theatres' similar to that of an interior designer - instead he is trying to cover three dimensional spaces through architectural spaces of sound (Jarrett & Murch, 2000). The opening sequence like many scenes in Apocalypse Now offers a great look at how sound and image convey intense character subjectivity. This montage sequence starts with the throbbing synthesised blade sound from the helicopters and is accompanied by a picture of the jungle through an almost golden fog. This plays on before the instrumental soundtrack of ‘The Doors’ classic ‘The End’ starts to play, which is of course a paradox because it wasn't the end of the war. The sounds of the helicopters induce a displaced state of mind when Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) appears on-screen, upside down with his eyes fixated. Murch explains the function of his disposition: “The beginning of the film was a trigger for the psychic dimension of the helicopters” (Isaza, 2009) after this a fan can be seen fading in on the right hand side of the screen - staying very faint however suggesting his reality prying up on him as he tries to bring himself back, “There are fragmentary images of helicopters, then he comes more and more back into his abysmal reality — this stinky hotel room in Saigon — and we get the fan” (Isaza, 2009).
The nature of this sequence seems to take its audience through the ears of Willard from the sounds of a war zone to his dull existence in a hotel room. (Chion 1994: 90) defines this as ‘Point of Audition’ and explains this in two meanings, the second explanation being “A subjective sense: which character at a given moment of the story, is (apparently) hearing what I hear”. This overlapping state of dream and reality through sound and image also explains Willard's state of hallucination, Murch describes his desperation to get back into the jungle as a ‘thread that links’ his body in Saigon to his mind in the jungle. The sounds from both the jungle and the hotel also seem to be in two spacial places at once, making it hard to decipher the source of diegetic and non diegetic sounds that have been juxtaposed. Car noises from the outside the hotel window merge with the sounds of the jungle which also confirms the metaphor of Willard’s mental displacement.
Tension and anticipation for the purpose of progressing the narrative through sound is done meticulously well, it describes emotions, subjectivity and anticipation for subsequent action before a cut is made. This is also known as ‘pre-lapping’, an example from the film can be seen at the end of the beach party hosted by Kilgore and we start to hear helicopter turbines firing up. Murch explains the pre-lap of the turbines sound makes a “transition to when the helicopters are already in full wing” after the cut. The affect of this pre-lap gives the audience a sense of ‘anticipation and windup’ (Jarrett, 2000).

The Conversation is highly comparable for the use of sound design and perspective. Based around the surveillance recordist Harry Caul (Gene Hackman). After being hired to record a particular conversation Harry becomes intent on uncovering what is being said on the tape which is when his world starts to fall apart. Similarly to Apocalypse now, Walter Murch does an impressive job of creating tension and suspense through sound and ambiguity. In one of the scenes Harry see’s Ann (Cindy Williams) in a lower level elevator after leaving the Corporations office, he becomes increasingly agitated because by this point Harry is aware of the potential trouble she might be in. The music increases its intensity over the last shot of Harry in the elevator, then cutting to a tape reel rotating erratically fast with an ambiguous sound, “What I was doing there, deliberately, was putting a stamp, a mark, on this crucial moment of transition” (Nachiwa, 2008). For the purpose of narrative progression Murch states: “We were tying to manufacture a feeling that Harry has to find out what is hidden in the tape, because after his encounter with Martin Stet, he suspects that there is more to the tape than he thought there was. So that shot of the tape spinning fast, visually and sonically, lends a sense of urgency to everything that follows: there is something dangerous on that tape”.(Milicevic,1995)

Again, in terms of music and sound, before the cut is made we assume the rotating tape is non-diegetic but soon realise the source after the cut that turns it into a diegetic sound.
One of the most cinematic scenes throughout the film is the murder scene, precisely because Murch created a sound design that gives its audience the heightened emotional suspense and shock of a murder without actually seeing it. He does this in a number of ways, firstly with sound contrast - the beginning of the scene in the hotel room is abnormally quit. After Harry plays the tape again on the balcony, the film increases in volume so much so that the audience begin to anticipate the worst. Non-diegetic music begins to play, however this adds no build up, tension has already been created through its sound design which include silence, atmospheric sound and sound effects (Milicevic,1995). When Harry sits on the bed and stares at the bland wallpaper in front of him, realising the horrors in the room next door we hear a randomised bunch of ambiguous sound with a snippet of the recorded conversation, then it stops. This silence at the end works on the basis of provoking the audiences imagination to its peak. Murch describes this as a “double indirection - don’t show it and at the right moment take the sound away. Let them see it in their head and also hear it in their head” (LoBrutto,1994). Michel Chion explains this in a categorised way, stating that the feelings associated with the situation can be explained as “rendering”, a method employed throughout nearly every scene. Harry assembling information from his subjects reflects how the film uses different techniques of sound design to arouse specific emotions for the viewer (Kruth & Stobart, 2007). The words “he’d kill us if he had the chance” is undoubtedly the most important line in the film. However it is through Harry’s godlike complex of being able to record or use surveillance to gather information that really creates irony within the film when he finds out the truth about the murderer. His ability to manipulate different versions of sound to find clarity can be somewhat compared to the ‘Rashomon effect’ - where the same sound can be nonspecific and signify multiple truths. For a man like Harry Caul, who takes pride in controlling sound soon finds out that like any other produce of human expression - whether it be through sound or image has the capacity to be painfully misunderstood.

There are a lot of similarities between Apocalypse Now and The Conversation, yet there is still a clear distinction between the functions of sound from both films. Walter Murch created a magnificent body of complex sounds in Apocalypse Now that communicated deep character subjectivity when married with its accompanied image. By using his own law of ‘2.5’ which explains how the human brain can only concentrate on 2.5 portions of information at once, whiles also dividing each portion on a spectrum from speech (encoded) to music (embodied) (Murch, 2005) he is able to accurately place sounds within moving images for narrative effect. Most importantly to highlight emotions, themes, state of mind and force viewers to react by feeling as a bi-product of sensory stimulation. Paradoxically, Murch has admitted to editing The Conversation without the use of any sound, this sensory deprivation was in fact done in the hopes of “extracting meaning, a greater meaning”. By the time images have taken shape it is consciously/subconsciously “welcoming the influence of the final soundtrack” (Kenny, 2000).

Ever since the digitisation of cinema in the 1980’s modern technology have become film-makers best friend. Does this mean modern cinema lacks artistic expression because of the very nature we choose to make films? there is a clear and apparent danger to modern cinema as a result of its ability to represent itself. Before the revolution of technology or throughout the ‘golden age’ of cinema film makers had to solve problems in a practical sense, often having to labour away at recording individual pieces of sound for a result that only left it in a state of incompleteness. Modern day film makers can download sounds, images, music from a stock of pre-recorded material online and get as close to ‘perfect’ as possible. The expression of film as an art form begins to lose face when we cannot benefit from that same incompleteness - an incompleteness that gave films the ability for its viewers to engage in imagination. This is not to say we cannot make gripping, complex and thoughtful films anymore, we are constantly pushing the boundaries and from time to time we marvel at films that bring something new to the table. How far can we really go in trying to acquire different ways to tell a story through sound and image? “The risk, of course, is that the conceptual thread that connects image and sound can be stretched too far, and the dimensionality will collapse: the moment of greatest dimension is always the moment of greatest tension” (Phillips, 2013).

Bibliography

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Isaza, M. (2009). Walter Murch special: Apocalypse Now. [Online]. Available at: http://designingsound.org/2009/10/walter-murch-special-apocalypse-now/ [Accessed 1 April 2015].

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Kenny, T. (2000). Sound for picture: film sound through the 1990s. California: Hal Leonard Corporation.

Kruth, P., & Stobart, H., Eds. (2007). Sound. New York: Cambridge University Press.

LoBrutto, V. (1994). Sound-on-film: Interviews with creators of film sound. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group.

Milicevic, M. (1995). Film Sound Beyond Reality: subjective sound in narrative cinema. FilmSound. org. [Online]. Available at: http://filmsound.org/murch/interview-with-walter-murch.htm [Accessed 2 April 2015].

Murch. W. (2005). Dense Clarity – Clear Density. [Online]. Available at: http://transom.org/?page_id=7006. [Accessed 5 April 2015].

Nachiwa, (2008). Interview with Walter Murch. Nachiwa [Online] 25 September. Available at: http://nachiwa.blogspot.co.uk/2008/09/interview-with-walter-murch-2004-ftii.html [Accessed 1 April 2015].

Phillips, G. D. (2013). Godfather: The Intimate Francis Ford Coppola. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky.