The following is a blog post written for my Introduction to Cinema Studies class, re-published here so all my work is in one place.

Conventionally, sound is used to support or reinforce the visual and narrative elements of a film. In Vivre sa vie (1962), director Jean-Luc Godard plays with the conventions of sound just as he and other French New Wave practitioners often experimented with accepted cinematography and editing techniques.

The perceptual properties of sound (volume, pitch and timbre) as well as the dimensions of sound mixing and sound editing (rhythm, space, perspective and time) are all manipulated in calculated ways so that the sound track actively engages the audience, rather than remaining perceptually invisible as sound tracks often do.

As just one example, under the opening titles we see Nana (Anna Karina) shot in close-up with an orchestral theme that abruptly stops after a few seconds, with the rest of the shot continuing in silence. Silence, or a close approximation to it, occurs in odd or unconventional places throughout the film. By drawing such prominent attention to elements like dynamic volume and nondiegetic music and sound, Godard foregrounds the sound track’s unreality and further provokes his audience to question the rules and limits of cinematic form.

In a film thematically concerned with performativity and the parameters of cinema, featuring a number of nondiegetic elements that draw attention to the fact that Vivre sa vie is a piece of art, manipulation of sound in this way has a significant impact on the experience of the film.