Andy Birtwistle – författare

Cinesonica: sounding film and video explores previously neglected and under-theorised aspects of film and video sound, drawing on detailed case study analyses of Hollywood cinema, art cinema, animated cartoons, and avant-garde film and video. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the soundtrack, and breaking away from the focus on narrative and signification that has tended to dominate the study of film sound, the book examines the way in which sound’s materiality figures within audiovisual experience. Through a close examination of sound-image relations in a range of film and video forms and genres – including Warner Bros. cartoons, scratch video, and artist’s film and video – Cinesonica recasts the film and video text as the meeting point of audio and visual materialities, cultural practices and perceptual activity.The interdisciplinary approach adopted by the book makes its discussion of sound of interest to those studying and working in a range of subject disciplines, including film studies, sound studies, sonic arts, cultural studies, music and art history.

Despite the key contribution of sound to the development of cinema as a modern (and modernist) art form, analyses of the relationship between film and modernism often overlook the key role played by sound in film.Film Sound Modernism addresses this critical neglect by exploring how speech, music and sound effects have been used by filmmakers to articulate the conditions and experiences of modernity. Through a wide-ranging analysis of international films, including those from Taiwan, Mexico, Poland and Hong Kong, Andy Birtwistle approaches modernism as both a trans-historical and trans-national phenomenon. He provides close readings of key examples of experimental and art cinema, including The Forgotten Village (1941), L'avventura (1960), Riddles of the Sphinx (1977), The Terrorizers (1986) and Perestroika (2009). He then goes on to tackle topics including the use of environmental sounds in the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, Tsai Ming-liang, and Edward Yang, the voices of non-actors and artist filmmakers, and the ways in which forms of creative noise challenge the traditional division of the soundtrack into dialogue, music and effects. In doing so, he investigates the forms of sonic and audio-visual experimentation that developed within the medium and re-examines cinema's place within the broader history of modernism.

Despite the key contribution of sound to the development of cinema as a modern (and modernist) art form, analyses of the relationship between film and modernism often overlook the key role played by sound in film.Film Sound Modernism addresses this critical neglect by exploring how speech, music and sound effects have been used by filmmakers to articulate the conditions and experiences of modernity. Through a wide-ranging analysis of international films, including those from Taiwan, Mexico, Poland and Hong Kong, Andy Birtwistle approaches modernism as both a trans-historical and trans-national phenomenon. He provides close readings of key examples of experimental and art cinema, including The Forgotten Village (1941), L'avventura (1960), Riddles of the Sphinx (1977), The Terrorizers (1986) and Perestroika (2009). He then goes on to tackle topics including the use of environmental sounds in the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, Tsai Ming-liang, and Edward Yang, the voices of non-actors and artist filmmakers, and the ways in which forms of creative noise challenge the traditional division of the soundtrack into dialogue, music and effects. In doing so, he investigates the forms of sonic and audio-visual experimentation that developed within the medium and re-examines cinema's place within the broader history of modernism.