Multiplying mise-en-scène: Found sounds of the night of the hunter in Lewis Klahr's daylight moon and Jean-Luc Godard's histoire(s) du cinéma

Abstract

This essay situates music as a crucial catalyst in a film's mise-en-scène (the multisensory interface that pulls spectators into films' worlds). Developing a contour theory of mise-en-scène inspired by Cahiers du Cinema critic Michel Mourlet, I track how sonic textures, vibrations, and rhythms have similarly palpable effects to the oft-cited visual elements of lights, shadows, and actors' gestures. Whereas standard analyses of leitmotifs match melodies with single icons, contours multiply figurative and emotional associations as spectators see and hear the seams between mise-en-scène elements. To demonstrate this approach, I closely analyze The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955) and two films that appropriate its audio-visual material: Jean-Luc Godard's Histoire(s) du cinéma (1998) and Lewis Klahr's Daylight Moon (2002). While the former narrative film could be read through leitmotifs, its non-diegetic sounds thwart straightforward correlations, like the experimental films'found sounds. A contour theory multiplies mise-en-scene with audiovisual superimpositions.