Conventionally within montage theory, attention is placed on the shots that are put together and the effects of that operation. Whether it be successive linear progression, parallel construction, dialectical opposition, or rhythmic interval composition, theorists have tended to focus on the overall resulting image sequence of the montage procedure. Montage is a building process that is based on leaving things out with the goal of presenting a whole or totality. For this reason, visual analogies to mosaics, fragments, and collages are popular. Rarely is attention paid to sound, despite the early dictum by Soviet theorist VI Pudovkin who stressed that sound must be treated as its own distinct montage element and that is needs to be used disjunctively or as a counterpoint to the visual track. Indeed, sound has traditionally been left out of theoretical discussions of montage theory except as it is employed for the purposes of transition as in a sound bridge connecting two disparate scenes. In these instances, sound, usually music, serves to elide the temporal and spatial distance that separates shots. It functions as a sonic veil that helps conceal the mark of the suture, the seam that holds together the montage of the filmic work.
However, sometimes sound is used for purposes of disruption and dissonance. Guided by Pudovkin’s theory of how the sonic should be deployed contrapuntally, followed by T.W. Adorno and later E. Said’s theory of the counterpoint, I will examine several media works that rely on counterpoint to produce palimpsestic texts.   

Nora M. Alter is a scholar of comparative film and media arts at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She has published widely on German and European Studies, Film and Media Studies, Cultural and Visual Studies and Contemporary Art. She is author of several books including Vietnam Protest Theatre: The Television War on Stage (1996), Sound Matters (2004), Chris Marker (2006), Essays on the Essay Film (2017), The Essay Film after Fact and Fiction (2018) and most recently Harun Farocki: Forms of Intelligence (2024).


Speaker : Nora M. Alter
Date : April 22 (Wed) 18:30, Art Center (301 Building), RM 103
Format : This event is in-person only. Registration is required via the QR code.