Vision, Voice, and Cinematic Presence

Abstract

<sc>constantine v. nakassis</sc> and <sc>amanda weidman</sc> Vision, Voice, and Cinematic Presence <A>Image 1: An Image That Couldn't Be On a hot April afternoon in 2009 in a small rural village in southern Tamil Nadu, India, the film crew with whom Costas (Nakassis) was working on the Tamil film Goa (2010, dir. Venkat Prabhu) was milling about, waiting for the next shot to begin. The assistant directors were looking for a couple of extras for the shot. The scene needed village women, so they asked the woman whose house they were using for one of the indoor locations if she would like to act. She was in her early thirties, married with two small children. Her face betrayed interest, though she was reticent and equivocated. Her husband, who came a couple of minutes later, spoke in her stead: no, she wouldn't be acting. The assistant directors, all men, seemed to understand immediately and dropped the issue, wandering off to find someone else. Costas persisted, though, and asked him, why not let her act? The husband responded tersely, motioning to the dubious moral standing of the Tamil film industry. Thinking he was talking about stereotypes about casting couches (rumors of which have long been a source of stigma for women in the industry), Costas countered that he, the husband, would be there the whole time and would know that nothing wrong would have happened. The husband responded, as if to indicate that Costas misunderstood him: it wasn't proper because she would be seen onscreen, that is, seen by anonymous and unknown others in the dark expanse of the theater. That she could be seen onscreen, in public, was enough to trigger local gossip that would impugn not just her but his honor as well. For her to be seen, for an image of her to appear, was itself an act-an act that couldn't come to pass, an image that wouldn't be. <A>Image 2: An Invisible Audible Voice Mallika Sherawat is dancing to a heavily saturated audio track, her thin, fair body surrounded by a visually lavish set in the 2011 film Osthi (dir. Dharani). Formations of male and female dancers move in sync with her, gyrating their hips and shaking their chests. Mallika has already introduced herself as Mallika (her offscreen, personal name) in a thinly disguised description of transgressive sexual pleasure, inviting any who might dare to try her. She doesn't sing in her own voice, however, but in a voice provided by the elderly Tamil playback singer L. R. Eswari. As the verse finishes, the villain approaches, clumsily inserting himself into the dance and singing to Mallika in a high-pitched, metallic voice, only to have his fantasy interrupted by the hero (played by the actor T. R. Silambarasan, or Simbu as he is more commonly called), who announces his own arrival-"Osthi tān vantirukkān!" ("Osthi has arrived!")-and strides forward to take center stage. He tosses away a beer bottle as he begins an acrobatic show of dancing prowess, pushing the villain off to the side and twirling Mallika on his arm and then under his leg. The thick soundtrack disappear...

Anthropology, Film Industries, Modularity

“…The introduction to this volume discusses what film studies has meant by the "filmic text, " which is not the script per se but what is seen and heard onscreen in a par tic u lar film (which greatly exceeds what is in the script, which is by and large written before shooting begins and is focused on scenes and what characters say in them, with often only minimal pictorial direction). In an article by anthropologists Constantine Nakassis and Amanda Weidman (2018), the notion of the filmic text as taken from critical film theory is reinterpreted to analyze the sound (voice)-and-image nexus in Tamil film. The presence of the female on the screen is a morally charged repre sen ta tion, or performative, as the authors put it, but the effects of this anxiety-inducing performative can be mitigated through the disruption of the unity of sound and image (by dubbing the lead actress's voice with the instantly recognizable voices of famous dubbing artists), so that the audience is always aware that the female presence on the screen is just that, a presence and not real ity, an artifice and not an authenticity.…”

Brought to Life by the Voice

“…Cinema, by this logic, constitutes a distinctive and potentially problematic site of appearance because of its open-ended mass audience and because its contexts of reception can never be controlled. Within this medium, the combination of a single individual's body, voice, name, and authorial will or intention can create a potent sense of presence that can work to the benefit of male actors or singers but has long been largely undesirable for actresses and female singers (Nakassis and Weidman 2018). Playback emerged as a way of manipulating these elements, putting body, voice, name, and authorial will and intention together in different ways and mitigating the effects of combining them.…”

“…Cinematic images are not limited to their representational capacities; they are, rather, taken to be acts that an actor or singer has chosen to perform publicly, that reflect back on them and their reputation. In emphasizing the "act"ness of an image over its status as a representation, this semiotic ideology takes the cinematic image not simply to be a sign of the presence and persona of its animator, the actor and/or singer, but to be performative in its capacity to produce this presence (Nakassis and Weidman 2018;Nakassis n.d.).…”

“…Acknowledging performativity as a dynamic that coexists with, competes with, and often overshadows representation means that not just those who appear onscreen but also those who work "behind the scenes"-including playback singers but also dubbing artists, lyricists, sound engineers, choreographers, etc.-are potentially subject to presencing. The specialization and fragmentation of the production process creates multiple potential presences and absences (Nakassis and Weidman 2018).…”

“…Such vocal sounds and techniques functioned as "qualitative icons" of brazenness (Harkness 2014, 123); not only did they represent characters who were brazen, but they were considered to require the singer herself to possess the quality of brazenness in order to perform them, because in doing so she was perceived as bringing her own intention and body into play. In semiotic terms, the singer needed to venture out of the representational mode, which shields the singer's offscreen identity and persona by having her stand under someone else's authorizing role (she is "just the voice" or "just singing" what the music director tells her to sing), and into the performative mode, in which the performance suddenly refers to the singer's offscreen persona and identity instead of, or in addition to, the onscreen character or situation (Nakassis and Weidman 2018). The performative excess of the playback singer's voice was crystallized in moments in songs that spilled out of the singing frame entirely.…”