Surround sound and the new spatial aesthetic
Psycho, Hitchcock and the Van Sant re-make.
The decision by Gus Van Sant to do a remake of the seminal Hitchcock thriller Psycho (Van Sant, 1998; Hitchcock, 1960) was, on its own, a staggeringly brazen thing to do. To remake this film, regarded for such a long time by so many as ‘perfect’, certainly drew a great deal of criticism. Mark Carpenter observed that “Not the least of the arrows it endured was the remarkable derision it received from the mainstream press” and that the film is Van Sant’s “most eccentric and reviled (and very nearly forgotten) project”. (2004)
But Psycho (98) was not just a remake; to go a huge step further and, as Van Sant did, do a remake that is a shot-by-shot replication of the original was widely heralded as outrageous. Or at the very least begging the obvious question of Why…?
Van Sant’s choice to do this may, or may not, have artistic or cultural merit depending on the polarised opinions of reviewers, filmmakers and academics alike, but having two (for all intents are purposes) identical versions of the same well crafted film, gives a superb opportunity for cross examination. Apart form the inclusion of just a handful of new (and very short duration) shots by Van Sant, there are just three distinct overarching differences between the original and the remake; Colour (the impact of which we’ll leave to other scholars), performances (which inevitably introduce their own nuances but which we wont be looking at here) and Surround Sound.
Whilst too often simply employed as a way to make explosions louder and space ships more impressive, discreet multi-channel surround sound presents a substantial shift in compositional thinking and accepted notions of the mise en scene cinematic paradigm. Surround sound can be said to primarily serve as a way to, a) shift the audience into a shared space with the characters and so change notions of spectatorship and audience positioning relative to the screened image. And b) simultaneously allow for a mise en scene composition that tangibly for the audience exists and stretches beyond and outside the visible frame.
In this context we have the perfect opportunity to examine the possible impact of surround sound on mise en scene framing and the notion of a Macro-mise en scene . In other words, we get to pose questions in regard to; ‘Would Hitchcock have shot Psycho differently if he’d had surround sound technology available…?’ and ‘Has the cinematography and mise en scene of Psycho been directly influenced by the lack of audio spatiality?’
The original Psycho was a film produced with an entirely mono soundtrack having just a single sound channel that was placed front and centre behind the screen. The remake by Van Sant was released both in theatrical surround sound for the cinema and as Dolby 5.1 for DVD. This seemingly simple shift allows for a great many creative and aesthetic differences to occur; either by deliberate intention or natural evolution of the process of mixing and arranging sound.
The first most obvious example of surround sound in Van Sant’s Psycho comes via the musical score. Musical motifs and elements in the remake version are reproduced fairly evenly across all channels in the surround field. This is fairly common practice in contemporary cinema sound design as it immediately and more succinctly invokes the non-diegetic properties of a musical score which doesn’t exist in the same auditory world of the film space. By giving the music the non-specific spatial placement of all-channels equally the music is placed distinctly beyond cinema space.
This multi-channel reproduction renders the music immediately recognisable from other sound elements, not by volume mix level or by its character but by its lack of spatial specificity. This makes the nature of the music score noticeably different from the original Hitchcock version of Psycho. In the original the music shares the same single channel as all other sounds (dialogue, foley, etc) and so the music, whilst still diegetic by definition, is perceived by the viewer as less removed from other sounds in the mix, less identifiable as a distinct element. When the music is placed into surround sound, subsequently reproduced every-where (and so perceivably ‘no-where’) it can be seen to act as a commentary on the film rather than, via mono in Hitchcock’s version, an intrinsic part of the scene.
Surround sound is most often, obviously, touted for its ability to be spatially specific in the reproduction of aural elements. What is often ignored or unnoticed in our contemporary understanding of surround sound is this ability to place sounds beyond spatial recognition and indeed remove them from space altogether via this technique above of emanating a sound, most often music, from all channels in equal balance.
Central to all cinema production, both in the specific of individual films and the bigger scale of the canon of cinematic genre’s, is the ‘contact’ established with the audience in regard to the parameters the film will work within. This is most obvious in the case of narrative and genre forms such as Science Fiction where, in order for the audience to ‘buy into’ the otherwise infeasible elements of the story (aliens, flying saucers, time travel, ghosts, etc), certain paradigm truths must be established early on from within which the film’s narrative will operate.
These kind of ‘contracts’ also exist on a production level as techno-aesthetic parameters. Star Wars: a new hope (1977) opens with a large space craft rumbling overhead, engaging rear left/right channels and low-frequency (sub-woofer or LFE) effects and so sets up, from the very outset of the film, a contract with the audience to both accept and expect the spatial realism of multi-channel sound for the duration of the film.
In a film such as Psycho (Van Sant) this same notion of a techno-aesthetic contract is likewise established early with the placement of spatially specific dialogue and foley sounds in discreet channels relevant to the framed scene. With the audience then accepting that there is a degree of spatial truth about the film any music element subsequently brought aurally into the mise en scene via a particular ‘direction’ may be perceived as diegetic rather than the usual and accepted non-diegetic nature of a musical score. Without any changes to the script, performance, camera shot, movement or even audio mix level, this immediately sets Van Sant’s Psycho apart from the original because the ‘contract’ with the audience is fundamentally different.
As a result, the musical elements which, regardless of mono or surround sound, require a clear distinction from other sounds in a film, must be placed outside of diegetic acceptance. The only way to do this with surround sound, where the audience accepts and expects all sounds to come from ‘some-where’, is to place the music ‘no-where’.
One of the most interesting specific sound design choices made by Hitchcock was in relation to the ‘voices’ that play in the minds of his characters; Marion and Norman. For Marion this is most notably as she is driving towards California and before arriving at the Bates Hotel, having stolen the money, and the voices of people she knows looking for her can be heard debating her motives and what they will do to find her.
Even in mono this sound is an interesting aural hybrid in that it fits with what Gorbman has referred to as ‘Meta-Diegetic’ sound (Gorbman 1976, cited in Milicevic 1994). To the viewer the voices are non-diegetic in that they have no visible or real-world source in the scene (much like a voice-over) and yet, to the character (Marion) the voices are distinctly diegetic to events that either have or will take place in her reality. Going further with Hitchcock’s play on the psychology of the characters and their respective guilt, the voices could equally be ‘real’ voices of events that ‘have’ happened for the viewer (an audio flashback); or they could be imagined voices inside the head of the character that are not connected to any reality.
In the Van Sant Psycho this scene with Marion in the car is the first non-musical sound and non directly diegetic sound to obviously engage with the surround-sound spatial field. The voices are heard to emanate from, and pan between, all five channels much like musical elements. The effect of this is to expand the viewer’s perception of these sounds as hyper-real or ‘unnatural’ sounds operating in a ‘nowhere’ space much as the score does.
Much of Psycho hinges on the Aristotelian notion of the reversal of fortune (in other words a climatic and unexpected ‘plot twist’) and so it isn’t until the film’s conclusion that we realise that the voice of Norman’s Mother is a similar meta-diegetic sound as that we aurally observe with Marion. Until the twist is revealed we assume that Mother is speaking audibly, only after do we realise that her voice belonged to Normans imagination. This shift from the ‘reality’ of spatial placement of sound to the ‘unreality’ of a sound coming from all channels at once can be best seen in the scene where Marion listens through the window to Norman arguing with his Mother. Rather than spatially place the sound beyond the window from where Marion is presumably hearing it, Mother’s voice is heard softly through all five surround channels where as Norman’s, in response to his ‘Mother’s voice’ is heard in a more spatially specific form.
It is here that the shift to surround sound has potential impact on the unveiling of narrative in Psycho. In mono the sound of Marion’s meta-diegetic voices are aurally identical to any other voices and sounds in the film. Likewise there is nothing to Norman’s voice and the voice of his mother to aurally set it as apart or distinct, certainly nothing to imply that one voice is real and the other not. However, in the surround sound version, the choice to make these voices emanate from all channels, thus removing them from a spatial reality is a immediately recognisable clue for the viewer that these voices are not ‘real’. It could be argued that this choice is too much of a ‘give away’ for the viewer and that it potentially signifies the ‘unreality’ of the Mother’s voice too early in the narrative potentially spoiling the reveal of the films ending.
Hitchcock’s Psycho is a film that has a great deal of purity in its visual framing and mise en scene focus. As is the hallmark of Hitchcock’s work there is no wasted compositional elements. Subsequently the soundtrack in mono, emanating from directly behind the screen, lends itself to this tight integration of aural and visual mise en scene where the confines of the frame are presented as a total entity, a complete picture, aurally and visually.
Arguably the cinematography and mise en scene technique in Hitchcock’s Psycho is influenced by the limitations of mono sound reproduction, presenting a film that has little awareness of three dimensional space. Indeed Psycho doesn’t even engage in any large degree with deep-focus composition. Much of Psycho is composed in very precise, two-dimensional framings that seem to focus on a visual and compositional purity.
This approach, part aesthetic choice, part technological restriction (an approach not by any means unique to Psycho, but common to the vast majority of cinema up to this period) has a distinct affect on the placement and role of the viewer in regard to the drama playing out on screen. In reviewing the work of James Lastra, Sarah Kozloff has commented that there is a long prevailing tradition of sound perceived “less anthropomorphically and as more analogous to writing.” (Kozloff, S. 2002). In other words, the film (and in particular the sound) makes no pretence that the viewer is part of the scene or sharing the same sensory or auditory space as that of the film. The viewer is nothing other than a removed observer, divorced from the film’s reality.
As an example events such as the downpour of rain as Marion first arrives at the Bates Motel are flatly composed and produced, the viewer removed from the cinema space. The rain does not fall on the viewer, rather they see through the mise en scene’s portal to a moving composition of rain falling on a character. As Kozloff says, this is akin to the removed and remote experience of reading. Psycho seems to follow a premise of not placing the viewer ‘in’ the scene where they hear what the character’s hear but rather providing a series of windows through which they see and hear specific, voyeuristic and filtered elements of what the characters see and hear.
Interestingly Van Sant’s remake of Psycho, despite the fact that surround sound now allows for a different relationship between the viewer and the spatial world of the film, very often chooses not to utilise the technology and subsequently maintains the removed position of the viewer. This can be seen as a choice based on an older aesthetic rather than a more contemporary one.
The above example of the rain scene illustrates this where, if the film were a newly produced original work, there would be little hesitation on the part of the sound designer to re-produce the sound of the rain falling heavily from all speakers in order to situate the viewer spatially in the rain as Marion is in the rain. To share the same space. Even though this option is open to Van Sant he chooses not to engage with space in this way.
There are two broad possibilities for this choice; either Van Sant is choosing to remain true to his self-imposed edict by going sound-for-sound as well as shot-for-shot. Or that by going shot-for-shot visually he found that the sound design was dictated, and even restricted by, Hitchcock’s mise en scene composition. In other words that Hitchcock’s purist cinematography presenting a totality of the frame didn’t allow or accommodate for a shift in the viewer’s concept of space.
An example of this visual confinement of sound and space by the cinematography can be seen in the famous shower scene. Here Hitchcock uses a series of jump-cuts that shift the framed perspective (often 180 degrees) from looking in at Marion in the shower to looking out through the curtain, via a series of close-ups of the shower head and Marion’s face. The sound design for this scene (as with most of the original film) is quite complex with a precisely balanced arrangement and mix of sounds – water gurgling, splashing, dripping, musical elements etc. Mono sound dictates that sounds emanate from front and centre to the image so Hitchcock’s use of quickly moving cuts, that continually reverse the position and change the angle of the mise en scene, by default ensures that the single channel mono sound doesn’t appear spatially false. The cutting allows the sounds to naturally always occur front and centre to the frame.
If it could be imagined that this scene were redone using less hard cutting and perspective shifting and more fluid pans, tilts, pedestals, steadi-cam and handheld camera then the scene would lend itself readily to a spatial composition and arrangement of sound relative to the viewer as an occupant of the scene. However since Van Sant makes the decision to capture the scene shot-for shot as Hitchcock had, there is no room to embrace the new opportunities of audio spatiality. The camera doesn’t allow it.
This approach not to utilise the spatial possibilities of the surround sound field by Van Sant becomes most noticeable at the end of this shower scene with the famous matching transition from the spiralling water down the drain hole to the tracking back and twisting close-up of Marion’s eye. Once pulled away from the eye the camera turns more than 90 degrees to dolly out of the bathroom but the sound of the shower, which is still running and now located spatially behind the viewer/camera, does not shift to emanate from the rear speakers in the five channel array as one might expect in a contemporary film. The sound of the shower remains from the front speakers, spatially incorrect, and instead using the traditional method of creating a faux spatial arrangement by mixing down the sound of the shower in the mix and adding a small amount of artificial reverb to invoke a sense of distance.
Here was potentially an easy option for employing spatially correct sound that would not have conflicted with the shot-for-shot mise en scene composition. However it could perhaps be argued that for Van Sant to use surround sound now, even in one of the rare shots that allows it, would be too obvious in a film that has, up until this point, created a position for the viewer as removed from the world of the film, as a remote voyeur rather than an immersive observer.
Beyond the role of the camera and sound in constructing a sense (or lack thereof) of cinematic space we can also examine the changing process and nature of designing, building and constructing a cinematic scene in real and physical terms; i.e. the Set.
In making Psycho Hitchcock built a ‘complete’ (using the term loosely) film set for the Bates Motel consisting of the motel building of individual cabins and the infamous House where Norman and his ‘Mother’ live, along with a swamp-like pond where Norman dumps the bodies of his victims and a driveway/car-park where many of characters (such as Marion and Aberghast) arrive at Motel.
These four set elements provide the bulk of the film’s locales and in both versions of Psycho there is an implied close proximity between these. This is particularly so in the case of house looking down on, as if surveying, the Motel from the hill as metaphor of Norman’s Mother’s perceived invasive watchful eye. This may be seen as a similar practice to 3D computer game creation; the design of a macro-space into which the camera and action will be set. This approach and allusion to 3D computer game design is encapsulated best in one of Van Sant’s other films, Elephant (2004), where the school building and grounds themselves are presented as a spatially (and aurally) specific entity, a ¬Macro-mise en scene set space that the audience becomes as familiar with as the student characters are.
In computer gaming (particularly first-person shooter (FPS) genre games) it is the ‘Space’ rather than the ‘Frame’ that is ‘composed’ by a game designer/director. This comes both aesthetically and practically in terms of the actual process of designing game levels and complete 3D virtual spaces. Subsequently the visual frame in computer gaming is free to move over the more holistic ‘composition’ without negating or detracting from the importance of compositional elements outside of the visual frame. This embodies the idea of the Macro-mise en scene. The audience may be viewing the narrative/story/experience through the hard borders of a visual frame but there is no illusion of the frame presenting any sense of a totality of vision because of a larger composition constructed for the viewer through spatially specific sound. The viewer accepts that the frame is just a small part of the composed scene, not the scene in it’s entirety.
Certainly it would have been feasible, perhaps even desirable, to shoot Psycho with the tenants and notions of the Macro-mise en scene in order to establish the Motel and its environs in their entirety as a tangible entity in the film, much as the school building is in Elephant. However, since Psycho was shot for mono sound with a unidirectional, single source, sound field and subsequently the camera framing follows a very square, two-dimensional, mise en scene with a clear totality of framing, there is, as a result, little to no sense of space in Psycho (either the original or the remake).
The spatial arrangement of the scene’s elements (motel, house, pond, car-park) in Psycho creates a spatiality (as before with sound) of ‘representation’ rather than ‘actuality’. The image of the House is a representation of a house on the hill that is at a distance and on higher ground; rather than a spatial and acoustic actuality of the house and its location. Likewise when Norman puts the car with body inside into the pond there is nothing to tell the viewer what direction the pond is from the Motel, or how far. Too, when Sam stands in the car-park calling out for Aberghast and the image cuts to Norman standing by the pond, there is a change in the acoustic of Sam’s voice, what Rick Altman describes as “an impression of auditory perspective… created by a change in volume and reverberation levels.” (1992. p60). This is standard practice for implying acoustic and physical distance but which is, as before, a representation or ‘impression’ of sound rather than an acoustic actuality. For the viewer in this scene (as with much of Psycho) the connection with the sound of Sam’s voice is not in the actuality of the viewer hearing it but in the context of the representation of another character hearing it. Altman refers to this specific tendency in film sound, which he argues has been dominant since the 1930’s, as being “asked not to hear but to identify with someone who will hear for us. Instead of giving us freedom to move about the film’s space at will, this technique locates us in a very specific place – the body of a character who hears for us.” (1992. p60). What this indicates in the context of viewership is that there is an established tradition in cinema prior to surround sound and FPS computer gaming (and arguably immersive media generally) that places the viewer in a position that looks in on the cinematic space but does not aurally or spatially share it.
As a result of this abstract, representational arrangement of sound and physicality, Psycho (both versions) retains the old mise en scene grammar of the frame as cinematic totality. As the space around the Motel has no actuality for the viewer, they are not placed into the shared aural space of the film, there is no expectation that anything of importance to the film will occur outside the frame, or even that the film exists outside the frame. Here we perhaps see the symbiotic relationship between surround sound and cinematic technique. Despite the addition of a surround sound field of viewer aural immersion, the cinematography of Psycho (originally composed and designed with mono sound reproduction in mind and subsequently emulated precisely from the original into the remake) prevents the Van Sant version from engaging the notions of a Macro-mise en scene. The cinematography and soundscape present a mise en scene of aural and visual representation rather than one of spatial and acoustic actuality.
Cinema is an art form driven as much by the evolution of the technology of its production as by cultural and aesthetic influences. In this regard there is possible room for speculation not just on what is possible now and into the future for the creation of cinema based on current technologies (such as surround sound and 3D virtual cameras) but also to offer conjecture on past works of cinema as to how they might have been created differently if their makers had had access to contemporary tools. A process such as this allows for possible examination of what parameters (technical and creative) dictated the production of a past work, influencing its style and form in manner that can only be considered in hindsight.
In the specific context of what has been argued above, speculating on how Hitchcock himself might have created Psycho differently if he’d had access to surround sound production and reproduction systems, perhaps allows for a more tangible comprehension of the shift towards this idea of the Macro-Mise en scene.
As this is very early stage research and theoretical thinking on a new cinematic compositional aesthetic, rather than attempting to offer a full and authoritative conclusion I will instead endeavour to propose a series of questions and possibilities for how surround sound may have influenced the cinematography and construction of Psycho.
The first and most distinct shift that surround sound does organically, virtually without any external directorial choice, is to reposition spectatorship in the context of aural and spatial immersion. Hitchcock’s Psycho presents a mise en scene that is very much window-like; a constructed/dictated premise exists whereby the viewer does not share the same auditory space as the character’s on screen, nor do they share the same physical space but rather are given a voyeuristic and limited perspective on a given set of scenes and circumstances.
A key example of this is that explored earlier in regard to the audible and visible rain when Marion arrives at the Bates Motel. Here the sound of rain in Hitchcock’s Psycho emanates from a single centre front mono speaker source and as a result the audience is placed outside the scene, out of the rain, not in the same space as the characters. By introducing surround sound and having rain through all channels, as would be common surround sound design practice, the viewer’s perception of their ‘role’ and ‘position’ in viewing the film is fundamentally altered. A new and quite different ‘contact’ is established between the viewer and the film and this could subsequently have impact on every facet of Psycho.
Psycho is a film that draws heavily on montage principles for building tension by precise cutting of images into sequence; notable case in point being the famous shower scene. No frame is wasted in Psycho and each frame unto itself presents an array of information for the viewer, fully utilising the mise en scene.
On one hand this can certainly be considered to be the hand of a great filmmaker who is astutely aware of the craft in regard to both the two cornerstones of cinematic production; mise en scene and montage. A filmmaker able to exploit for dramatic purposes the strengths of both aesthetic understandings.
On the other hand, this precise completeness of framing where the camera depicts in totality both the visual and aural elements, deliberately and directly delivering them to the viewer inside a framed window space might also be seen as a necessary aesthetic imposition driven by a restricted sound field. One that doesn’t allow for the viewer to perceive directly of spatially tangible elements outside of the frame.
In the shower scene when we hear the knife we see the knife. When we hear the shower curtain get pulled back by Mother (Norman) we see the curtain get pulled back. Almost no action that takes place in Psycho happens beyond the frame or is drawn aurally into the frame from beyond it. Psycho is a film that is very contained. This may well be one of the first elements to change if Hitchcock had had the ability to spatially position sound beyond the screen.
The shower scene, currently built around quick montage cuts and 180 degree reversals of position (at times almost jump-cuts) from outside the shower looking in, to inside the shower looking out, may be prompted into a more fluid and spatially aware composition through sound. With the ability to place sounds with precise and perceptible location outside of the frame the need, or aesthetic desire, to depict each movement or sound generating event is perhaps undermined or diminished. These events and actions are free to take place with total audience awareness without the need for the camera to frame them visually.
In this same regard Psycho is a film that uses confined, enclosed or isolated spaces as a means to build and enhance tension but because of the restricted nature of space available to a film in monaural sound, where the camera is in effect hamstrung in its ability to depict spatial location and direction, it has to circumvent a realistic or spatially accurate construction in favour of a representational one.
Here Hitchcock too may have made different choices had surround sound been available to him. The bulk of Psycho takes place in a single location (the Bates Motel) drawing in just a small handful of locales consisting principally of the motel cabins, the reception office and the family house on the hill. A great deal of the tension of the film is built around the proximity of these three. Norman insists Marion take the cabin closest to the office where he says it will be better if she needs anything but where it becomes apparent that the decision is more about he being able to watch over her. Likewise the house on the hill watches over the Motel and more specifically the spectre of Norman’s mother watches over him and everything he does.
This layered structure of proximity, voyeurism and a notion of ‘watching over’ is deliberately built into the fabric of Psycho and yet there is virtually no real sense of spatial direction and distance in tangible terms for the audience. When we see the house on the hill it is only with a fairly abstract notion of it’s direction from the house. Likewise when Marion hears Norman arguing with his Mother and looks up at the house from her room window there is little sense of spatial location of this or of the house’s actual distance from the Motel room window. The sound of the arguing and indeed the image of the house itself are, as a result, rendered representational of these dramatic devices rather than out of a spatial, physical actuality.
Arguably then, the use of surround sound, and the more mobile, game-like, camera movements surround sound inspires that allow for the camera to explore space without being beholden to a totalitarian sense of framing, would have allowed Hitchcock to greatly enhance the claustrophobic, paranoid tension of Psycho. If, as has been argued above, surround sound can be said to primarily serve as a way to, a) shift the audience into a shared space with the characters and b) allow for a mise en scene composition that stretches beyond the visible frame, then certainly these tools, and the techniques they introduce, could potentially enhance the drama of Psycho on a psychological level. A ‘contract’ is created that makes the viewer consistently aware of the ‘watchful eyes’ outside of their visible frame but with the realism that comes with a spatial specificity of direct aural location.
None of this is to say in any sense that these choices, centred on new technologies, would make Psycho a better film. Rather these observations are about looking at how cinema is a product of the tools available at the time of its making and, as a result, the aesthetic principles and governing theories built around films of a particular time require a constant process of re-examination as technologies evolve.
There are precious few films that have gone some way towards truly exploiting or engaging with the notion of a Macro-mise en scene and the use of surround sound as a creative spatial construct influencing and changing camera technique and our accepted notions of visual framing. Sadly surround sound is still largely limited to explosions and large scale Hollywood blockbuster effects. It is fair to say that a great deal of the truly inventive and forward thinking use of spatial sound, and indeed the embracement of spatiality and the Macro-mise en scene in general as a compositional tool, is coming from 3D computer gaming.
Where computer games have long borrowed aesthetic, cultural and technical influences from popular cinema it is now also fair to say that gaming and gaming aesthetics are having a profound impact on cinema itself and our perceptions of cinema’s language and form. Statistics alone stand as a substantial and solid indicator of a current and future shift in our perceptions of what popular media is? SpiderMan 2 (2004) grossed $40.4 million in its opening weekend and was hailed as a huge popular cinema box-office success for its studio producers. In Contrast the release of the FPS genre X-box console game Halo 2 drew $125 million in its first weekend of sales far eclipsing Hollywood’s best efforts.
If sheer popularity, public take-up and entertainment saturation can be taken as one substantial indicator, gaming and the cinematic Macro-mise en scene aesthetics it delivers to mainstream media of all kinds, may well be seen as the new dominant visual language and discourse. In this regard the notion of the Macro-mise en scene as a central element of game design, encompassing immersive aural and visual constructs, becomes, by proxy, a central hub of all future media compositional thinking.
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