Hollywood Soundscapes by Helen Hanson

Author:Helen Hanson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: British Film Institute

Figure 42 Alice Adams. Alice Adams (Katharine Hepburn) overhears her parents arguing

[Alice reacts to her mother’s words, moving upscreen, she closes the bedroom door and places herself between Mrs Adams and the door]:

Alice: ‘For heaven’s sake Mom, can’t you wait till Father’s up and around before you start hammering at him?’

Figure 43 Alice Adams. Alice reproaches her mother for nagging at her father

The brief interchange between the three characters gains its resonance from the mode in which the narrative plays out both spatially and emotionally. An integration of mise-en-scène, dialogue performance, and sound and picture cutting emphasises the spatial and emotional dynamics of the domestic space. Mrs Adams’ needling of Virgil from the doorway to his bedroom flows over the shot of him reacting from his position in bed, and over the shot of Alice overhearing her mother, from the landing (Figure 42). The flow of Mrs Adams’ dialogue over the two reaction shots creates a soundscape in which overhearing forms a narrative device, and the sonic signature given to her dialogue marks two different positions of audition – one for Virgil and a lower, more muffled, position of audition for Alice.

Sources detailing decisions taken in the post-production stage of Alice Adams indicate that dialogue volume levels were deliberately manipulated to signal character audition and overhearing. The re-recording cue sheet specifies the processes required to achieve the desired balance of dialogue, score and sound effects for each reel of the film. It details cues where dialogue volume needed to be raised or lowered, cues for sound effects to mark action, and cues for the entrance and exiting of the score.56 These decisions on the balance of soundtrack elements involved collaboration between different areas of creative labour on the film. While there were well-known and widely shared conventions governing the broad principles of soundtrack balance – the ‘vococentric’ practice of foregrounding clear dialogue over other sounds – in practice, the finer details of balance might be adapted and varied for different genres, or specific narrative situations.57

Cues for the final balances of sound were typically determined during review screening sessions. In the case of Alice Adams, the cue sheet was co-ordinated by RKO’s Editorial Department, and it gave instructions to the personnel allocated to the re-recording process for the film. These were Editor, Jane Loring; Sound Cutter, Robert Wise; Musical Director, Roy Webb; Sound Effects Editor, Walter Elliott and the Unit Re-recording Supervisor Earl Mounce. The cue sheet was approved by Roy Webb (for the Music Department), Mr Maresca (for the Sound Department) and James Wilkinson (for the Editorial Department), and copies were sent to heads of department, the film’s director, George Stevens, and the personnel allocated to re-recording.58 For the sequence discussed above – of Alice overhearing her mother’s veiled criticisms of her father – the cue sheet specified ‘Lower Mrs. Adams’ off-stage voiceover shot of Alice in hallway.’59 This cue functions to introduce the narrative trope of overhearing, a trope which is developed, adapted and varied throughout the film. Three

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