The sound space of the city as a reflection of ‘‘the spirit of the times’’ and the inner world of the film hero

Abstract

The theme of the artistic image of the city in film has been repeatedly considered in film studies from both historical and cultural perspectives. However, two aspects of the study of the theme remain virtually unexplored because they are associated with a professional analysis of such a specific area of filmmaking as sound directing. The first aspect is the role of the city in films as both visual and audio space; the second aspect is the significance of urban sounds in the creation of the inner world of a film character.
 This essay explores the director's vision of urban space and the possibilities of sound directing in the formation of the inner world of a character and his/her various mental conditions - through the use of sound textures of the urban environment. The author analyses several films about Georgia's capital Tbilisi, produced in different time periods. The vivid "sound face" of Tbilisi allows one to follow changes in the aesthetic approaches to the use of the city's sounds for the formation of the image of film characters in the cultural and historical context of particular films. The essay concludes that the urban space, with its huge range of sound phenomena, contributes to the formation of a polyphonic phonogram which could bring a film's semantics to higher aesthetic and intellectual levelsl.