Academic Journal

L’univers sonore de Sredni Vashtar (Andrew Birkin, 1981)

Bibliographic Details
Title: L’univers sonore de Sredni Vashtar (Andrew Birkin, 1981)
Authors: Sophie Mantrant
Source: Cahiers Victoriens et Edouardiens (2016)
Subject Terms: Carmina Burana, Chion (Michel), music, « O Fortuna », paganism, territory sound, History of Great Britain, DA1-995
Publisher Information: Presses Universitaires de la Méditerranée, 2016.
Publication Year: 2016
Description: In 1981, Andrew Birkin was awarded the BAFTA for Best Short Film for his adaptation of Saki’s ‘Sredni Vashtar’ (1911). This article explores the film’s soundscape to show how it participates in the construction of the oppositional system that underpins Saki’s short story. Carl Orff’s ‘O Fortuna’ is used as a symbolic signifier strictly associated with the world of the child, as opposed to the adult’s. The piece interacts with diegetic sounds to create a complex web of echoes and dissonances. Thus, ‘O Fortuna’ is set in sharp contrast with the tick-tock of the clock that can be heard in the dreary Edwardian house. As it is associated with the colour red, the music also highlights by contrast the greyness of a constraining adult world. Colour and music thus combine to give shape to the world of a child chafing under the yoke of the real.
Document Type: article
File Description: electronic resource
Language: English
French
ISSN: 0220-5610
2271-6149
Relation: http://journals.openedition.org/cve/2319; https://doaj.org/toc/0220-5610; https://doaj.org/toc/2271-6149
DOI: 10.4000/cve.2319
Access URL: https://doaj.org/article/d9683035de384a1eb1ccf38edbc54c26
Accession Number: edsdoj.9683035de384a1eb1ccf38edbc54c26
ISSN: 0220561022716149
DOI: 10.4000/cve.2319
Database: Directory of Open Access Journals