Noel Burch, in his exploration of early cinema, asserts that film history began when the idea of capturing images in motion was made possible by the chronophotographic gun, created by Etienne Jules Marey in 1882. The chronophotographic gun captured images of birds rotating on a glass sphere, and film was invented. Film went through many revisions from 1882 on, appearing through Edison's kinetograph, the zoetrope, the nickelodeon, and finally the silver screen as we know it today. Music was often paired with silent films and played live in conjunction with the images appearing on-screen at many movie theatres. The two mediums became intertwined eventually, and films began to rely on the music that accompanied them for guidance of the emotional experience. Experimental films grew out of this dependency on music.

In 1921, Walter Ruttman directed the first experimental film that did not use human characters and relied almost entirely on external music- Opus No. 1. Lines and shapes move across the screen in tune with a specific soundtrack, creating an entirely abstract, visual interpretation of music. Opus influenced film history by forging a direct connection between images on-screen and sounds off-screen, something that continues to be recreated in films today. In fact, it was not until six full years later that the first “sound” film was released- Al Jolson’s The Jazz Singer. In this film, there were only five minutes of limited audio embedded on the film strip itself, but the world of cinema never looked back after The Jazz Singer.

Nowadays, many audiences consider film and music fully integrated with each other. The only glaring exception to this rule is when a deaf or hard of hearing person, having a different range of aural signals enter his or her brain, sits down to watch a movie. Here, film and music separate, and become isolated in their own strands, and the meaning of the music is often lost. This loss of aural signal expresses a collateral and more subjective concern where the true debate lies- whether the music and sound effects for a particular film should blend into a pulsating being at one with the film, through use of a contemporary, credible vocabulary of cinematographic style, while also attempting to establish the tone, mood and setting of the film and, at the same time, foreshadowing things to come, such as in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws.

Steven Spielberg on the set of Jaws, in 1975

I chose Jaws as one of the films to show to a select group, all willing participants in a survey I requested they complete. A film critic, working closely with the Filmtracks website- a website where film critics discuss the scoring and composing for certain films- commented,

“There is no debate about the functionality of the music in the film. Part of the film's dominant success was due, directly, to the score. The ingenious idea of using the mindless two-note progression to represent the shark is effectively applied to the score by its speed or even by its absence. The two-note progression matches perfectly the blood pressure of the shark --not the audience. Many people mistakenly believe that the theme was meant to mirror the horror level of the audience. In fact, the theme represents the internalized zeal of the shark itself --a flow that Williams and Spielberg allow the audience to listen in on. The theme speeds up as the shark gets excited, and the theme is absent from scenes in which the shark isn't anywhere near… The shark's primitive and brutal hunting inclinations make the musically simplistic two-note theme into the embodiment of the shark that Spielberg had struggled to obtain with the actual physical shark that he had built for the film. Even if you see a fin in the water, if Williams' theme isn't heard, then there's no reason to worry or panic.”

John Williams, the composer of Jaws

Jaws is considered a milestone in cinematic and acoustic terms, because it was the first time that a composer had attempted to integrate music so completely with the film, that it is impossible to diminish the fact that music is a key component of the film. Another aspect of audio and video’s relationship with one another, and how hearing and deaf audiences differ in perspective, is dialogue. Dialogue, and how it is projected by the actors, also affects the people who view the film. For example, in Eddie Izzard’s All the Queen’s Men, the characters often change their accents to masquerade as others, but the humor is often lost on a deaf or hard of hearing person.

The survey used a quantitative method to compile information from a group of 15 hearing and deaf individuals, all students at Gallaudet University or related to Gallaudet students, who had viewed both Jaws and All the Queen’s Men. Questions that addressed their hearing status, their gender and their perspectives on whether music is critical to film were asked. There were eight female respondents, seven male; eight were Deaf, two were hard of hearing, and five were hearing. Most of the respondents said they watched either one or no movies at all during one month, and most also enjoyed watching drama movies, with comedy and action/adventure trailing behind in second and third place. Interestingly enough, the typical drama film does generally not rely as much on sound to tell a story as a horror film. This is also another factor in my choice of Jaws as an analytic piece. Three students said that they feel as if they are missing something when viewing movies without sound and the remaining twelve said they were not; however, when the same question was applied to Jaws, only one respondent felt as if he or she was missing something. The subsequent question I included in my survey garnered the most interesting results- twelve people would view Jaws with sound, and only three would view it without sound. This contradiction in my results is actually very logical- when answering whether or not they would miss something when viewing Jaws without sound, the respondents thought about whether they would miss something critical to the plot, or not understand the film without auditory signals.

However, many respondents believed that the music in Jaws was important to the film itself, therefore only three of them would prefer to watch the movie without sound. The people I surveyed also stated that music is not critical to the understanding of a generic horror film. One survey responder commented, “I think… the music is important [in Jaws], since it really sets up an emotional response in the film, starting out with a tiny squeak and then finally rising to a… crescendo of sorts”. Indeed, the film relies on music to ignite an emotional response identified as ‘suspense’, wherein the adrenaline in the body leads the brain to make judgments as to the whereabouts of the danger or threat itself. A researcher, as quoted by Jim Thornton:

“If your higher brain decides the sound might be a gunshot or a thunderclap, the startle reflex will continue unabated, compelling you to take evasive or aggressive action as needed. But if your higher brain decides the bang was merely a car backfiring, the amygdala will get the word, and you'll begin calming down--with a bit of residual anxiety, a small price to pay for a jump start on reacting to potential danger.”

But in this analysis of the function of the amygdala and the higher cortex of the brain, a dilemma presents itself. What does the brain do when no auditory signal, or at the very best, an incomplete auditory signal is received? Do the brains of a deaf and hearing person, respectively, function in the same manner while viewing a film fraught with suspense, like Jaws? It has been proven through a University of Rochester School of Medicine research project that deaf people actually process vibrations in the auditory cortex of their brain. As Dr. Dean Shibata, assistant professor of radiology at the University of Washington, states:

“These findings suggest that the experience deaf people have when 'feeling' music is similar to the experience other people have when hearing music. The perception of the musical vibrations by the deaf is likely every bit as real as the equivalent sounds, since they are ultimately processed in the same part of the brain.”

Consequently, the only solution available to the deaf viewer of a film that relies on music for narrative purposes, or to encourage adrenaline to pump through the amygdala, creating the sensation of suspense, is to have two things happen- 1) an external sound system that sends vibrations through the objects that are nearby the deaf viewer, therefore allowing the deaf viewer to ‘hear’ the music simultaneously with the film- such as Shane Kerwin's “Vibrato” invention, which connects to a speaker and uses unique vibrations to relay the various sounds of instruments- needs to be utilized. With Kerwin’s “Vibrato” invention, five different finger pads “allow the wearer to feel the difference between notes, rhythms and instrument combinations, allowing a “more dramatic and sophisticated way” to listen to music.” The second thing that must happen for all films, in order to satisfy a deaf or hard of hearing viewer using music or specific sound effects, as well as atmospheric sound, is for the films to be released with full audio descriptions incorporated in the film captioning and/or subtitles, available to deaf and hard of hearing audiences.

The mini-survey I distributed answers many of my original questions- I understand now that many deaf, hard of hearing and hearing film viewers consider music to be an important component of, but not critical to, film. The majority of viewers I surveyed felt like they were missing something when viewing movies without sound, in large part because the sounds were inaccessible through other methods- vibration, or incorporation in subtitling. However, when questioned about a specific movie- in this case, Jaws- the viewers did not feel that the music was critical to the understanding of the film. Therefore, sound should be provided to a deaf or hard of hearing viewer through the two co-solutions mentioned- vibration and audio description, for any film, be it suspense or comedy.

What do you think? Let's open up a discussion on this one...