‘First Man’: The Meaning and Use of Three Very Human Silences in an Inner Spatial Struggle

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Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Chazelle, Damien, dir. First Man. Universal Pictures, 2018 with music by Justin Hurwitz and sound design by Ai-Ling Lee.

2 Strictly speaking, these silences would actually be cultural connotations, uses, or interpretations of silence. However, we will stay with the metonymic expression of ‘silences’, which seems to lead to a clearer discussion.

3 Spanish edition ofBordwell, David. 1989.Making Meaning: Inference and Rethoric in the Interpretation of Cinema, Cambirdge: Harward University Press; Bordwell, El significado del filme, 19.

4 Or what Branigan call the “top-down” perception. These “top-down” perception processes are “based on acquired knowledge and schemas, are not constrained by stimulus time [of the film narrative flow], and work top-down on the data using a spectator’s expectations and goals as principles of organization” (Branigan, “Sound and Epistemology in Film,” 317).

5 This point is very important; this essay does not attempt to explain the aesthetic or narrative decisions made by the director. Instead, taking the final film as it is, it aims to explain why it is effective in enabling the viewer to construct meaning, or what effects and connections the film provokes in the audience and why. This explanation (why) and the effects and connections (connotations) are all related to the collective imagery on silence cultivated over millennia. Bordwell, El significado del filme, 18.

6 Bordwell, El significado del filme, 19.

7 See Ehrlich, “First Man,” Fennessey, “First Man,” Fox, “Damien Chazelle”, Martin, “Oscar-Winner Damien Chazelle Talks About His New Film ‘First Man’.” and VanDenburgh, “First Man”, among others. Director Damien Chazelle’s narrative and aesthetic criteria are also revealed through these interviews, which provide direct evidence of his ideas and choices in the construction of the film. For this reason, several interviews are used as a documentary source. At the same time, the impressions and opinions of critics and interviewers allow us to appreciate possible interpretations – of the hidden meanings – developed by the audience. The use of media articles fulfils this double function.

8 In reference to First Man, David Ehrlich commented that “Hurwitz seemed revitalized by discussing the holistic nature of the film’s post-production, and how it allowed for everyone to work together under one roof: ‘They give me a scene, and I give them back music,’ Hurwitz said. ‘We could really see everyone’s work and make sure that the whole team was in sync’, Hurwitz added” (Ehrlich, “First Man”).

9 Hurwitz says that he works ‘on a movie when it’s in development or pre-production’ and adds that he literally needs ‘months at the beginning of the process when I can just sit at the piano and search for the melodies’ (Ehrlich, “First Man”).

10 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick 1968) was released one year before the moon landing. Sound design by Malcolm Stewart.

11 David Ehrlich highlights that “while a number of filmmakers think of music as a garnish to be layered on top of the picture during post-production, Chazelle bakes sound directly into the bedrock of his stories, as though score and screenplay are conjoined twins that live or die on the strength of a single heartbeat”. Hurwitz explains that “that’s one of the reasons why I love working with Damien, because he wants music to be a voice in his movies, and that allows me to feel like I’m a storyteller, too” (Ehrlich, “First Man”).

12 ‘Audiovisual silence’ is the silence expression resource that is embedded in and modelled into an audiovisual narration and that creates or prolongs meaning, nuance, and emotion, or is simply a significant appearance in an audiovisual work. From the point of view of perception, audiovisual silence can also be defined from a psychoacoustic and receptive dimension as the cognitive effects and interpretations generated in the audiovisual audience by silence resources embedded in and modelled into an audiovisual narration. That is, audiovisual silence is the psychoacoustic sensation of silence by ‘audio-visualizing’ an audiovisual product (Torras, “Understanding Audiovisual Silence.”).

13 See the interview references presented in a previous footnote.

14 See note 6 above, 24–25.

15 The four types of meaning are “functional and heuristic” categories, but not substantives; they are assumptions used by observers that generate hypotheses about concrete meanings. The four types of meaning proposed by Bordwell are the tools, the distinctions, which spectators bring to a film. Therefore, their application may vary from viewer to viewer depending on the rationale for each viewer’s arguments (Bordwell, El significado del filme, 26).

16 See note 6 above, 25–26.

17 Bordwell states that “if the explicit meaning is like a transparent garment, and the implicit meaning is like a semi-opaque veil, the symptomatic meaning is like a disguise.” (Bordwell, El significado del filme, 25).

18 Audiovisual silence as a kind of sensory data. According to Bordwell, “the sensory data of a specific film provide the materials from which the inferential processes of perception and cognition construct meanings. The meanings are not found [in the film] but are elaborated” (Bordwell, El significado del filme, 19).

19 Marco, Una antropología del silencio, 7.

20 Ibid., 34.

21 This type of audiovisual silence is characterized by the non-mandatory existence (although it could be there) of a great and marked auditory contrast and the possibility of prolonging the audiovisual silence beyond ten seconds (although it could be shorter). Actually, the main feature of this type is the existence of low irregular sounds, random little sound peaks of extremely low intensity and with no regular continuity that transmit the sensation of relaxation or the idea of a peaceful and quiet scenario (Torras, “Understanding Audiovisual Silence.”).

22 Sonnenschein, Sound Design, 166.

23 “Silence is the language of all strong passions: love, anger, surprise, fear,” according to Bruneau, “Communicative Silences,” 34.

24 Ephratt, “The Functions of Silence,” 1916.

25 Fox, “Damien Chazelle”.

26 Martin, “Oscar-Winner Damien Chazelle Talks About His New Film ‘First Man’.”

27 Corbin, Història del silenci, 71.

28 Maeterlinck, Le trésor des humbles, 20.

29 See note 26 above.

30 In this intertwined plot, the famous phrase uttered by astronaut Armstrong as he stepped onto the moon makes sense, even more so according to Chazelle’s approach if we switch it around: “that’s one small step for mankind, one giant leap for man”; for him. This may have inspired, or at least now explain, Chazelle’s narrative and plot strategy for the film.

31 A term proposed by the Catalan philosopher Raimon Panikkar to express the idea that society is afraid of and rejects silence (Panikkar, Panikkar, El silencio del Buddha, 281 quoted by Mateu 2001, 69). In this sense, as Wilkins states, the new Hollywood cinema is also progressively replacing the dramatics of silence – we would say of audiovisual silence – with hyper-dialogue, which is the “intensified, unevenly fluctuating, and often ironically inflected use of dialogue in the place of action” (Wilkins, “The Sounds of Silence: Hyper-Dialogue and American Eccentricity.”).

32 Ramírez, “El significado del silencio y el silencio del significado,” 35. Mateu, “El lugar del silencio en el proceso de comunicación,” 21–22.

33 Sciacca, El silencio y la palabra (Cómo se vence en Waterloo), 103.

34 Marco, Una antropología del silencio.

35 Román, “Reflections on the Silence and Language in the Light of East and West,” 53 and 60.

36 Mateu, “El lugar del silencio en el proceso de comunicación,” 25.

37 Branigan, “Soundtrack in Mind,” 49–50.

38 Edward Branigan defines silence as a “specific type of sound,” such as dialogue, music, or noise, among others (Branigan, “Soundtrack in Mind,” 41). But it is clear that silence is quite a different kind of matter to the others. In other works, silence has been defined as no-sound. Silence is contrast (Torras, “Understanding Audiovisual Silence,” 2–3).

39 Mateu, “El lugar del silencio en el proceso de comunicación,” 17–18.

40 Marco, Una antropología del silencio, 67.

41 Saville-Troike, “The Place of Silence in an Integrated Theory of Communication,” 16.

42 Fierro, “La conducta del silencio,” 74–78.

43 Marco, Una antropología del silencio, 82.

44 Marco, Una antropología del silencio, 35–36.

45 For Ramírez, Silence as an entity is an “abstract construction with roots in mythical thought,” as opposed to silences as facts and actions, common in day-to-day life (Ramírez, “El significado del silencio y el silencio del significado”, 21).

46 Marco, Una antropología del silencio, 37.

47 Ibid., 19.

48 Sciacca, El silencio y la palabra (Cómo se vence en Waterloo), 95.

49 Marco, Una antropología del silencio, 15–16.

50 See note 27 above, 71.

51 Ibid., 89.

52 See note 26 above.

53 Branigan, “Sound and Epistemology in Film,” 312–313.

54 See note 25 above.

55 Ephratt states that “eloquent silence alone (not stillness, pauses or silencing) is an active means chosen by the speaker to communicate his or her message.” Therefore, eloquent silence can be deliberately used to transmit a preconceived and planned idea (Ephratt, “The Functions of Silence,” 1910–1913).

56 See note 24 above, 1911.

57 Torras, “Understanding Audiovisual Silence.”

58 Chion, El sonido, 45 and 213; Chafe, Discourse, Consciousness and Time, 53 and 67.

59 Cage, Silence, 8.

60 According to Branigan, “the presence of sound implies two motions: a vibrating aural source and a vibrating medium” (Branigan, “Sound and Epistemology in Film,” 312). At least in space there no vibrating medium. Therefore, silence is its most representative aural device.

61 Ehrlich, “First Man”

62 Ibid.

63 A harder contrast that produces a “sensation of silence,” which is tantamount to auditory relaxation, is produced by a specific kind of contrast with well-defined minimum parameters. These specific parameters are an antecedent of at least three seconds; a transition with a fall of minimum 30 decibels (dB); and, finally, an audiovisual silence entity between three and ten seconds (Rodríguez, La dimensión Sonora del lenguaje audiovisual, 151). This combination of parameters, which is a configured sonorous form, produces an auditory relaxation sensation that is equivalent to silence (or popularly and perceptively interpreted as such).

64 See note 57 above.

65 See also the substitution of audiovisual silence in film for hyper-dialogue in Wilkins, “The Sounds of Silence: Hyper-Dialogue and American Eccentricity.”.

66 Fennessey, “First Man”.

67 As noted by an academic colleague. I am grateful for all contributions by others, including those that are anonymous, and for Kirsty Morgan’s assistance with the translation, which has added valuable nuances and improved the essay.

68 See note 6 above, 134–135.

69 See note 53 above, 313.

70 Lucas, George, dir. Star Wars. Lucasfilm; Twentieth Century Fox, 1977 is an example, but this applies to the entire saga.

71 Howard, Ron, dir. Apollo 13. Universal Pictures, 1995.

72 See note 53 above, 313.

73 Chazelle states that, “in Neil’s case, a man who suffers such a profound loss that in some ways you understand that his thoughts wind up just going to space, going to the broader universe and maybe searching for answers that he just can’t find here on Earth.” (Martin, “Oscar-Winner Damien Chazelle Talks About His New Film ‘First Man’.”).

74 VanDenburgh, “First Man.”

75 Chazelle says, “the one other thing I’ll say, though, is that it was really important to us to try also to, wherever possible, focus on the untold story and things that people didn’t see and didn’t know, and take a very personal, subjective angle on these sort of big historical events in between the things that you read about in the history books” (Martin, “Oscar-Winner Damien Chazelle Talks About His New Film ‘First Man’.”).

76 See note 25 above.

77 See note 26 above.

78 See note 61 above.

79 Bruneau, “Communicative Silences,” 20.

80 Beltran, Ambientación musical, 46.

81 See note 35 above,” 60.

82 Ibid., 59.

83 See note 79 above, 37.

84 Jaworski, The Power of Silence, 105.

85 Ramírez, “El significado del silencio y el silencio del significado,” 33.

86 Ibid.

87 Maeterlinck (1986, 1–17) quoted by Corbin, Història del silenci, 87.

88 See not 24 above, 1924.

89 Ibid.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Daniel Torras i Segura

Daniel Torras i Segura is associate professor of audiovisual at TecnoCampus (UPF), Barcelona. He has published widely on audiovisual silence, its psychoacoustic nature, and narrative uses in films. He is the editor of the academic Journal of Sound, Silence, Image and Technology and is member of several Scientific Committees of international conferences focused on soundtrack. His research group (SSIT) organizes biannually the Perspectiva Sonora international conference.