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DIALOGUE AND SOUND 129
of the simultaneous images (type III, a and b) . Yet these examples confirm the rule because they involve sound merely as a symbolic entity designed to transmit near-verbal communications. Sound there substitutes for language, up to a point. (Incidentally, commentative noises may, for comic effect, parallel verbal statements referring to them. For instance, a screen character mentions a storm and at this very moment you hear a storm howling. In this case the storm noises function like duplicative images; they illustrate the verbal reference to the storm in exactly the same manner as does a shot of the Eiffel Tower the word Paris.)
With noises, then, "synchronism" is a prerequisite of parallelism. We see a dog and hear it barking. For reasons of artistic economy Clair objects to parallelism to the extent that it entails a duplication of effects: "It is of little importance to hear the noise of applause if one sees the hands which applaud."40 Nor is parallelism always in accordance with the way in which we actually perceive sounds. The range of an individual's acoustic impressions is a variable of his psychological condition. Here belongs Pudovkin's observation that a cry for help in the street will keep us from registering the noises of the cars and buses before our eyes. But what if the traffic noises are nevertheless inserted? Such excess sounds occur in many a film. Parallelism handled mechanically runs the risk of falsifying reality as we experience it.
On the whole, however, parallel synchronous sound is as acceptable aesthetically as is parallel synchronous speech in films in which the visuals set the tune. Clair's criticism of duplicative parallelism is not entirely fair. For one, he endorses sound film and yet fails to indicate that duplicative noises are unavoidable in it. In addition, his objection to them is overscrupulous, as can be inferred from his own example: the noise of applause may be unimportant, but it does certainly not lessen the spectator's interest in the applauding hands. Duplicative sounds might even work like an appropriate musical accompaniment, causing us to commune more intensely with the pictures.
COUNTERPOINT
Synchronism "Synchronous" sounds relating contrapuntally to the images of their source (type II) open up aspects of material reality not implied by the images themselves. In the dialogue scene of Othello the footfalls of Iago and the Moor do not just duplicate what we see anyway but markedly contribute to make us really see it. Similarly, in the last episode of Paisan the cry of the forlorn infant tottering among the corpses adds something to the image of him. A crude utterance of helpless dread and extreme despair, it belongs among those "characteristic" sounds which Flaherty meant when he spoke of "the hiss of the wind in the North." In