Audiovisual dissonance
Audiovisual dissonance (CHION 2009, 475) refers to a mismatch between what is heard and what is seen.
- The most effective instances of audiovisual dissonance take place when the audience (whether outside, or inside the film—see diegetic audience) is fooled by the source of the sound.
- Such clash between the visual and the aural is frequently used for creating comic effect, but it is also frequently found in horror cinema—for instance, when a character starts speaking with a voice that clearly do not belong to his/her own body (see acousmêtre, deacousmatization).
In this example from Jean Vigo's L'Atalante (1934, France), Père Jules momentarily believes that his own fingers produce the music only by touching the phonograph record... until he realizes that the music is actually performed by the young boy playing the accordion.
[A. D.]
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