Mickey Mousing
Mickey Mousing is one of the most well-established practices in post-synchronization. Mickey Mousing has existed since the inception of silent film, when an improvised live musical accompaniment was performed during the screening. As implied by its name, it derives from the practice developed in the 1930s in the animated cartoon industry (hence the reference to Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse) for providing musical scores mimicking in perfect synchronism the visual action on screen. Because frequently associated with silent film or early sound film practices, Mickey Mousing is often dismissed as a primitive, redundant practice, in that the musical accompaniment simply overemphasizes what is already shown on screen; yet it can be used for comic purposes with great efficiency, and still today, it remains a technique greatly favored by Hollywood mainstream musical practices: see xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
- The legacy of Mickey Mousing as a practice born during the silent film era is well perceptible in this excerpt from Herk Harvey's Carnival of Souls (USA, 1962). Mary, the heroin, gets out of her room as if in a state of trance. The action is here stricly pantomimic: the nondiegetic pipe organ music is not only perfectly synchronized to her movements, but it also seems to be the force driving Mary's action—as if the music were dictating, through its own rhythm and melody, her motions. Of course, such a reading considerably complicates the usual understanding of a nondiegetic music supposed to be located outside the diegesis of the film, thus remaining unheard for, and having no incidence on the diegetic characters. It reveals the limitations of the binary diegetic/nondiegetic: in this case, Mary is certainly not aware of the music (the simplistic explanation of "Mary hears this music in her head" should be by all means avoided), yet we, the nondiegetic audience, are aware of it, and more importantly of the compelling drive this music exerts on her.
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