Delicatessen – How to Tell a Story through Sound
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Note: This post contains some spoilers!
It’s been years now since cinephiles have been fighting over the endless debate as to whether the visuals are more important than the sounds in a film. I was one of those who favored the visuals and argued my case by merely citing the existence of silent films. I had watched films with great sound design like Apocalypse Now, Raging Bull, Wall-E, Dark Knight, but none of these films would have been rendered weaker without sound. And then I saw Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s (of ‘Amelie’ fame) and Marc Caro’s ‘Delicatessen’, and I stand corrected. The novelty of ‘Dilacatessen’, that sets it apart from the members of the illustrious list mentioned above lies in the fact that sound almost exclusively, actually drives the story forward in this film, despite Darius Khondji’s stunning cinematography. Make no mistake, I didn’t think the movie was great, good no doubt, but not really great, and yet it merits an exploration because of the great sound design.
There is an underlying motif of sound in the story. The first date of the protagonist Louison, who has just moved into the building and his love interest, Julie is an awkward affair, the feeling heightened by the various little noises like banging the kettle and chair, breaking of the vase, and ultimately culminating in a romantic blowing of the bump on Julie’s head by Louison. And why is this? Julie is blind as a bat without her glasses but plays the violin beautifully. Hearing is her strongest sense. Later we see that Louison plays a saw like a violin to great comic effect and in the resolution of the film at the very end, he has inspired the two mischievous boys to try it out as well. In fact, the final shot of the film is all four of them making music. The sky is cloudy and ominous in the beginning of the shot, but brightens up as they play.
A common sub-theme of the film is eavesdropping as different characters throughout the narrative use the hollow pipes in the building to listen to what other characters are talking about. There are a couple of beautiful scenes in the film involving Louison and Julie’s widower father’s woman Mademoiselle Plusse where they seem to be dancing through sound effects and music and with very minimal actual bodily movement. One character in the film, Aurore is trying to kill herself but fails each time. Her first attempt is aborted involuntarily by Louison, again through sound. Later in the film, when Aurore fails to kill herself a second time, she has a nervous breakdown, but we don’t hear her scream at the top of her lungs, which she does on a few occasions, but instead we hear the loud clangs and thuds of the furniture and objects she is flinging onto the street.
In another important beat in the film, a murder is set up and the communication between two individuals involved is done exclusively through the use of sound. Sound is also used to show who holds the power in this sequence. The sound of the footsteps of the weak characters in the sequence are taken away. A couple of devices that operate primarily through the use of sound – a rat whistle and a ‘bulshit meter’ keep popping up in the film. A string of empty tin cans is attached to the old deaf lady in the building so that her family can always track her down. An old man whose apartment is teeming with escargots and frogs is sleeping calmly through the cacophony of the frogs. A couple of mischievous kids wake him up with a rattle of empty steel utensils.
Sound is also used to transition between scenes on two occasions, both of which involve the “troglodytes” – a grain eating group of underground revolutionaries. When one of the “troglodytes” is shot, the news travels through the group by word of mouth as they are climbing up the building using toilet decloggers. In the climax, Louison is pushed into danger as he is unable to hear Julie over the loud noise of thunder. Later, the sound of water dominates our ears as the lovers have locked themselves in the bathroom and turned the taps on in order to die together to escape the wrath of Julie’s father. The two mischievous kids do something seemingly innocuous and we don’t hear them, but this later proves critical. When the antagonist dies at the end, the sounds are enhanced.
As in most good films, there are quite a few scenes where there is no dialog, but the difference is getting the point across using sound, rather than images. The film opens with some gritty visuals and howling wind and sharpening knives set the backdrop of the film for us. When Louison moves in and is dragging his heavy suitcases up the stairs, the creaking of the floors under him and the sounds of the reluctance of the luggage tell us that he may be in over his head in the situation rather than his facial expressions. When he unpacks, the little noises of his things from his old life with his ex-partner Livingston like his thumb dusting his hat or the monkey winding toy fill up the silence in his room and his life. The first time Louison meets Julie, almost nothing is said, but her footsteps are distinct and in a way, replace the silence in his life.
Probably one of the best sequences in the film is the one where the filmmakers show us what the different characters in the building are doing. There is not a single line of dialog and each person is given their own unique sound effect of the action they are undertaking at that moment. The antagonist is shown at one point – angry and pouting, but accompanying his anger is the searing of the cigarette he is smoking. When Julie has a nightmare, the sounds dominate over the visuals. When a key weapon, so to speak, is introduced, again it has a unique sound quality that matches it visuals. When the antagonist scares an old lady, he does this using some obscene sounds accompanying his sneering face. This method is used again later in the film as one of the troglodytes snarls as he checks if Mademoiselle Plusse is really a female, whom his gang has mistakenly kidnapped, and she in turn, snarls back at him with amazing hilarity.
Almost all the action in the film takes place in a single apartment building, and yet the directors use establishing shots of the building along with different sound effects to establish the mood of the following scene. They use thunder on a couple of occasions and a tolling bell when ominousness is required, or no sound effects but only romantic music when love needs to be established. The latter is used again, with a different piece of music when calm needs to be established after the long climax.
Many of the characters in the film, especially, some fringe ones, are assigned certain sounds that tell us we are about to watch them on screen. The story takes place in a rural sort of setting (online research tells me it is post-apocalyptic) and whenever the postman, who is supposed to be coming from the city is shown, we hear the bass rumble of his motorbike. We hear similar sounds when Louison just arrives. A train is heard when he is initially turned away by Julie’s father, who is also the owner of the building. There are low mooing sounds of cows heard at the two bachelors’ apartment, frogs at the old man’s place and of course the sharpening of knives for the butcher. In the climax when water overflows into every part of the building and thus into everyone’s lives, destroying almost everything they own, these sounds disappear and the only thing we hear is the gurgling, unifying water.
The only recognition Vincent Arnardi and Jérôme Thiault, who did the sound for the film got, was a nomination at the César Awards of France. Overall, the film got a few awards at this ceremony and a nomination at Britain’s BAFTA awards, but these were not in the category of sound. The fact that the Oscar committee has changed its sound awards on so many occasions showcases the stepchild treatment sound design gets from everyone, adding nothing but fuel to the visual versus sound debate.
Tags: Delicatessen, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Knowledgebase, Marc Caro, Sound Design, technical
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ArSENik –
Good one. Links to some youtube clips as an example would help us grasping your blog to the most.
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Thats a great read, and Im hoping will be a good watch (listen?) when I rent it. I have the background score cd of the movie ordered out of impulse years back, and it is weirdly fantastic, and I always wondered what the movie is about.
Also, seeing someone devote an entire article to review the sound design of a movie shows our film makers are actively improving every day. I dont think our directors pay enough attention or have enough knowledge of sound design (and background score) to make them properly enhance their movies.
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Hey, do you know that in Shakespeare’s day, people went to ‘listen’ to a play.
That, of course, was because sets were so sparse and dialogues were do good.
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Interesting! I have just seen one play in my life ‘The Moustrap’ based on Agatha Christie’s novel and it was beautiful with wonderful changing sets. Hope to see a shakespeare play one day, possibly Julius Caeser and hear ‘Et Tu Brute’ live!
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I love your posts, man. Hope you end up with a movie I’ve watched some day.
For sound design, watch Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love on earphones. You can feel, among other things, the sound running across the top of your neck from one ear to the other. It was amazing.
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Thanks. Lol.
Always wanted to watch Punch Drunk Love. Will make sure I watch it on headphones when I do.
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I should, however, warn you: the earphones make you feel a silence. It’s not like a silence in a normal movie. It is an empty, empty silence that lasts way too long.
This silence is why I don’t think much of the movie.
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My fav sound is of Old Monk being sipped neat in Apocalypse Now.
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