Sound Space of M.Garrone’s Films: from Fiction to Reality

Abstract

Modern cinema has a huge number of expressive means that
allows to represent a diegetic space in a certain kind of artistic convention.
One of such means is the attempt to create audiovisual relations that ensure
the reliability of the filmic action. Italian film director Matteo Garrone in
his works explores the possibilities of the soundtrack to form an audiovisual
space that would be organic to the chosen type of the artistic convention.
Working with different genres of conditionality, M.Garrone nevertheless
remains an adept of realistic style. It is particularly interesting to note that
Garrone’s realism is manifested in his films by the means of using plausible
sound, regardless of whether the documented outskirts of dirty Naples or
the embodied images of an ancient fairy tales are shown on the screen. We
can define such an attitude to sound treatment as audiovisual plausibility –
a strong correlation between imagetrack and soundtrack in every nuance of
their alterations.
The soundscape of M.Garrone’s films plays a fundamental role in the
formation of his realistic director style. In this article, the soundtracks of
three films by the Italian director (“Gomorra”, “Reality” and “Pinocchio”)
are examined from the point of view of the choice of audio-visual artistic
means, which allow him to physically materialize diegetic space. Sound gives
«corporeality» to both pseudo-documentary and fantastic type of narration