This event combines a lecture by Martin Parker entitled What is Sound Design? followed by a screening of Andrei Tarkovsky's Mirror. It is part of BEA's film course, In a New Light.

Martin's lecture explores audio-vision and in particular, how sound is used in film contexts. It will introduce the concepts and terms commonly employed in the discussion and analysis of sound design and will examine how sound and image interact to make an experience that has the potential to be far more complex than either one of these elements working on their own.

Film: Mirror (Tarkovsky)

Tarkovsky's Mirror (1975) is a particularly atmospheric work and seems to express itself in dream-like language, rather than a linear narrative. Sound is integral to this expressive approach. Tarkovsky described it thus: "Cinema in general always creates a possibility of putting pieces together into a whole. A film consists after all of separate shots like a mosaic — of separate fragments of different colour and texture. And it may be that each fragment on its own is — it would seem — of no significance. But within that whole it becomes an absolutely necessary element, it exists only within that whole. That's why cinema is important to me in the sense that there is not, there cannot be any fragment in film which wouldn't be thought through with an eye for the final result. And each individual fragment is coloured so to speak with a common meaning by the entire whole. That is, the fragment does not function as an autonomous symbol but it exists only as a portion of some unique and original world. That's why Mirror is in a sense closest to my theoretical concept of cinema."

The lecture will start at 1.30 pm and will last 1 hour. There will then be a 15-minute break before the screening, which will take place at 2.45 pm. After the screening, there will be a Q&A/discussion, and the session finishes by 5pm.

This course is made possible by the generous support of Berwick Film Society and The Maltings.

By booking online, you will supply us with your personal data, which we will hold in accordance with our privacy policy, available here