Sound theory:

 Three mods of listening: Casual, Semantic and Reduced

 Casual listening: when you have to know the source of
the sound as in cause
 semantic listening: when you try to understand the
meaning behind the sound like language and code
 Reduced listening: verbal material, has to do with the
sound and sound itself, the traces, it is sound as an
object. It has to do with the material, the object. It
is very important because it produce meaning in the
mind of the other
 The voice is interesting, it belongs to us and does not
belong to us at the same time. We cannot locate it in our
body, it is the effect of mvt within myself and comes out of
my mouth and becomes a voice.
 In a certain way you can separate the voice from the body.
Here is where we go to Acoustic voices, as in the voice
without the body. It implicates that the voice can go
anywhere and to embody anything-It can be appropriated-
which is what the infant does with the voice of the mother
(Object petite a) because he associates her voice with
himself.
 Acousmetre, is something that can enter and go out of the
frame (sound wise) constantly we don’t know the source. Two
powers, panoptic and omniscience.
 Panoptic: power to be everywhere.
 Omniscience: power to know everything.
 Hollywood does not use female voice as a voice over, except
in rare cases. They do no place the voice of the female out
of the Degases.
 Hollywood will not give the female voice the discursive
mastery
 2 types of Voice over:
 One not part of the degases (non-diegetic)
 The other that is in the degases (Diegetic)
 Voice over is a voice which is occupying another space while
voice off is next to the screen
 Voice over occupies another dimension in space and time.
 In some films there is complete contradiction between the
V.O and the images (An Indian song) but these are very few
films, usually in classical cinema they do not contradict
 Parcel accousmetre when we hear the voice but cannot see the
lips (Apocalypse now) which makes wonder is the character
immortal is he not…
 The accousmeter voice can either be a voice off and a voice
over.
 Interiority in not control, exteriority in contract,
interiority is discursive potency; exteriority is discursive
impotency.
 We expect a beautiful woman to have a beautiful voice
because of something called synchrony
 The voice should match the body, so it would not be
detached from the body
 Master the discourse: she knows what to do, what to say,
she is a master of language
 Rozolato says that hearing out voice is considered as an
acoustic mirror joining the exterior and the interior. It
destabilizes out stability we are speaking as the subject
and hearing as the object.
 We can appropriate the female voice as either ours or as the
voice of the mother. We live in a patriarchal Society, the
voice of the mother introduces the child to his reflection
through the voice and the vision, he imitates his mother
even when she speaks he consider himself as he is speaking.
The first object that we change and model when we find
ourselves is the voice, the voice of the mother. The voice
of the mother if Object petite “a” because we try to get
what we lost in the womb. Later on with the langue and
through a series of several spit he knows he’s separate from
the mother. The man project everything that is bad is the
mothers voice and everything this is good is his good.
Everything that cannot be assimilated into the self is
projected to the external and everything that is assimilated
is projected internally and this is what we call slippage.
 Honerato classifies the female voice as a lost object
 The fathers voice is used to reverse the respective
position, as in the mother is the one who know and the child
does not, so he replaces that fact by situation the child in
the umbilical man and the mother outside of it
 The male is fully castrated because he is responsible in the
patriarchal system.

 Voice can have meaning (language) and no meaning (child)
 In the conversation there is separation of sound and image
(mime, telescope)
 The apparatus is the whole production team (director, dp,
sound, script etc…). Interiority is a weak position,
exteriority is strong position.
 Harry is strong because he was not talking he was only
listening, he is over hearing
 Over talking is voice over.
 We can associate harry with the apparatus because he can
listen, not speak and uses the machine to listen
 The only fear he has is someone more powerful than him…
which is God, he has a problem with anyone around him using
God’s name in vain.
 Paris Texas: the bridge scene: the crazy man had the voice
of God because he was preaching about sadoum and amoura from
the bible
 Any child to develop himself in society he has to have a
family. It is the foundation, it is what gives him a meaning
in society. He need to identify with the father figure.
After the industrial revolution family started to
disintegrate because everyone started to work. Paris Texas
is about a disintegrated family
 The film start with Travis wandering in the desert just like
Jesus
 “And for the first time, he wished he were far away. Lost in
a deep, vast country where nobody knew him. Somewhere
without language or streets. And he dreamed about this place
without knowing its name. And when he woke up”. We acquire
language in the symbolic. The real is what resisted
representation. Before the symbolic there is the imaginary.
When they looked at each other there was fusion of the
subject and object (faces joined) which represent the mirror
phase, before the child could not speak, and they only spoke
when they did not look at each other. Fusion is joining the
object and the subject which is a miss recognition. This
shows Travis is stuck in the mirror phase, even when he
tried to enter the symbolic he failed, he has a
psychological problem “Foreclosure”, he is foreclosed in the
 mirror stage because he could not identify with the father
cause his father use to make fun of his mother “Paris
Taxes”. He is searching for his origins in Paris Texas that
is even his first word that he said in the film. When you
join the object and the subject we call it Symbiosis.
 Paris taxes represents the origins in 2 ways… it is where
Travis was conceived and it is like a baby… blank like a
baby. The first words Travis said was Paris Texas which is
the origins. The crazy man Preaching he is talking about a
world that exist today in the western word where there is no
Family, everyone is following his desire, they want a car,
Jacuzzi etc… it’s a materialistic world. Even the parents
are no longer taking care of their children due to the
economic situation so both of them are working… but he was
preaching no one, because no one heard him… this film
discuses a broken family but they are not evaluated enough
to raise a family.