HENRIQUE ROCHA DE SOUZA LIMA

Cartographic Soundtrack:
Voice, Sound and Music
in Birdman

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Some cinema theories conceive film as a kind of cartographic technology. soundtrack
This status is attributed to the film’s capacity to trigger a specific mode of cinema
logical reasoning, which is based on the semiotic category of diagram (Conley listening
2007; Deleuze 1985). This paper focuses on the status of sound within these semiotics
diagram
theoretical perspectives, in which the soundtrack is conceived as an expansion
space
of the space implicated in the image, implying an expansion of narrative
philosophy
potential. The concept of cartographic soundtrack here refers to the soundtrack’s Birdman
potential to map the elements of a ‘mental geography’ (Conley 2007). This
concept is articulated as a critical operator in an analysis of the soundtrack
of Birdman (2014), a film that performs diverse modes of placing voice, sound
design and music in the context of a soundtrack. The analysis approaches
the soundtrack from both compositional and aesthetical points of
view, by evaluating a set of intrinsic features of this soundtrack, as well as
some controversies involving its reception by institutional contexts, namely
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The paper intends
to contribute with a discussion on the problem of the need for suitable criteria
when it comes to evaluate soundtracks, as well as to new ways to think
cinematic listening.

The New Soundtrack 7.2 (2017): 137–151

DOI: 10.3366/sound.2017.0105
# Edinburgh University Press and Henrique Rocha de Souza Lima
www.euppublishing.com/sound
 Cartographic Soundtrack 151

Peirce, Charles S. [1903] (1998), ‘A syllabus of certain topics of logic’,

in N. Houser et al. (ed.), The Essential Peirce: selected philosophical
writings (1893–1913), Vol. 2, Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
pp. 258–289.
Plaza, Julio (2003), Tradução Intersemiótica, São Paulo: Perspectiva.
Stjernfelt, Frederik (2007), Diagrammatology: an investigation on the
borderlines of phenomenology, ontology, and semiotics, Dordrecht:
Springer.

CONTRIBUTOR’S DETAILS
Henrique Rocha is a PhD candidate at the Department of Music at
the University of São Paulo, Brazil. His research is dedicated to construct
the concept of ‘Listening Design’ as a critical category in the field of art
production and research. He is a composer and sonic artist, author
of soundtracks for two short films, radio works and several theatre plays.
He holds a Master’s degree in Philosophy, with a dissertation on the
relationship between Deleuze and Guattari’s work and the art of music.
Contact: hrsouzalima@gmail.com