Sound, image and fake realism

This article aims to highlight the conventional semiotic processes linking sound to image in audiovisuals. Examples drawn from contemporary cinema apply the sound dimension as a field of experimentation, attempting to find what can be defined as the ‘intrinsic iconic properties’ of sound. The article’s focus is on the continuum between realism and anti-realism in the audiovisual sound/image relation, as well as on the association/dissociation between sound and image as a terrain for unusual narrative possibilities. The fashion for using the sound dimension in audiovisuals further underlines its constructed and artificial character, as it constantly searches for a relationship with an ‘authentic reality’.