Filmic gibberish : Chaplin's villains

• Main Author: Ang, Don Meng Hui
• Other Authors: Brian Keith Bergen-Aurand
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Visual arts and music::Film; DRNTU::Humanities::Ethics
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/52188
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Film sound scholarship over the past decades has focused primarily on issues such as sound technology, dialogue, sound style, and even silence. Such may be what one calls an ‘official’ history of film sound. However, Michel Chion suggests that scholars should begin looking at the ‘hidden’ spaces in film sound scholarship, and bring attention to ‘mutations’ in film sound. Gibberish is identified in this paper as one of such ‘hidden’ space. Investigation into the use of gibberish in film reveals that there have been little studies in this field. As the pioneer in using gibberish in film, Charlie Chaplin has chosen to use gibberish in the first three films that he produced since the advent of synchronised sound – City Lights, Modern Times, and The Great Dictator. Studies of gibberish in these films suggest that gibberish is used by Chaplin only as a statement of his resistance against synchronised sound in film. However, this paper will suggest that Chaplin’s use of gibberish not only serves as a statement of his resistance against synchronised sound in film, it also has the potential to vilify the character that speaks gibberish. In this direction, this paper will provide definitions for three forms of filmic gibberish, explore how gibberish has the potential to vilify characters, as well as interrogate the relationship that such vilification has with film ethics.