Stephanie Chuang

Professor Huck Hodges

Music 325

28 July 2020

Final Project - How a French Nobleman Got a Wife

The clip I’ve chosen is from a silent film titled ​How a French Nobleman Got a Wife

Through the New York Herald Personal Columns​. The film entails a French nobleman placing an

ad in the local newspaper for a wealthy woman to become his wife. His ad is answered by

several women who proceed to chase him all over the place. The portion of the film I’ve cut for

my project includes the French nobleman greeting several of the women, and then running away

from them.

The chase sequence of the film that I’ve selected for this clip is an extended montage of

the man being followed by several women across multiple types of terrain: concrete, grass, sand,

and shrubbery. The mise-en-scene for each shot of the chase is the same, just a man being chased

by a horde of women from the distance to up front in an innocuous setting. The direction of

chase is always from the top of the screen to the bottom, so when placed in order, a sense of

continuity is maintained through the different shots. The music I’ve chosen to play during this

specific chase sequence is Rimsky Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee. The repeating chromatic

melody of this piece makes this an empathetic, non-diegetic use of music. The music clearly

depicts a nervous franticness, matching that of the French nobleman on screen. As it works with

the linear chase sequence, though we never see how the characters move from terrain to terrain,

the repetitive, uninterrupted style of the music indicates that the different shots are of the same
event. Prior to the chase sequence, there is a brief scene of the man shaking hands with all of the

women until they become too numerous. During this, you can hear the women’s excited

clamoring and their exchange of greetings, clearly an on screen, diegetic sound. The moment we

cut to the chase, however, we no longer hear the sound of the women’s voices, just the music

that emulates the French nobleman’s emotions.

There are a few listening modes employed by audience members in the sound and music

of this clip. First there is semantic listening in the initial conversations between the Frenchman

and the women he greets. On top of that there is the background clamour that the viewer can try

to listen to, but will ultimately only be able to distinguish and understand certain words out of

context. Then there is causal listening, in the moments where we hear the Frenchman huffing and

running. Based on what visuals occur when those sounds happen, we as an audience can deduce

that the source of the sound is from what happened on screen. This would be audiovisual

manipulation of the viewer, because the sounds played didn’t actually come from the instance

depicted on screen. There is also the listening done when hearing the music, which doesn’t

appear to fit causal, semantic, or reduced listening, as the audience is not trying to find the cause,

linguistically interpret, or identify traits of the sound without regard to meaning. Thus, some of

the sounds and music of my clip fit the categories of sound listening described by Schaeffer, but

some don’t.

As far as classical aesthetics go, Aristotle believed that a good plot was tightly

constructed, propulsive, and strictly causal; art was a depiction of what life should be, and thus,

always made logical sense. A story was a chain of events, each chain necessary for the next. A

missing chain link meant that the story would fall apart. I believe that this theory is refuted in my
clip, particularly when it comes to the chase sequence. The power of montage and the consistent,

linear direction along with the audiovisual manipulation tells the viewer that the chase through

the concrete, grass, sand, and shrubbery are all of the same event. However, they are not

logically reliant on each other. If you took one of the shots out, the same idea of the French

nobleman being chased is still portrayed without loss. There is no rhyme or reason for the change

in scenery, and therefore they, along with the particular sounds corresponding with each scenery,

are not necessary for understanding. However, Aristotle’s idea is necessary for the beginning of

the clip. Without the information that the French nobleman had greeted so many women who

responded to his ad, the progression between that scene and the chase sequence wouldn’t make

sense. This also applies overall to the way I cut the scene out of the film. The dialogue inserted

into the film only includes basic greetings with no regard to reason, so from that alone, it’s not

possible to deduce why the women are meeting the French nobleman. In the original film, there

is a scene of the French nobleman actually putting the ad in the newspaper. Without that

information, visually or auditorily, there’s no explanation for why the French nobleman was

surrounded by women in the first place. From Plato’s point of view, all art is an imperfect

depiction of an already imperfect world. Plato would believe that this clip from the film was

purely for self gratification with ignorance towards the truth. In this case, the reality is perhaps

that no woman would actually want to marry the French nobleman, and that the film is a way to

imagine the possibilities that that weren’t true. A problem with lack of desirable women becomes

one of too many. In a perfect world where it would be easy to find the right spouse on the first

try, there would be no point to this film.

 In summary, the clip from ​How a French Nobleman Got a Wife Through the New York

Herald Personal Column​ uses montage and mise-en-scene to depict its story, along with both

diegetic and nondiegetic empathetic music. The viewer must use multiple listening modes when

paying attention to various sounds and music, though not all of the listening types fit easily into

Schaeffer’s categories. Lastly, the montage of the chase scene refutes Aristotle’s theory that if

you take out a part of the story, it won’t make sense, and plausibly fits with Plato’s theory of

stories being a wistful ignorance of reality.

 Appendix:

Music:

● Flight of the Bumblebee: ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYAJopwEYv8

Sounds:

● Female Greetings: ​https://freesound.org/people/bectec/sounds/351611/

● Excited Chatter: ​https://freesound.org/people/smithw027/sounds/146751/

● Neutral Hello: ​https://freesound.org/people/AmeAngelofSin/sounds/393592/

● 38 Greetings: ​https://freesound.org/people/envirOmaniac2/sounds/431176/

● Shrieks and Squeals: ​https://freesound.org/people/smithw027/sounds/146752/

● Male Fast Breathing: ​https://freesound.org/people/Artmasterrich/sounds/345435/

● Running through the woods: ​https://freesound.org/people/jone_oost/sounds/366711/

● Punching bag:

https://freesound.org/people/16FPanskaLipovska_Katerina/sounds/497916/