An Introduction to Film

walking along a sidewalk may have been con-
structed by Foley artists in a sound studio after
filming was completed, but the source of that sound
is implied to be on-screen—created by the charac-
ter while walking.
The descriptive terms that are used to describe
the source of a movie sound are diegeticor non -
diegetic, on-screenor offscreen, and internalor exter-
nal. Table 9.2 summarizes how these terms relate
to each other, and the discussion that follows pro-
vides the details.

Diegetic versus Nondiegetic

As you know from the “Story and Plot” section in
Chapter 4, the word diegesis refers to the total
world of a film’s story, consisting perceptually of
figures, motion, color, and sound. Diegetic sound
originates from a source within a film’s world;
nondiegetic soundcomes from a source outside
that world. Most diegetic sound gives us an aware-
ness of both the spatial and the temporal dimen-
sions of the shot from which the sound emanates;
most nondiegetic sound has no relevant spatial or
temporal dimensions. For example, the electronic
music that plays during the opening sequence of

Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining(1980) is completely

nondiegetic: we’re not supposed to assume that the

music is coming from the sky, or playing on the car

radio, or coming from any location in the scene on-

screen (see page 389).

Diegetic sound can be either internal or external,

on-screen or offscreen, and recorded during pro-

duction or constructed during postproduction. The

most familiar kind of movie sound is diegetic, on-

screen sound that occurs simultaneously with the

image. All of the sounds that accompany everyday

actions and speech depicted on-screen—footsteps

on pavement, a knock on a door, the ring of a

telephone, the report from a fired gun, ordinary

dialogue—are diegetic.

Nondiegetic sound is offscreen and recorded dur-

ing postproduction, and it is assumed to be inaudi-

ble to the characters on-screen. The most familiar

forms of nondiegetic sound are musical scores and

narration that is spoken by a voice that does not

originate from the same place and time as the char-

acters on the screen. When Redmond Barry (Ryan

O’Neal) attracts the attention of the countess of

Lyndon (Marisa Berenson) in Stanley Kubrick’s

Barry Lyndon(1975; sound: Robin Gregory and Rod-

ney Holland) during a visually magnificent scene

396 CHAPTER 9SOUND

Diegetic Nondiegetic

Sound Sound

Spatial and

temporal awareness

Produces spatial awareness X

Produces temporal awareness X X

Source of sound

Internal X

External X

On-screen X X

Offscreen X X

Simultaneous X

Nonsimultaneous X X

TABLE 9.2 Sources of Movie Sound

Diegetic sound in actionIn John Schlesinger’s Midnight

Cowboy(1969), right after stepping in front of an oncoming

car (which screeches to a halt and honks its horn), “Ratso”

Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman, right) interrupts his conversation

with Joe Buck (Jon Voight, left) to shout one of the most

famous movie lines of all time: “I’m walkin’ here!” Even

surrounded by everyday Manhattan pedestrian and traffic

noise, Rizzo’s nasal voice and heavy “Noo Yawk” accent help

characterize him as the extremely eccentric and comic foil

to Buck, a new and unseasoned arrival in the big city.