Sound and space in La hora de los hornos/The Hour of the Furnaces. Issue 1 (1st March 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Epplin, Craig
• Is Part Of: Studies in Spanish & Latin American cinemas. Volume 11:Issue 1(2014)
• Page Start: 25
• Page End: 41
• Publication Date: 2014-03-01
• Subjects: Motion pictures -- Spain -- Periodicals; Motion pictures -- Latin America -- Periodicals; 791.43094605
• DOI: 10.1386/slac.11.1.25_1
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2050-4837

Abstract

This article offers a detailed reading of the connections between sound and space in the 1968 film La hora de los hornos/The Hour of the Furnaces. Extant explorations of sound in this film tend to highlight the strategies of juxtaposition and commentary on the image track. Building on this scholarship, I propose that three uses of sound in particular – the narrative voice-over, dissonance with the image, and semi-diegetic music – correspond to the spatial imperatives of the film: its desire to forge alliances among disparate groups scattered throughout national and international space. This strategy is coherent with the express desire for the filmic experience to become a militant act, an intervention in the class war of 1960s Argentina. I conclude by positing that sonic elements together present an alternative to the vision-centric bias of critiques of late capitalism's dawn, something The Hour of the Furnaces shares with other representative films of same period in Latin America. Finally, I suggest that the analysis of sound in this film they highlights the sensorially embedded character of all filmic experience.