VIII

		good example of this approach can be found in Muriel (Alain Resnais, 1963). There the linear narrative is often interrupted by views of Boulogne, a city rebuilt after World War II, with its mostly graceless landscapes, buildings standing next to ruins, streets empty of human life. Although the characters themselves may not see it that way, absorbed as they are with trying to remember their own past, the discordant notes played on top of these images suggest a life cut off from its roots.

		Further up on the scale, one cannot fail to notice the more jolting tactics used by Jean-Luc Godard and Marguerite Duras in several of their films. In the first scene of Weekend (1967), for example, Godard pumps the music up and down several times even though nothing visually justifies such a move. As a result, we become very aware of its functioning as a signifier. Duras similarly does not hesitate to call upon music without having any psychological or aesthetic reasons. She explains: ''In the cinema that falsifies, music accompanies the pictures, dresses them up, shows them up. . . . In [my films] it arrives authentically, like day or night." 51 If nothing else, these extreme examples point to the fact that there is plenty of room between movie Muzak and radical experiments.

		One last point. I have mentioned earlier in this book that one should think of staging when writing the screenplay for a film. Similarly, Eisler suggests that music be composed during the writing of the screenplay. By that he does not mean that a composer should be writing blind, but rather that one should be thinking of the music (specific pieces, types, instruments, or uses) from the very beginning of the project instead of leaving the job to the last minute, putting it in the hands of a stranger. More than that, the entire audio, including "off screen" sounds, would benefit from being incorporated into the very thinking of a film.

		VI

		Does it matter whether the dialogue is recorded at the time of the shoot or dubbed in later? Does it make a difference whether the sounds we hear are pure or ameliorated? There is no easy answer to these questions, for dubbing a film is advantageous as well as counterproductive for the independent filmmaker. Let us start with the professional way of doing things. Here, "the goal in initial recording is to record every sound at the optimal quality, no matter what it is supposed to sound like in the final film."52 This of course means shooting in a controlled environment, e.g., a sound