XI

		would have been inconceivable to challenge Sawyer's conception of good sound. Although mixing is not as systematic nowadays, there remains the fact that the technicians who work there never leave their den. They tend to be a conservative bunch, suspicious of foreign films and different aesthetic approaches. Naturally, they bring to work the only standards and conventions they are familiar with.

		To sum up, it is at the mix that the world of film is usually made whole through the presence of the ambiance track under the sound effects. It is at the mix that the danger inherent in a separate point of audition for the dialogue is alleviated, that music is superimposed over the most troublesome remaining passages, that all the traces of inscriptions and manipulations by the different technicians are erased. It is here that picture/sound discrepancies are smoothed over. Photographs of the mixing apparatus in sound magazines, showing a smoothly shaped, polished long bench with hundreds of identical switches, marvelously express the rational imperative of the entire project. As for the well-groomed, well-behaved re-recording mixers, they are usually shown sitting diligently next to their desks. Out of sight though, hidden underneath the elegant, glossy console, is a jungle of wires, actual chaos, complete anarchy Babel! What all of this points to is that mixing is an ideological operation as well as a technical one. This is where a decent film can lose its freshness, its distinctness. This is where the discordant notes struck by a director can be recuperated by the industry. In the professional mix indeed, the idea is to equalize the gaps and variances that would make films more unique.

		IX

		While it is true that the audio track was originally added to the pictures as a kind of supplement on the margins of the film, it cannot be regarded any more as a mere accessory to film, something not vital to it. Very much in line with Derrida's argument in Of Grammatology, sound has shed its earlier subservience to the visuals to become their full-fledged parmer. 77 Clearly, today, one must approach a film on both fronts.

		To explain the difference, I would like to bring up two films where the relation between the pictures and the audio reaches far beyond the harmony one takes for granted. The first example is Las Hurdes (1932), the celebrated "documentary" Luis Bu uel made in Spain during the early thirties. In that film, the images portray the hard conditions of life in a