Spillane, by John Zorn: Aural Cinema and the Lettrist Legacy

John Zorn’s interest in Mickey Spillane, the master of hardboiled novels, or what might be called postpulp, is fascinating and brings to the fore lesser-known issues in literature, music, and experimental cinema. Based on the 1987 release of Spillane and the 1999 CD edition of Godard/Spillane, this work aims to explore the notion of “aural cinema” as introduced by the composer in the liner notes to G/S, and the influence of Lettrism, an avant-garde artistic movement of the 1940s, on the building and development of such a concept. In our view, aural cinema opens up the field of possibilities for experimental film and a cinema without images by placing the emphasis on aural perception and speech rather than on the filmed image. However, as much as Godard and others have contributed to this new cinema of the ear, there is an overwhelming neglect of the true perpetrators of this paradigm shift: the Lettrists and the Lettrist legacy.