Abstract
This study focuses on how speech, sound and music are used to signify physical and psychological aspects of the main protagonist of Gravity as she attempts to survive in space and eventually return to Earth. It uses Chion’s conceptualization of the voice in cinema (‘vocentrism’, ‘acousmatic sound’ and ‘on-the-air sounds’), Van Leeuwen’s Sound Semiotics (‘what sound says’) and Sonnenschein’s psychospatial framework of the Sound Spheres to deconstruct the multilayered soundscapes that are used to signify the character’s different subjective experiences of ‘terror’, ‘memories and reflection’, ‘dream states’ and ‘joy’.
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References
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Gabriel, G., Sonnenschein, D. (2016). Inner and Outer Worlds in the Film Gravity: A Multidisciplinary Approach. In: Greene, L., Kulezic-Wilson, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Sound Design and Music in Screen Media. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51680-0_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51680-0_8
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