Abstract
This chapter takes up the relation between sound design and subject positioning by exploring cinematic moments that dramatically stage point-of-audition sound, focusing on several films that ask audiences to listen to the sound of violence. In films such as Saving Private Ryan, Three Kings, The Pianist, There Will Be Blood, Children of Men, and Cop Land, point-of-audition sound is foregrounded through moments of trauma, when the sound of violence ruptures the hearing of characters, thereby testing the limits of aural interpellation. The chapter argues that listening to violence on screen may be heard most clearly, ironically, when hearing itself is endangered—both within the frame for characters suffering from their loss of hearing and beyond to an audience subjected to that very same loss.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Adorno, T. W. (1976) Introduction to the Sociology of Music, trans. E.B. Ashton (New York: Continuum).
Altman, R. (1992) ‘Sound Space’ in R. Altman (ed.) Sound Theory/Sound Practice (New York: Routledge), 46–64.
Branigan, E. (1984) Point of View in the Cinema: A Theory of Narration and Subjectivity in Classical Film (Berlin: Mouton Publishers).
Chion, M. (1994) Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen, ed. and trans. by C. Gorbman (New York: Columbia University Press).
———. (2009) Film, A Sound Art, trans. by C. Gorbman (New York: Columbia University Press).
Farley, S. (2012) ‘Ideas in Sound Design: Deprivation and Barriers—Part 2’, Designing Sound: Art and Technique of Sound Design, March 9, http://designingsound.org/2012/03/ideas-in-sound-design-deprivation-and-barriers-part-2/, date accessed 28 November 2014.
Ihde, D. (1976) Listening and Voice: A Phenomenology of Sound (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press).
Lastra, J. (2000) Sound Technology and the American Cinema: Perception, Representation, Modernity (New York: Columbia University Press).
Kassabian, A. (2008) ‘Rethinking Point of Audition in The Cell’ in J. Beck and T. Grajeda (eds) Lowering the Boom: Critical Studies in Film Sound (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press), 299–305.
Scarry, E. (1985) The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World (New York: Oxford University Press).
Sledge, E.B. (2007) With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa (New York: Ballantine Books).
Sobchack, V. (2000) ‘The Violent Dance: A Personal Memoir of Death in the Movies’ in S. Prince (ed.) Screening Violence (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press), 110–124.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Grajeda, T. (2016). Listening to Violence: Point-of-Audition Sound, Aural Interpellation, and the Rupture of Hearing. 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_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51680-0_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-51679-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-51680-0
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)