Film can compel us to listen. The idea to listen begins with the idea of the film.
Berberian Sound Studio [2012] dir. Peter Strickland
Filmmaker Peter Strickland understands the unique interplay between image and sound in film:
"I learnt from the age of 16 that you could convey an inner world after hearing Alan Splet’s sound design on Eraserhead. I also soon realised that it’s rare to find film people who are also music people or vice versa. It’s so strange — you could meet someone into Feher Gyorgy or Béla Tarr, but they listen to very middle-of-the-road music. So I was aware of this unexplored niche in terms of informing film with a whole new world of sonic ideas. Hearing is a far more active human sense than sight. As a filmmaker, your potential to ignite an audience’s imagination is far greater through using sound. With images, most of the work is done for us, but with sound, you´re filling in the gaps and that is very exciting and provocative for an audience. Sound also offers the spatial dimension that the image can’t always do. Bresson gave us a whole outside world in A Man Escaped, and we yearn for it even more since we’re trapped inside a cell." - Portrait of a Soundscapist: An Interview with Peter Strickland