"The world speaks, I can only listen": Representations of Indigenous Collective Trauma through Film Sound Design
Date
2020-04
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Abstract
This research project investigates the role of film sound design in the representation of collective trauma in films about experiences and issues faced by Indigenous peoples. In filmmaking, sound is not only fundamental in providing an aura of realism and in evoking affective forces. It can also provide spectators with imagined sound worlds that represent diverse experiences through aural aesthetic elements that in turn create shades of meaning. A transcultural approach in this study integrates the corpus, placing film representations from different countries in conversation through the analysis of their aural compositions. The project analyzes three contemporary films released between 2013 and 2015: Charlie’s Country by director Rolf De Heer (Australia 2013), Rhymes for Young Ghouls by Jeff Barnaby (Canada 2013) and El Abrazo de la Serpiente by Ciro Guerra (Colombia 2015). The findings of this project establish the connection between aural elements, sound mixing, and factors in the representation of collective trauma, such as issues of space, memory, emotion, and expressions of physical pain. By addressing sound not as an isolated subject, but rather as embedded in a context that produces political representations of trauma, this project contributes to the growing understanding of the evocative potential of film sound.
Description
Keywords
Sound studies, Indigenous studies, Trauma studies
Citation
Cancino González, B. I. (2020). "The world speaks, I can only listen": Representations of Indigenous Collective Trauma through Film Sound Design (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.