Jenn Thảo Nguyễn

E&H’s sixth chapter, Cinema as the Ear, Acoustics and Space, introduced several compelling dimensions of sound studies. One key concept was the spatial distinction between the 2-D image and 3-D sound, showing how recorded sound retains its dimensionality, whereas photography flattens its visual subject. Sound’s haptic quality — its transmission through frequency waves in space — offers a more direct engagement with phenomenology. Unlike visual stimuli, cinematic sound extends beyond the screen, physically touching the viewer, especially through technologies like Dolby Atmos or the visceral bass of composers like Hans Zimmer.

The ‘Walkman experience’ is vividly rendered in Her (Spike Jonze, 2013), where sound forms a comfort bubble evocative of the maternal womb. Rewatching it twelve years after its release, what once felt speculative now reads as uncannily real. Theo’s earbud and OS Samantha are no longer futuristic novelties. The film recalls Bazin’s reflections on cinema’s myth of total realism, prompting us to consider how imagined cinematic worlds often materialize off-screen — enacting a strange reversal of Bazin’s myth. Technological progress marks an objective temporality, and when cinema anticipates reality with such eerie precision, it invites reflection on its prophetic indexicality.

One of the most striking insights from E&H, in my view, was the idea that sound and image are mutually untrustworthy, yet dependent on each for validation. This dynamic introduces a kind of aural-visual dialectic, suggesting that we, as spectators, subconsciously engage in a continuous process of sense-making — seeking coherence between sound and image despite their inherent unreliability. What especially interests me is how viewers register this “untrustworthiness”. How might disruptions — like desynchronized voice and body — move beyond cinematic technique to offer commentary on perception in the real world? Take the narrative voiceover: it functions much like an internal monologue, a form of inner speech or self-talk untethered from a visible body. But for those who say they experience no internal monologue, how do they engage with these disembodied cinematic voices? Their experience might offer an intriguing lens into how sound shapes narrative subjectivity — a question I’d be interested in pursuing further.