Acoustic ghosts and haunted landscapes in contemporary British landscape cinema

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Abstract

In “Invention, Memory, and Place,” Edward Said asserts that geography as a socially constructed concept can invest a geographical location with particular mythological significance and power through the creation of collective memory and narrative. Touching on theories gleaned from social geography, hauntology, acoustic ecology and trauma studies, this chapter draws on this idea in order to investigate the notion of fabricated cinematic narratives imposed on specific rural geographic locales through music and soundscape in British films such as Sunset Song (2005, Terence Davies) and Wuthering Heights (2011, Andrea Arnold). Rather than using landscape as a physical background for action, these films use representations of landscapes haunted by hyperreal soundscapes and musical ghosts in order to allow for a psychological engagement with these constructed environments.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationHaunted soundtracks. Audiovisual cultures of memory, landscape and sound
EditorsKevin Donnelly, Carol Vernallis , Aimee Mollaghan
PublisherBloomsbury Academic
Chapter9
ISBN (Electronic)9781501389566
ISBN (Print)9781501389559
Publication statusPublished - 05 Oct 2023

Publication series

NameNew Approaches to Sound, Music, and Media
PublisherBloomsbury

Keywords

  • hauntology
  • landscape
  • film sound
  • British Film
  • Terence Davies
  • Andrea Arnold
  • Wuthering Heights
  • Sunset Song
  • Trauma
  • Cultural Geography
  • acoustic ecology
  • Cinema

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