Scarlett Johansson's Body and the Materialization of Voice

Abstract

This article considers three science fiction films, released in 2013–14, featuring Scarlett Johansson:Her(dir. Spike Jonze),Lucy(dir. Luc Besson), andUnder the Skin(dir. Jonathan Glazer). It suggests that to engage with the phenomenon of voice in imaginative and productive ways it is necessary to slide over a disciplinary divide and address more explicitly the musicality of speech. In my main example,Her, Johansson provides the voice of an operating system with which the film's protagonist falls in love. Central to their intimate connection is the establishment of what I call the ‘haptic voice’, which conveys a sense of physical proximity. A similar blurring of the boundaries between voice and body occur in the presentation of the alien characters Johansson plays in the other films.