The sound of the unsound: the role of film sound design in depicting schizophrenia and schizophrenic hallucination in<i>The Soloist</i>

Selway, Matt

doi:10.1080/20551940.2019.1576007

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Prescott's synthesising and processing of all these events is thus also distorted, elucidating his growing despotic and pathological worldview in his psyche, marking a common application for the distortion technique in film, deployed as a means of representing and characterising pathology and mental illness (for an account of the historical origins of this technique shifting from radio to film see Carolyn. and Siewert 2013, and for a contemporary case study interpreting this technique in relation to of mental health representation (specifically, schizophrenia) see Selway, 2019).…”

Section: Walker Brady and 'European Imagination'mentioning

confidence: 99%

The soundtrack of a leader: scoring a psychological portrait of megalomania

Selway

2020

Journal for Cultural Research

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article presents an analysis of the original score for the 2015 film The Childhood of a Leader, which was composed by the enigmatic and reclusive popstar-turned-avant-garde-experimentalist Scott Walker. In particular, the analysis here considers that important function that Walker's score plays in illuminating the central protagonist's evolving megalomaniacal state. The film's narration of a would-be Fascist leader's childhood is punctuated and enhanced by Walker's challenging and aggressive composition, which aurally complements and symbolises the growing disquiet in the youngster's mind. Focussing firstly on the significant influence of European art and culture on Walker's musical style and the role of European cinema and aesthetics in Brady Corbet's direction of the film, the understanding of Walker's sonic techniques and their use in the film become contextualised with a specific grounding in 'European Imagination'. The article also explores the combination of sound and images through conceptual and theoretical notions such as Gilles Deleuze's 'any-space-whatever'; the use of avantgarde sound techniques such as cacophony and distortion in the composition and sound mixing; before concluding with a textual analysis of the film's primary creative mode of aligning music to the characterisation of a megalomaniacal mind.

show abstract

Section: Walker Brady and 'European Imagination'mentioning

confidence: 99%