Sound effects/sound affects: ‘Meaningful’ noise in the cinema

Abstract

Every sound has meaning, but some sounds seem more meaningful than others. In the real world, the separation of significant sound from inconsequential background noise is always done-consciously or not-by us. In the fictional world of narrative cinema, the separation is typically done by the filmmakers. This chapter explores artificial sounds that, in the context of cinema, are interpreted by audiences as real as well as sounds that in the cinema somehow seem much more than real. It deals, too, with sonic symbolism and with sonic double entendres. But the chapter’s primary focus is ‘special’ sound of the sort that has figured into cinema since the advent of three-dimensional Dolby stereo and which is used not just for effect but for potent affect.