Headphones, Cinematic Listening, and the Frame of the Skull

Abstract

Abstract This chapter explores what happens when we use headphones to listen to movies? What happens when a film’s sonic world is no longer part of a shared world? What are the political and philosophical consequences of an aesthetic experience that feels like it unfolds inside our heads? The effects are deeper than we might think. Gone is the robust, full-bodied experience of cinematic sound, the registration of vibrations in the gut, the feet. Gone is the lack of control over volume and intrusive chatter from candy wrapper-rattling audience members. Gone is the importance of the proximity of speakers, or the placement of speakers behind the screen to create the illusion that sounds issue primarily from their visual source. Perhaps most importantly, if the sound occurs inside the listener, rather than the listener occurring in the space of the sound, then gone is the sense of being immersed in a sonic environment. In this chapter I first sketch the history of film sound technology, as well as theories of film sound experience, in order to not only demonstrate just how radical the use of headphones to listen to movies is, but also to reclaim an original dream of cinematic listening. Then I make the case for considering headphonic sound as a formal structure by describing an aesthetic mode—what I call intracranial aesthetics—that curiously suits headphones. These aims come together in a consideration that headphonic listening may, ultimately, constitute a new medium of cinema.