The Alienated Male: Silence and the Soundtrack in New Hollywood

Abstract

In this chapter, I explore the audible link between masculinity, silence and soundtrack by focusing on a selection of silent, alienated male characters from renowned New Hollywood films. In this discussion, the ‘type’ of silence I often refer to is that described by Paul Théberge as ‘a kind of silence that is produced when, for example, music is allowed to dominate the soundtrack while dialogue and sound effects – the primary sonic modes of the diegetic world – are muted’. I explore the specific use of silence in these texts as well as the ways in which non diegetic music and diegetic sound are used to express meanings not divulged by the male characters, due to their limited dialogue. I argue that this acoustic construction contributes to a projected sense of alienation of male characters and that it can also be linked to the blurring of gender boundaries often accounted for by the counter-culture movements taking place in America throughout the 1960s and 1970s.