Found in: Filmic 2018
The Sound of Suspense
Image: Sorcerer

The Sound of Suspense

Filmic 2018

Season

Please note : this season finished in March 2018

Suspense – that magical in-between time of prolonged anticipation – is the hallmark of some of cinema’s most iconic moments.

Whilst there are many techniques filmmakers can use to suspend an audience - to have them clinging to what has already been revealed, whilst forming their own expectations of horrors to come - one of the most interesting and effective is the use of sound. What is heard, what is silenced or concealed, and how it is composed can enhance and contribute to our increasingly anxious feelings - when we know that a proverbial cinematic bomb has been set, right up until the agonising moment of it going off.

As part of Filmic – our annual look at the creative connections across film and music – throughout March we’ll be immersing ourselves in some of cinema’s most suspenseful soundscapes.

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Previous screenings in this season

Inception

classified 12A The Sound of Suspense
Inception
Please note: This was screened in March 2018
Film

Christopher Nolan’s smart, moving and intellectual thriller about dream invasion set a new bar for cerebral blockbusters and with Hans Zimmer’s score a new sonic direction in what we think of as the sound of suspense.

Sorcerer

classified 15 The Sound of Suspense
Sorcerer
Please note: This was screened in March 2018
Film

Sorcerer William Friedkin’s breathtakingly visceral thriller is a supremely tense study in psychological breakdown and contains a soundtrack by German electronic outfit Tangerine Dream that has the ability to ratchet-up the suspense with every turn of its synthesized screw.

Vertigo

classified PG The Sound of Suspense
Vertigo
Please note: This was screened in March 2018
Film

An immortal masterwork of music composition, composer Bernard Herrmann’s peerless score for Alfred Hitchcock’s timeless thriller set such a high watermark for cinematic suspense it’s left everything that’s followed feeling a dizzyingly long way down in comparison.

Don't Look Now

classified 15 The Sound of Suspense
Don't Look Now
Please note: This was screened in March 2018
Film

An exceptionally unsettling score by Italian composer Pino Donaggio underlies Nicholas Roeg’s haunting adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's supernaturally charged short story about a couple who relocate to Venice in an attempt to come to terms with the accidental death of their young daughter.

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