The great secret: silence, cinema and modernism
Abstract
‘What was given up in giving up the silence of film?’ This essay argues that what was ‘given up’ was never silence per se but rather forms of critical writing attentive to the expressive functions of silence within sound cinema. Although some major texts on film sound have addressed formal and structural aspects of silence (such as Eisenstein, Balázs, Burch, and Chion), there has been no attempt to articulate an intellectually coherent aesthetics of film silence. This essay traces the ‘invention of silence’ across a range of contexts: in ‘silent sound’ films of the early 1930s; in the spectre of the acousmêtre and the gestures of the mute character; and in the discontinuities, ellipses and gaps created by the European modernists (such as Antonioni, Bergman, Bresson, Godard, and Dreyer), and others. The question of silence is central – not marginal – to practices, theories, and histories of film sound, and to any serious consideration of the complex relations between cinema and modernism.
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Imperial/Modernist Forms in the Illustrated London News
Collier, P. (2012) · Modernism/modernity · doi:10.1353/mod.2012.0059 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
Silence as Elective Mutism in Minor Cinema
Shilina-Conte, T. (2021) · Film-Philosophy · doi:10.3366/film.2021.0165 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Nafafé, J. L. (2013) · Hispanic Research Journal · doi:10.1179/1468273712z.00000000032 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Cinematic Representation of Chinese-Indonesians’ Trauma in Jason Iskandar The Day The Sky Roared
Sutandio, A. (2019) · Lingua Cultura · doi:10.21512/lc.v13i4.6000 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
“The absence of dialogue adds to the anxiety and fear that the film generates through the expression of the characters, as Balazs in O’Rawe (2006) has stated that a silent glance can speak volumes.”
BackgroundAesthetics of Silence in Indian and International Cinema
Kumar, D. (2011) · Journal of Creative Communications · doi:10.1177/0973258613499096 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Being Inside Her Silence: silence and performance in Lynne Ramsay's Morvern Callar.
Artt, S. (2013) · Edinburgh Napier Research Repository (Edinburgh Napier University) · Cited by 2 · see citing works
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Peirse, A. (2009) · Studies in European Cinema · doi:10.1386/seci.5.3.161_1 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Creativity in lifelong learning: events and ethics
Beighton, C. (2013) · Create (Canterbury Christ Church University)
Compositions of crisis: Sound and silence in the films of Bergman and Tarkovsky
Pua, P. (2013) · ANU Open Research (Australian National University) · doi:10.25911/5d73954f429bb
“Also see O’Rawe (2006) and Pamerleau (2009).”
Administering Sonic Shock in Samson and Delilah
Barnes, A. (2017) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-319-48299-6_10
Fischer, L. (2015) · doi:10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0162
Bliss, L. (2020) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-45897-3_4
Nikos Kazantzakis’ Unshot Adaptations of Don Quixote and Decameron
Mini, P. (2021) · Classica Cracoviensia · doi:10.12797/cc.24.2021.24.05
“For reactions in Greece, see Mini 2010a. 15 O’ Rawe 2006: 396.”
BackgroundHumility and Greatness in Damien Chazelle’s First Man
Magerstädt, S. (2022) · Film-Philosophy · doi:10.3366/film.2022.0192
Tiwari, S. (2023) · International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR) · doi:10.21275/mr23811220356
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Theodoridou, E., & Kagias, V. (2024) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-55159-8_7
Framing silence in Southeast Anatolia: confined spaces, subdued bodies of women in Turkish cinema
Avci, D., Doğu, T., & Çağatay, G. (2025) · Gender Place & Culture · doi:10.1080/0966369x.2025.2578743
“Feminist scholars often study how media affects politics (Gross 2018, 508), and in cinema, ‘silence is not simply the absence of sound’ (O’Rawe 2006, 395).”
More Than a Crisis of Words: Women’s Silence in Katherine Anne Porter and Jhumpa Lahiri
Damásio, L. L. (2026) · Sustainable development goals series · doi:10.1007/978-3-032-15794-2_6
The Sanitization of the Night: Gentrification and the Everyday Temporal Politics in Belgrade
Dantzer, A. (2026) · City & Society · doi:10.1111/ciso.70038
- Authors
- O'Rawe, D.
- Venue
- Screen
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press (OUP)
- Published
- 2006-01-01
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 395-405
- ISSN
- 0036-9543 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-2474
- OpenAlex
- W2053553117
- Cited by
- 19
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 1 · 2017: 1 · 2015: 1 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 1
- FWCI
- 8.67
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Screen (publishedVersion)
- HighWire Press Open Archive (submittedVersion)
- Research Portal (Queen's University Belfast) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Visual Arts and Performing Arts › Cinema History and Criticism
- Social Sciences › Cultural Studies › Sound Studies and Aurality
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Ethics, Aesthetics, and Art
- Keywords
- sound cinema, European modernism, film aesthetics, Michelangelo Antonioni, Bergman, Bresson, Jean-Luc Godard, Dreyer
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