Psychoacoustics and Cinema
Perceptive Destabilization in Apocalypse Now, Psycho and Dunkirk
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.48162/rev.45.054Keywords:
Psychoacoustics, Sound design, Apocalypse Now, DunkirkAbstract
This article integrates psychoacoustics as an analytical tool to retrospectively illuminate the sonic operations in Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979). Comparing it with Dunkirk (Nolan, 2017) and, inaugurally, with Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960), it demonstrates that the tradition of critical counterpoint found, in each era, a distinct technical materiality to produce spectator destabilization: substitution in Hitchcock/Herrmann, spatial disorganization in Murch, temporal suspension in Zimmer. The Shepard scale, auditory masking, and continuity illusion are mobilized to show how these three filmmakers operate, in different perceptual regimes, the same strategy of critical counterpoint. The contribution lies in the articulation between Chion's phenomenology, psychoacoustics, and Sound Studies, revealing the persistence, transformation, and political ambiguity of the critical counterpoint tradition in modern film sound.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Alcides Freire Ramos, Rosangela Patriota
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