Phenomenological Study of the Sensation of Disembodied and Silent Voices in Spike Jones’ Her (2014) and Shehryar Khan’s The Puppeteer (2015)

Abstract

This paper is a phenomenological analysis of the sensation of disembodied and silent voices in the movies Her (2014)) by Spike Jones and Sheheryar Khan’s The Puppeteer(2015) in light of Michel Chion’s concepts of acousmêtre and mutes. The present paper focuses on the experience of sound through the lens of Michel Chion’s Sound Theory of “acousmetre and mute characters” in contrast to the mimetic use of sound as a realistic presentation. The paper explores how the manifestation of sound in film-making practices subverts the conventional audio-visual link by showing how sound can be a powerful agency independent of any corporeal existence. The research borrows Michel Chion’s philosophy of sound to demonstrate how sound utilizes acousmetre and mutes as sonic agents whose dislocated vocals provide the audience with a phenomenal self-reflexivity and epiphanic understanding of the characters’ state of mind and state of living. The analysis explores the phenomenology of pain, love, desolation and fear of the characters as an experiential process identified through the lens of Michel Chion’s concepts of acousmêtre and mutes.