From Noise to Aura: Haptic Audio-vision and Cinematic Perception in Un Lac (2008) and Leviathan (2012)

Abstract

Treball de fi de màster en Estudis de Cinema i Audiovisual Contemporanis

Tutor: Santiago Fillol

This thesis explores how digital sound technologies—particularly the aesthetic use of noise and Dolby multichannel systems—have reconfigured cinema’s sensory capacities. Through a comparative analysis of Un Lac (2008) and Leviathan (2012), I investigate how sound becomes not mere accompaniment but the primary structuring force of perceptual experience, crafting haptic, affective time-images that foster tactile intimacy between spectator and film. In this zone of tension—this close-farness—the f ilms' sensory outreach meets the spectator's longing (Marks, 1999), dissolving the boundaries between seeing and being seen (Merleau-Ponty, 1968). Grounded in Marks' haptic visuality, Deleuze's affect theory, and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, this thesis traces how cinematic sound—especially noise—produces an immersive, vibratory field that disorients representational logic and opens up new forms of sensorial cinema.