Cinema’s greatest magic trick is making us believe we’re primarily watching, when much of our emotional and perceptual experience is actually being shaped by what we hear.

Recent research confirms this. Studies show that sound dominates our perception of timing and rhythm in films, that it can actually alter what we see on screen, and that it increases immersion values up to four times compared to watching without audio. We think we’re watching, but sound is shaping perception in ways we don’t consciously register.

Sound operates subconsciously while images grab our attention. I thought it would be interesting to flip the equation. To force my conscious attention onto what normally works beneath awareness.

How to Listen to a Film

When I watch a film and notice that sound is being used as an important storytelling device, I take note. And by sound I mean not only dialogue and music score, but songs, sound effects, volume, silence, and perhaps most importantly how it all holds together in service of the narrative.

Later, I return to the film, hit play and walk into the next room. No watching. Just listening. Sometimes on speakers, sometimes with headphones at my computer while writing. The experience is transformative.

We turn off all visual information ,except what was stored in memory from viewing. What remains is the soundscape. It’s isolating but inclusive at the same time.

When I do this, I hear things missed when watching. Dialogue rhythms and overlaps become apparent. Music cues reveal their emotional manipulation. Sound affects you but silence can become as powerful as noise. When I truly listen, I hear when sound leads the story and when it simply decorates the image.

It triggers observations that never occurred to you. You will appreciate the film more, and it will sharpen your viewing enjoyment forever.

This exercise isn’t suited for all movies and I’m selective about which films I choose to experience in this manner. Curiosity drives me to listen in the dark. When I see a serious film made by skilled filmmakers and notice the sound is rich and layered, I know I’ll learn more about the story, the characters, perhaps even the meaning of the film through this practice. I always want to go deeper into a well-crafted film’s architecture.

Why Sound Matters

Understanding how we got here helps explain why this practice reveals so much.

Most silent films were never truly “silent.” Piano players and even full orchestras played during screenings, either by improvisation or with cue sheets provided by studios. Some theaters used Wurlitzer organs to create sound effects. But the music was never synchronized with the image, and filmmakers had no control over what audiences heard.

Everything changed in August 1926 when Don Juan premiered with the Vitaphone system, the first feature film with a fully synchronized soundtrack. In 1927, The Jazz Singer added synchronized dialogue. Suddenly filmmakers could control not just what audiences saw but what they heard, identically, in every theater.

Movie attendance jumped from around 57 million to 100 million weekly in just three years. Despite the 1929 stock market crash, cinema thrived during the early Depression years as people sought escape. This fueled construction of lavish movie theaters, and the marketing choice to call them “palaces” helped transform movie stars into American royalty.

The technology created new crafts. Jack Foley, working as an assistant director for Universal Pictures in 1927, pioneered the technique of adding synchronized sound effects after filming. He projected films on a screen while simultaneously recording audio, precisely timing footsteps, doors creaking, clapping, and laughter. This led to the term “Foley effects,” and today nearly every film credits foley artists, foley recordists, and foley editors.

Hollywood built music departments, hired composers, and put full orchestras under contract. Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s swashbuckling score for The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) was so influential that John Williams, who composed the scores for Jaws and Star Wars, called Korngold “the inventor of film music as we know it.”

Sound didn’t just change movies. It changed how America and the world experienced entertainment, heard language, and thought about technology. Culturally, talkies helped spread a standardized American accent and vocabulary nationwide. Regional dialects became less common in public speaking as people emulated movie stars.

It remains the most significant technological shift in cinema history, more impactful than even color or special effects. Which is precisely why listening without watching reveals so much about how films actually work.

Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Listen to Dr. Strangelove (1964) without watching and you discover Stanley Kubrick’s most radical sound design choice: he uses almost no music. For nearly the entire film, you hear only voices, ambient sounds, and silence. The three main locations—General Ripper’s office, the War Room, and the B-52 bomber cabin—play out like radio dramas stripped of musical cues. This forces you to hear the actual substance of what’s being said, and it’s terrifying. Language itself is failing to prevent apocalypse.

In Ripper’s office, you hear the British politeness of Group Captain Lionel Mandrake trying to coax the recall code from the deranged American general. Without the visuals, Mandrake’s verbal strategy becomes clear: he’s using every trick of deflection, humor, and deference to avoid triggering Ripper’s paranoia. The dialogue rhythms reveal a man talking to a landmine. When Ripper finally speaks his conspiracy theories about fluoridation and bodily fluids, his calm, measured tone makes the madness even more chilling. You realize the apocalypse isn’t coming from shouting. It’s coming from reasonable-sounding insanity.

The War Room scenes become a masterclass in verbal chaos. President Muffley’s weak attempts at order, General Turgidson’s manic military jargon, the Soviet ambassador’s protests—they’re all talking past each other. Listening without watching, you hear how no one is actually communicating. They’re performing their roles. The famous phone call between Muffley and the drunk Soviet Premier Kissov plays as pure absurdist theater when you can’t see Peter Sellers’ face. The pauses, the tone shifts, the President’s patience with a drunk man while discussing nuclear annihilation – it’s blackly comic precisely because you’re forced to focus on the words alone.

Inside the B-52 bomber, Major T.J. Kong’s folksy drawl initially treats the mission as routine. But listening without the images, you hear the moment everything changes. The crew damage assessment, the technical jargon about fuel and altitude, Kong’s shift from casual to urgent – the voices tell you they’re committed before any visual confirmation. The CRM 114 communication device becomes an audio talisman, a mechanical voice announcing fate. Kubrick makes it sound like an electronic Ouija board spelling out the end of the world.

And then, finally, music.

After an hour of silence, Kubrick gives us “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” the Civil War-era march about soldiers returning home victorious. He plays this patriotic anthem – with an updated arrangement – while Kong’s bomber heads toward its Russian target. Without watching, the irony is even sharper – you hear a song about homecoming scored to a mission that will end all homes. The jaunty, triumphant melody with an updated arrangement, makes the horror explicit. There is no victory march. There is no coming home.

The film ends with Vera Lynn’s sentimental wartime ballad “We’ll Meet Again” playing over the sound of… nothing. Just music and silence. By withholding music for the entire film, Kubrick makes these final songs devastating. The gentle nostalgia of Lynn’s voice becomes the cruelest joke of all.

Listening in the dark reveals what Kubrick understood: sound and silence doesn’t just support the satire. It is the satire. The absence of music forces you to hear the failure of human communication, and when music finally arrives, it transforms patriotism and sentiment into epitaphs for a dying world.

Other films that are perfect candidates for Listening in the Dark are: Apocalypse Now, Joker and The Zone of Interest.

I’m sure you have your own list of films. I hope you give it a try.

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References

1. How Cinema Sounds Affect the Perception of a Motion Picture, 2015, Andreas Anestis, Universal Journal of Psychology, https://www.academia.edu/49986590/How_Cinema_Sounds_Affect_the_Perception_of_a_Motion_Picture
2. Film Music Part 1: The Interaction Between Image and Sound, [Paper not dated],  Luciano Mariani, cinemafocus.eu, https://www.academia.edu/43126087/Film_music_Part_1_The_interaction_between_image_and_sound
3. The Film Sound Analysis Framework: A Conceptual Tool to Interpret the Cinematic Experience, 2020, Álvaro Barbosa, University of Saint Joseph, & Kristine Dizon, Catholic University of Portugal. https://www.academia.edu/108432708/The_Film_Sound_Analysis_Framework_A_Conceptual_tool_to_Interpret_the_Cinematic_Experience?sm=b&rhid=37399480064
4. Cinema Studies: Perspectives on Sound, 2021, Leilane Serratine Grubba and Rui Carlos Dipp Junior, Revista Lingua & Literatura https://www.academia.edu/65729464/CINEMA_STUDIES_PERSPECTIVES_ON_SOUND