The new silent era: how films turned the volume down

Amid the thunderous noise of much modern cinema, films such as A Quiet Place and Wonderstruck show that the power of keeping quiet is seriously underrated.

Time to enjoy the silenceA Quiet Place is a smart, scary little shocker that uses restraint in the area of sound to enhance its visual horrors.

Give or take the score, the odd whisper and the occasional blood-curdling roar, John Krasinski’s film deals in cinema’s most underused commodity: silence.

This will be music to the ears of anyone overwhelmed by the cacophonous use of sound in modern film, but there is a narrative reason too: the movie is set in a world terrorised by blind carnivorous monsters with acute hearing.

The only way to avoid their gnashing jaws and lunging talons is to keep shtum.

Communication between the main characters – a family of five hiding in an underground shelter – is conducted chiefly through sign language,

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