“Sonic place” as a methodological framework: a conceptual proposal for the analysis of historical films

Abstract

Assuming the premise that a significant amount of the present’s historical conscience is shaped from the cinematographic experience, we take as a basis the premise proposed by William Guynn (2006) that we could think films about historical periods as “places of memory” and the one by Natalie Zemon Davis (1986) that the audience identification towards a film would be given over an impression of authenticity in place of the factual trustworthiness as such. However, considering particularly the soundtracks and the sound design of those films, we propose the idea of “sound place”, historically locatable and recognizable, sometimes not necessarily correspondent to the scientifically known truth, but correspondent to the social idea about the object, as a conceptual alternative for this kind of object.