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Sound In The Film 'The Witch'

528 Words3 Pages

How did the sound of The Witch shape the audience's understanding of the film? Sound shapes the audience's understanding by shaping the audience's attention, feeling and by the revealing character. Firstly, the sound shapes the audience's attention by utilizing increased volumes of sound in specific points. For instance, in the scene of Caleb and the "young women" went from a very quiet whistling and opera singing that increased as Caleb went closer to the woman and reached its highest volume with the sound of a bass drum when the witch's hand is revealed. The loud bass drum sound was to call to attention to the hand as it signifies that the woman is a witch and is disguised as a beautiful young woman. This call to attention and foreshadows that Caleb is going to die and has committed a sin by giving into his desires. This same concept is utilized during Caleb's death scene as the volume of his voiced increase to demonstrate he was suffering greatly and was "bewitched" by a witch. …show more content…

This is most notably used in the beginning of the film, were the family was leaving the plantation to the unknown, as violins played a near screeching tone and children sung only to be soon drown out by the violins as they increased in volume. This cause the audience to feel an extreme uneasiness and a low amount of horror foreshadowing the death of the family. This genre of lyric less music is utilized throughout the film and is used more than dialoged to cause the uneasiness of the audience. This is especially true at the end where Thomasin is begins to levitate as violins turn into a whistling sound that increase in volume until it breaks into a black screen and whispers leaving the audience with the uneasiness and a feeling of blaspheme for simply watching the

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