Foushee !1

Victoria Foushee

A Quiet Place: A Film Where Sound Speaks Volumes Without a Whole Lot of Volume Foushee !2

John Krasinski’s 2018 film, A Quiet Place, is a horror film that has been praised for being something audiences have never seen before. Because of this, some might even classify it as a

“revisionist film” within its genre. According to the textbook written by Maria Pramaggiore and

Tom Wallis, a revisionist film is “a genre film that radically modifies accepted genre conventions for dramatic effect,” (456). As for A Quiet Place, its biggest modification would be its usage of sound, or lack there of, to be exact.

Director John Krasinski also stars in the film alongside his real-life wife, Emily Blunt, and actors Noah Jupe and Millicent Simmonds, who play their children. In multiple interviews and press releases, Krasinski has explained that A Quiet Place is in fact a horror film that revolves around the idea of family, however, it is easy to argue that the family, and its physical members, are not the film’s main character, but instead, sound is.

There are a few factors that support the claim that sound is indeed the underlying main character of the film, such as: the realization that the audience is not given much information about the family and their background, leaving very little room for character development or connection, and the fact that sound is used strategically to fill the lack of emotional connection, while still being the film’s primary focus of attention.

A Quiet Place is unique because it lacks quite a bit of diegetic sound, which is something that has not really been done outside the realm of avant-garde and silent films, and especially in the genre of horror. Despite this lack of diegetic sound though, A Quiet Place has never been categorized as a silent film because it does not lack all sound as a whole. There is still the use of consistent non-diegetic sounds, and even though it is apparent that there is a large absence of diegetic sound in the form of spoken dialogue, there is still a lot of unspoken dialogue through Foushee !3 the use of American Sign Language. Just like one might focus on a movie’s physical main character(s), it is the unique quality of very little diegetic sound that ultimately allows the audience to focus more on sound and when it appears, rather than the actual, physical family featured in this film.

According to Google, the family members’ names in A Quiet Place are Lee (the father),

Evelyn (the mother), Marcus (the son), and Regan Abbott (the daughter), however, the audience might never actually know this because their names are never once mentioned onscreen. I used the word “mentioned” because it makes sense that their names are never audibly spoken, however, they could have easily been signed at one point or another. This is just one thing the viewer does not know get a grasp on about the family portrayed in this film though. Another large portion of information withheld, making it hard for one to establish an emotional connection, is what their life was like together before the apocalypse began. At the beginning of the film, it is revealed that there was a fifth member of the Abbott family: the youngest, a little boy (named Beau, according to Google). He is killed within the first ten minutes because he is playing with a toy that ends up giving off a sound. Even despite this brief revelation of sadness, the viewer is still left feeling kind of distant to the lives of these (now) four family members, and how their life got to be the way it is. It is this constant unclearness and lack of information that makes the viewer wonder whether Krasinski wanted to shift the focus from character development and learning about the actual lives of the family, to how the family’s life is because of sound and its life or death effect.

Sound can be viewed as both the protagonist and the antagonist in this film. Sound as the antagonist is solely diegetic, and this is pretty obvious early on— if someone makes a sound, Foushee !4 harm is most likely to arise shortly after. This harm could me something “minor” that just causes momentary fear to the family, like the scene where the son and daughter are playing Monopoly, and during the excitement of the game, the son knocks over the lantern on accident, causing a small sound. The harm is known to be larger, and ultimately deadly too, like when Krasinski’s character distracts the monsters from harming his children by screaming at the top of his lungs.

This loud, diegetic scream could be symbolic to the built up aggression and non-diegetic screams

Krasinski’s character has been holding in since the start of the apocalyptic-era. It is fascinating though, because there is an exception to diegetic sound not having a negative effect on those around it, and that is if one’s diegetic noise is masked by a louder noise that occurs naturally.

This idea is displayed in the scene where Krasinski and his son are gathering materials for the rest of their family, and Krasinski makes a point to stop at a waterfall. He proceeds to start audibly speaking to his son, who immediately gets nervous because his father is making noise.

Krasinski has to explain this concept to his son, reassuring him that he will be safe because his diegetic noise is covered up by a louder noise that the monsters are constantly hearing. Overall, the viewer comes to realize that sound as the antagonist is what makes the family live the certain hard lifestyle that they have to.

Sound as the protagonist though, is more rare in the film, but it is apparent how intentional and thought out its placement is. Sound playing the protagonist shows the more gentle scenes that relieve tension from the film’s intensity. Most importantly, sound in the form of the protagonist is the way that the audience gains any sort of emotional connection to the film.

This sound is used primarily in the non-diegetic form such as scores or music, however, it could also mix into the character’s lives and become diegetic. An example of this would be the scene Foushee !5 shared between Krasinki’s character Lee, and his pregnant wife. His wife comes downstairs to check on him, and she does so while she is listening to music through her headphones. At first, the audience can hear the slight murmur of diegetic sound coming from his wife’s headphones, however, when she convinces Krasinski to dance with her, she places one headphone in his ear, and the music begins to fill the rest of the scene, but in a non-diegetic sense. This scene allows the audience to share a tender moment with the couple despite the fact that both the viewers and characters know that the world around them is nothing but tender. While still listening to the music, Krasinski’s character turns the sweet moment into something even more nerve-wracking and emotional because he is seen holding onto his wife’s stomach with tears beginning to well in his eyes, symbolizing how nervous he is for her to deliver this child in their apocalyptic, silent world. This minor detail ultimately does a lot for the foreshadowing of the plot in the long run, because the audience expects that she is going to be the one to die while giving birth, however, it is Krasinski who ends up dead.

A Quiet Place is a film that defied all odds, and ended up making something as minor as the lack of sound become the most important aspect of the entire film. It is a unique and different take on a modern-day scary film, making its complex plot rise above the rest in the horror genre. Foushee !6

Works Cited

A Quiet Place. Directed by John Krasinski, Platinum Dunes, 6 April 2018.

Google Search, Google, www.google.com/.

Pramaggiore, Maria, and Tom Wallis. Film: a Critical Introduction. Laurence King Publishing,

2011.