Listening to the World: Soundscapes, Cosmic Symphonies, and Cosmopolitanism in Cinema

Abstract

This article reflects on the relationships between music, soundscape, and geography in modern and contemporary cinema, focusing on listening as both an aesthetic and political practice. Drawing from the concept of the “geography of the imagination” (Davenport, 1996), it analyzes how soundtracks contribute to the construction of sensory and cosmopolitan landscapes in films by three directors from distinct origins and historical contexts: Il Vangelo secondo Matteo (1964) by Pier Paolo Pasolini, Puissance de la parole (1988) by Jean-Luc Godard, and The Nine Muses (2010) by John Akomfrah. In each case, musical montage evokes affective geographies, cultural displacements, and the ruins of history, functioning as a form of listening to the world and as a cartography of experience. In Pasolini, there is a religious syncretism that emerges from the choice of southern Italy as the setting for biblical incarnation and from the selection of music from diverse origins to compose the soundtrack, highlighting how the landscape - both visual and sonic - can be mobilized as a historical and spiritual sign. In Godard, in turn, we find a layering of sounds through which the natural world converges with the futurism of modern technologies, and both encounter avant-garde art and advertising along the way, which lends a sense of cosmicity to audiovisual experimentation. Finally, in Akomfrah, his work with sound montage deepens the investigation into the traumas and aesthetics of the African diaspora, especially within the post-colonial British context.