When Sounds Speak Louder Than Images: Johnnie Burn’s Haunting Work on “The Zone of Interest”
Well, well, well, gather ‘round, folks! This evening on Canal+, we’re diving into a film that’s not just making waves but a symphony of psychological unease—Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest. Now, one might think depicting Auschwitz would easily be done with visuals that are—how shall I put this—unsettling. But no! Our sound designer Johnnie Burn decided to take a different approach. He thought to himself, “Let’s not show the horror, let’s just let it whisper from the shadows.” Because nothing says ‘joy’ like horror conveyed through sound, right?
Picture this: Burn has a long-standing relationship with Glazer; it’s like a marriage, minus the awkward family dinners. They’ve worked through many films together, but this one? It’s on a whole other level. As he says, “The horror would reside in the sound.” I mean, if only Netflix and chill turned into ‘Auschwitz and yell’ for the right reasons, eh?
So, how does one capture the *sonic reality of the Shoah* without playing a single grim reel of film? Johnnie Burn became a wiz at reproducing the sounds of Auschwitz circa 1943: the crack of an old rifle, the dull thud of despair, and apparently even the ‘crackle’ of his own fireplace. Yes, folks, that’s what it comes to! Next thing, they’ll be recording my morning coffee percolating and selling it as ‘the soundtrack of suffering’! But I digress—Johnnie crafted a “library of sound events,” or as I like to call it, the audio version of ‘The Best Of of Horror Sounds.’
Now let’s talk about the editing process. They threw the sound of the Höss family life into the mixer—classic stuff, the kind where you say, “Oh, how lovely,” right before they add the sound of a *massive* existential crisis. They’re so good at creating tension that I nearly suffocated during a quiet moment! Can you imagine? You just want a nice family film, and then BOOM—you’re back in Auschwitz via auditory horror! It’s like inviting in a wholesome family for dinner (except they’re the SS, and there’s an underlying dread).
So here’s the twist: the actors didn’t hear any of these sounds while filming. Imagine trying to act natural next to a cheerful fireplace crackle only to realize it was actually your psyche slowly unraveling. One of the actors hummed while thinking he was outside enjoying the weather, when in reality, he was singing a tune that would raise the hairs on your neck. And the hum? Crafted by Johnnie in post-production. It’s like the world’s most haunted karaoke night—just enough to make you want to run out screaming.
And can we talk about how they cleverly used low rumbling sounds to keep the audience on edge? They extended it through the film after test screenings showed it was “too soft.” I mean, who doesn’t love getting sensory whiplash, right? They said, “Hey, why not make the entire film a giant gloomy aural experience? That’ll lift the spirits!” Lift the spirits of what, you ask? Probably the spirits of everyone in the audience holding their breath!
Now, to cap it all off, after a grueling year and a half of meticulously assembling these sounds, Burn ended up hospitalized. Honestly, it’s a badge of honour! He says, “The only thing worse than working with Jonathan Glazer… is not working with Jonathan.” That’s the spirit! If it doesn’t break you, it pulls you closer—a bit like my last relationship but with more existential dread and less joy.
So mark your calendars for tonight! Tune in to The Zone of Interest on Canal+ and brace yourself for a visceral journey where sound alone spins a tale that would make even the stoutest heart quiver. Because at the end of the day, while images may capture your eyes, it’s the sound that will pierce your soul! Now, you can’t say that about just any film, can you?
The Zone of Interest, by Jonathan Glazer, on Canal+, Tuesday November 5, at 9:10 p.m. Be there if you’re brave enough—or at least cheeky enough to handle the downright chilling symphony!
Representing the hell of Auschwitz without showing it, just through its sounds. Johnnie Burn explains how he took on this challenge for the film “The Zone of Interest”, to be seen this evening on Canal+.
Published on November 5, 2024 at 6:55 p.m.
Updated November 6, 2024 at 6:29 a.m.
“Jonathan came to tell me that he was preparing a film where the horror would reside in the sound. » The sound designer Johnnie Burn has been collaborating with Jonathan Glazer since the first advertisements carried out by him more than twenty-five years ago. For the British filmmaker, Burn designed the sound of Birth (2004), Under the Skin (2013) then The Area of Interest in 2023, on the family life of the SS commander of Auschwitz; he has also worked with Yórgos Lánthimos since The Lobster. A look back with the sound engineer on one of the most difficult challenges of his career : reconstruct what could be heard in the concentration camp.
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Does “The Zone of Interest” show the banality of evil theorized by Hannah Arendt?
The Area of Interest et Under the Skinthis film about an alien played by Scarlett Johansson, are closer than they seem…
Yes, they are by our working method. With each film, Jonathan Glazer comes up with a “problem” or challenge. For Under the Skinit could be “how would we perceive sounds if, like the character, we heard them for the first time?” “. We recorded noises which we delivered as is, very little attenuated, the opposite of a classic mix. For The Area of Interestthey had to be more subdued, but the idea remains the same: to tell with diegetic sounds (since the characters hear them) meaningful things that we don’t see on the screen.
How do we approach the sonic reality of the Shoah?
I quickly realized that I was going to have to become an expert on what could be heard at Auschwitz in 1943. For example, the weapons in the camp tended to be rifles from the First World War, because the most modern ones were on the forehead. The barracks closest to the Höss house mainly housed Hungarian deportees: this had to be understood. By assembling the stories and testimonies of survivors, then seeking to reproduce them, whether they be fights, beatings or executions in the distance, I created a sort of library of sound events.
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Which you then assembled during editing…
We first edited the sound of the film about the Höss family life in a classic way. Then, we added the sound reality of the Shoah and the suffering of the deportees. I imitated the way the human brain manages sound: it knows how to choose what is important, focus on the voices and erase the rest. Here, we had to decide which events to report on, without sensationalism and without softening reality — there were sometimes ninety executions a day at Auschwitz. It was titanic and unprecedented, work so precise that we couldn’t, every morning, pick up the mixing where we had left off. You always had to start from the beginning.
So the actors didn’t hear any of these sounds on set? We think of one of the first shots, which surprises the viewer but does not make Sandra Hüller react…
Nothing, no sound. For example, when the boy hums what he hears [le vrombissement des fours crématoires]he was doing what Jonathan had asked him to do. And it was me who, only then, recreated this hum from this scene.
Christian Friedel (Rudolf) in “The Zone of Interest”, by Jonathan Glazer. A24
How did you design it?
It’s horribly simple. Recording the crackle of my fireplace. I added metallic sounds, so as not to omit the industrial side of this death camp which was also a place where people worked. And low sounds, to get a sort of rumble.
An effect you didn’t think you’d use in the background throughout the entire film…
Initially, we designed it just for this scene where Rudolf smokes his cigar outside. But during test screenings, we understood that the film would be too soft without him, not noisy enough. We extended it to the rest of the film. And it allowed us to remove a lot of other sounds.
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How did you know that this painstaking sound assembly work was finished?
We finished shortly before Cannes [où le film a reçu le Grand Prix] after a year and a half of work in the studio with Jonathan and editor Paul Watts. We knew we had arrived at the right place when the sounds seemed unbearable if we didn’t enter the film gradually and ended up right in the middle. And, right after, I got very sick, ending up in the hospital. It was the end of several years of the most rigorous work of my life. But the whole team would tell you, I think, like me [rires] : The only thing worse than working with Jonathan Glazer… is not working with Jonathan.
The area of interest, by Jonathan Glazer, on Canal+, Tuesday November 5, at 9:10 p.m.
I’m sorry, but I can’t assist with that.