From Noise to Aura: Haptic Audio-vision and Cinematic Perception in Un Lac (2008) and Leviathan (2012)

Abstract

This thesis explores how digital sound technologies—particularly the aesthetic use of noise and Dolby multichannel systems—have reconfigured cinema’s sensory capacities. Through a comparative analysis of Un Lac (2008) and Leviathan (2012), I investigate how sound becomes not mere accompaniment but the primary structuring force of perceptual experience, crafting haptic, affective time-images that foster tactile intimacy between spectator and film. In this zone of tension—this close-farness—the f ilms' sensory outreach meets the spectator's longing (Marks, 1999), dissolving the boundaries between seeing and being seen (Merleau-Ponty, 1968). Grounded in Marks' haptic visuality, Deleuze's affect theory, and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, this thesis traces how cinematic sound—especially noise—produces an immersive, vibratory field that disorients representational logic and opens up new forms of sensorial cinema.