Poetic Languages of Trauma in Chantal Akerman's Cinema (1977-1993)

Poetic Languages of Trauma in Chantal Akerman's Cinema (1977-1993): investigating the role of sound in News from Home (1977), Toute une nuit (1982), and D'Est (1993). In my examination of films by the Belgian-Jewish filmmaker Chantal Akerman, specifically News from Home (1977), Toute une nuit (1982), and D'Est (1993), I aim to examine the

multifaceted nature of the expression of traumatic experience, with a focus on the role of sound in the construction of each work. I have chosen these films, which respectively span the genres of essayistic travelogue, fictional narrative, and experimental documentary, because they encompass a cross-section of Akerman's hybrid cinematic style, allowing an investigation

of the expressive value of sound in different contexts. Focussing on the prevalence of silence, background noise, and sonic atmosphere, I will explore how Akerman utilises these 'marginalised' sounds - thus named by the Swiss-French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard owing to the widespread convention of dialogue-heavy cinema - to transcend the limitations of

verbal communication.