Landscape, soundscape, taskscape in the films The Hurt Locker (2008), Katalin Varga (2009)

A new, exciting film sound practice is emerging. Contemporary film soundtracks do not exclude music, but seamlessly integrate it with sound design and soundscape composition. Such emancipated use of sound in film, whether environmental or musical, has merged different sound practices developed in the 20th century: 1) Acoustic ecology and the soundscape composition explore the relationship of humans with their acoustic environments. They reflect and create awareness of soundscapes and use techniques of field recording to document the sonic environment preserving their contextual associations. 2) Digital sound and music technology enable sound designers to play the studio apparatus like a composer uses an orchestra, employing sophisticated techniques (e.g. selecting, augmenting, sampling, manipulating, mixing and diffusing sound in the surround field) to create emotions. As a result, the collaboration between image and sound track has intensified, for example, reducing the importance of the establishing shot. This paper reflects theories of landscape, soundscape and taskscape in the context of film and shows how the artistic practice of soundscape composition can create rich film soundtracks, taking two recent films, the Oscar winning The Hurt Locker (2008) and Katalin Varga (2009) as examples.