The History of Sound
Released 2025. Director: Oliver Hermanus
FROM A YOUNG AGE LIONEL had a natural affinity wth sound and music. To the boy, music came in shapes and colours; it's something he could almost see and taste. A gift from God, his dad said. Granted a scholarship years later, Lionel left home to attend a conservatory in Boston. There he will meet David and lay the foundation to the rest of his life through happiness and heartbreak.
Adapted for the screen by Ben Shattuck from his own short story, this movie is a love story of subtle details and rich emotions, The History of Sound evokes a tenet of classic romances, that there is but one true love in a lifetime. The tragic nature is its name and how it cannot be acknowledged.
The year is 1917 when Lionel (Paul Mescal) and David (Josh O'Connor) first meet as students, bonding over an old song David is playing on the piano and Lionel remembers his dad singing. A mutual affection for traditional music is but one shared passion for the two men as they find themselves drawn closer to each other.
When David is conscripted to fight in World War I, Lionel returns to the rural Kentucky farm where he grew up. They reunite when David returns from the warfront and invites Lionel to join him on an expedition to the hinterlands of New England. Using wax cylinders, they would record music and songs of remote communities with the aim to preserve a part of American history transmitted orally through generations.
Their unrealised romance, a steady flame at the beginning, extinguishes prematurely because even in their own minds, they understand they cannot admit who they love. The scene where they ask each other how they see their own future is almost too harrowing when their honesty betrays a deeper truth.
After they part ways at the completion of the project, the movie leaps a few years to the 1920s as Lionel takes his career to Rome and Oxford, where he breaks off a burgeoning relationship with a colleague Clarissa (Emma Canning) without revealing the true reason. In spite of his career success, it's not difficult to see Lionel is troubled.
For a number of years Lionel keeps writing to David though he never receives a reply. When he tries to track down David, Lionel discovers how their love was more complicated than he realised and arrives at a reality he's not prepared for. The movie ends in 1980 with Chris Cooper in the role of Lionel. A retired professor now, he receives an unexpected package one day with a personal message from the past. More than 60 years have passed since Lionel and David worked on preserving obscure music and songs. Near the end of his life, David is given a chance to relive his unvoiced history before Lionel and him, unlike the songs they saved, will be lost to time.
This doomed relationship brings a lump to the throat because Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor are impeccable in conveying the melancholy and endurance of a love denied. Whether they're apart or sharing a scene, they bring a poignancy and honesty to their characters that makes their connection and separation deeply-felt and empathetic. The moving epilogue is eloquent in evoking Lionel's memory and profound sense of loss.
The History of Sound is beautifully filmed by Alexander Dynan. The muted, earthy palette imbues many scenes with an amber, rustic quality that complements the simple beauty of the bygone melodies and tunes. If you appreciate traditional singing, this is a rare treat with angelic vocal harmony in ballads and choral arrangements. Oliver Coates's pensive cello instrumentation further elevates the movie's sentimentality.
To describe The History of Sound as Brokeback Mountain with folk songs is both reductive and complimentary to be compared to Ang Lee's ageless classic. The tragedy of gay men in the early 20th century may feel like a story told before, but there's no reason why we can't be moved again when the characters are perfectly realised and their story is as heartbreaking as their love is enduring.
Beautiful review, Patrick. This sounds like a movie to savour. 👍