As you can probably infer from it's title sound is very much at the heart of 'The Shout'; the sonic experiments of Anthony Fielding (John Hurt), Crossley's (Alan Bates) playing with his wine glass, the diegetic sounds of the rural setting, the progish / ambient soundtrack by Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks of Genesis. and, of course, the mortiferous Shout itself. The sound design by Alan Bell is the shining jewel at the heart of the movie.
The Fielding's, Anthony and Rachel (Susannah York), live an idyllic existence in a small coastal village until their lives are turned upside down by the arrival of the interloper Crossley who claims to have lived with Australian Aborigines in the outback where he has learnt their magic; a magic that he soon brings to bear on the couple.
Based on Robert Graves fantastic short story Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski brings a decidedly arthouse sensibility to the film with time jumps, sudden switches to black and white and slow motion and a deliberate and slow pace that allows the menace in Bates' performance, the confusion in Hurt's and the loss of self in York's to build to palpable extremes before the film culminates in a thunderous if perhaps slightly anticlimactic ending.
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- or watch it below.
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