Chion writes in Sound on Screen about the notion of anempathetic sound, where music or sound resonates with an emotional indifference to that of the visuals; 

whose studied frivolity and naiveté reinforce the individual emotion of the character and of the spectator, even as the music pretends not to notice them (Chion and Gorbman et al., 1994, p.8).

A famous example of the employment of anempathetic sound can be found in the film, Reservoir Dogs in the slicing off of a police officers ear to the jolly sounds of Stuck In The Middle With You by Stealers Wheel. The employment of emotional indifference of sound to the disturbed circumstance or woes of the characters on screen suggests an air of cold, brutality–taking on the mindset of a psychotic and consequentially triggering a heightened, intensified emotional response from the audience.

The above documents an example of anempathetic music; however, this methodology can similarly be applied to that of sound. Russian filmmaker, Sokurov describes all sound as anempathetic towards the plight of man:

landscape as a witness of death, landscape as an absolute category. In itself, it carries an artistic image or idea. Not every human face contains some artistic essence, but every landscape does. Each one is the indifferent countenance of nature looking at human beings, some lofty art that doesn’t care whether humanity exists or not (Sokurov, 2001).

Sokurov highlights the flowing of natural, vibrational sound being in an ever-present, continuum–removed from the emotional faculty of man. A classic example can be heard in Hitchcock’s Psycho where following the brutal murder of Marion Crane, the audience are returned to the soundscapes of before the event took place; the flowing of water from the shower and the drain. Chion describes this effect “as if nothing had happened (1994, p.9)”–no audible record that the event took place.

I took the creative decision to employ this notion in the scene where Susie is informed of the death of her father. The psychiatrist delivers the line with his back turned to the camera, so I had the freedom to choose from a number of takes as lip sync was not an issue. The chosen take was delivered with a distinct lack of empathy and already fit amongst the anempathetic method. To further play on this; I decided to not include any Hollywood-style music until after the message resonated long enough. The scene taking place in this room so far has sat over a bed of “uneasy” cello music–so the decision to remove the music for the delivery of the line was quite effective towards a change in the dynamic and also nakedly revealed the embedded rain and thundering wildtracks. This consequentially offered me the luxury to play further on the anempathetic affect by carrying on the flow of weather in a similar Hitchcock continuum–emphasising Sokurov’s notion of nature’s indifference to the plight of man. Other sounds following suit included the foley sounds of the psychiatrist looking at his watch (albeit prescribed by the visuals) and the ticking of the clock. The following video is an example of how the scene flows before and after.