• Drama
• Music
• Romance

The History of Sound 2025

The History of Sound (2025) is a period romance film directed by Oliver Hermanus and starring Paul Mescal as Lionel and Josh O'Connor as David, with Chris Cooper as the older Lionel. The film is based on a short story by Ben Shattuck, who also wrote the screenplay. Set primarily in the early 20th century, the story begins in 1917 when music students Lionel Worthing and David White meet at the New England Conservatory in Boston and immediately bond over their shared passion for folk music, leading to a profound connection and love affair. Their relationship is quickly disrupted by World War I, as David is drafted and Lionel returns to his family farm. The core of the story takes place a few years later in 1920 when the two men reunite. David, now working at a college, invites Lionel to join him on a department-funded trip across rural Maine to collect and preserve American folk songs on wax cylinders. This journey sees them travel together, recording the voices and music of countrymen and renewing their intimate relationship away from social constraints. However, their paths diverge again, and David eventually dies some time after their trip, a death later revealed to be a suicide related to shell shock from the war. Lionel's life is forever marked by this loss, as he goes on to have a successful but often melancholic career as an ethnomusicologist and conductor in Europe and the US, never quite escaping the memory of David. The film culminates in 1980, when the older Lionel finally receives the preserved wax cylinders from their trip, including a final, intimate recording David made just before his death. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2025 and was released in US theaters on September 12, 2025.  Read More

• 2025
• 2 h : 7 min
• 353 views
• 6.234
• R