THE SOUND OF MUSIC

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In “The History of Sound,” Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor prove why they’re two of the industry’s finest actors working today.

The only thing in life that’s eternal is the desire to hold onto the present and to reclaim the past, and The History of Sound is, by its very nature, an attempt to do just that—a mission in tune with the one undertaken by its main characters.

Oliver Hermanus’s sterling adaptation of Ben Shattuk’s short story—in theaters Sept. 12, following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival—captures for posterity the fictional early 20th-century tale of two men with a shared passion for music and each other, as well as the superb performances of its leads Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor, whose nuanced and heartbreaking work speaks to the fleeting nature of joy and the cruel passage of time. It’s both about, and an example of, man’s ceaseless effort to immortalize the ephemeral.

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From an early age, Lionel (Mescal) had a preternatural gift for seeing (and even tasting) music. On his family’s tiny Kentucky farm circa 1910, he nurtures that gift with the aid of his father (Raphael Sbarge) and mother (Molly Price) in their one-room log cabin.

Courtesy of a scholarship, Lionel leaves in 1917 for Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music, and in a bar one evening, he hears a tune from his childhood being played on the piano by a stranger. That individual is David (O’Connor), who’s studying composition and collects songs.

It takes mere moments for the two to charm the other, and after David cajoles Lionel into singing a ballad (“Silver Dagger”) that he’s never heard before, the two spend the evening bonding over music and drink, climaxing with a retreat to David’s flat.

Narrated in hindsight by an older Lionel (Chris Cooper), The History of Sound intimately cozies up to its protagonists, be they in bed or sitting around David’s tiny residence, during which time they share their backstories: Lionel’s as a poor country kid with a miraculous talent, and David as an orphan who, in the wake of his parents’ deaths, was taken in by a wealthy uncle who came to appreciate his love of amassing, and preserving, songs.

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When Lionel tells David that he’s sorry for his losses, David replies, “Everyone is going to die, you know that.” Figuratively and literally, that notion comes to dominate Hermanus’ film, which—like his prior Akira Kurosawa remake Living—is about David’s belief, born from tragedy, that you must “enjoy life while you have it.”

Lionel and David’s romance is interrupted by the onset of the Great War, with David drafted into overseas service and Lionel “suddenly, regretfully” returning home to tend the family’s land. Upon his father’s untimely demise, Lionel chooses to remain in Kentucky, at least until 1919, when he receives a letter from David indicating that he’s now teaching at Maine’s Bowdoin College and has been tasked with setting out on a months-long journey across the East Coast to locate and record native folk songs on an Edison device that uses wax cylinders.

No matter that it means abandoning his ill mother, Lionel jumps at the chance to embark on this “long walk in the woods” with his beloved. Their ensuing odyssey is one of sitting around campfires, embracing in tents, and explaining to rural clans how their machine operates—and, in Lionel’s case, describing sound as something that’s at once invisible and physical.

The same can be said about love, and The History of Sound evokes that notion through poignant close-ups of Mescal and O’Connor, gorgeous shots of shimmering streams and lakes, and graceful editorial transitions that tether scenes together through spoken words and plaintive harmonies.

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Hermanus’ direction is as tender, poised, and poetic as the folk ballads that enrapture David and Lionel (and which, per the elder Lionel, bring a lump to the throat with a simple melody). His leads’ turns are likewise deft, sensitive, and marked by tortured feelings lurking just beneath exquisite, composed surfaces.

Mescal’s matter-of-factness is ideally synchronized with O’Connor’s slightly more outgoing candidness, and their electric chemistry is the byproduct of their ability to tap into Lionel and David’s similarities while simultaneously showing how their underlying differences also, somehow, fit together.

The History of Sound understands the splendor of the frontier, the suffering wrought from separation (and the birth of a fully formed identity), the links between music and memory, and the way in which long-buried recollections can resurface at a moment’s notice with stomach-punching force. Shattuck’s story is about how life is shaped and defined by what we briefly have and then lose, and the longing to revisit those people, places, and moments to which we no longer have access. This comes most tragically to the fore in the film’s back half, when David returns to his teaching post and Lionel travels first to Rome (where he abandons a lover) and then to Oxford (the site of his attempt at domestic heterosexual normalcy).

Yet that despondent reality creeps into every aspect of the proceedings, and is epitomized, most beautifully, by a trick (taught to Lionel by his dad, and passed on to those he meets) in which cigarette rolling papers are lit so that they briefly take to the air before flaming out—a visualization of the magical transience of everything and everyone.

Hermanus’ latest establishes him as a filmmaker of uncanny grace and Mescal and O’Connor as two of Hollywood’s finest young stars. O’Connor, in particular, is phenomenal as David, a confident ethnomusicologist whose post-war shell shock and inner conflict slowly chip away at his heart and mind.

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Arriving mere months before the debuts of Rebuilding, The Mastermind, and Wake Up Dead Man (and a year after La Chimera and Challengers), it solidifies his stature as an actor of uncommon expressiveness and dexterity, capable of imparting a wealth of complex emotions with little more than a subtle look, smile, or gesture.

In The History of Sound, he’s so magnificently moving that, even once David takes a narrative backseat to Lionel, his presence hovers over the material, infusing it with that special mixture of sadness and bliss which defines great music, cinema, and love—and makes us want to cling to them until our dying breath.

Nick SchagerEntertainment Critic

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