It’s tempting to describe the documentary 32 Sounds as a singular experience, since it’s really not like any other documentary out there — it certainly stands apart from the other docs on the 2024 Oscars shortlist for Outstanding Documentary. However, the word “singular” doesn’t quite work, because the innovative film directed by Sam Green exists as more than one experience. “There are way more versions than any other movie,” he explains to Consequence.
Inspired in part by the film Thirty Two Short Films About Glenn Gould, Green collaborated with musician JD Samson and sound expert Mark A. Mangini, as well as other artists, to explore the nature and meaning of sound as a concept and as a vibe. The resulting piece is a deeply intimate and yet also universal journey through the noises we take for granted as well as auditory moments few have experienced before, crafted with exceptional technical precision and innovative techniques — including moments of spatial sound, depending on how you watch it.
One of the film’s most intriguing choices is that not every number between 1 and 32 appears on screen — which wasn’t the case, initially. “Early on, I numbered every single sound,” Green says. “And it was horribly boring because people would be like, ‘Oh my God, we’re only at 14, this is terrible.’ So it became clear you can’t do that. And then I got rid of all the numbers and it was a formless mess.” So Green settled on numbering some, but not all, of the sounds — “as little as you can to hold it together.”
The initial inspiration for the project came from the fact that Green “had made films where I had thought about sound, but I didn’t really feel like I knew a lot about sound, either technically or conceptually, or even poetically.” Fortunately, he adds, “I love research and learning about something. And a lot of that comes out of conversations with people. I like talking to people. I like asking people questions.”
Along those lines, Green initially connected with Mark Mangini because a mutual friend said (in Green’s words), “Oh, I know this person who’s really smart about sound.” Maybe a bit of an understatement — Mangini is a six-time Oscar nominee for his sound editing work, winning for 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road and 2021’s Dune: Part One.
“With Mark it ranged from everything like ‘How do you use a binaural microphone?’ to ‘What is the sound of snow falling? It’s such a elusive sound. How could one make that experience with sound in a movie?’” Green says. “Tons of things like that.”
