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Scarlett Johansson's Body and the Materialization of Voice

2016; Cambridge University Press; Volume: 13; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1017/s1478572215000201

1478-5730

Laura Tunbridge,

Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism

Abstract This article considers three science fiction films, released in 2013–14, featuring Scarlett Johansson: Her (dir. Spike Jonze), Lucy (dir. Luc Besson), and Under the Skin (dir. Jonathan Glazer). It suggests that to engage with the phenomenon of voice in imaginative and productive ways it is necessary to slide over a disciplinary divide and address more explicitly the musicality of speech. In my main example, Her , Johansson provides the voice of an operating system with which the film's protagonist falls in love. Central to their intimate connection is the establishment of what I call the ‘haptic voice’, which conveys a sense of physical proximity. A similar blurring of the boundaries between voice and body occur in the presentation of the alien characters Johansson plays in the other films.