Performing Silence in World Cinemas considers the place of cinematic silence in the narrative construction of contemporary, globalized subjectivities and its implications in the study of aural and visual cultures. Providing an historical and critical analysis of internationally acclaimed directors like, among others, Ingmar Bergman, Marguerite Duras, Chantal Akerman, Béla Tarr, Pedro Costa, Ousmane Sémbene, Agnés Varda, Reha Erdem, Lisandro Alonso, this volume, for the first time in English, configures a theoretical framework to consider cinematic silence in sound film within a transcultural and transnational perspective.

Along with an examination of specific films and contexts, Roberto Cavallini provides a timely examination of silence from a number of methodological perspectives — historical, cultural, philosophical and musical — and provides a framework to understand its aesthetic and epistemic implications for contemporary critical thought and cinema.