Podcast Summary: All Of It — Best Sound: Johnnie Burn for 'The Zone of Interest' (The Big Picture)

Host: Alison Stewart (WNYC)
Guest: Johnnie Burn (Oscar-nominated sound designer for "The Zone of Interest")
Date: March 10, 2024

Episode Overview

This episode of All Of It features acclaimed sound designer Johnnie Burn, nominated for Best Sound at the Oscars for his haunting work on The Zone of Interest. The conversation explores how sound becomes the emotional, historical, and ethical backbone of a film that purposefully avoids visual depictions of atrocity, instead making the horrors of the Holocaust inescapable through what the audience hears. Burn details his collaborative process with director Jonathan Glazer, the meticulous research and ethical considerations behind the soundscape, and the personal toll of creating such immersive, distressing auditory environments.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Central Role of Sound in The Zone of Interest

• The film deliberately avoids showing atrocities inside Auschwitz, using sound to bridge the audience into the horror taking place just beyond view (01:51).
• Burn faced the challenge of “how on earth are we going to reproduce sound that doesn’t exist and do it faithfully with respect to the victims and survivors?” (03:31)
• The sound design needed to be “as subtle as possible…not to sensationalize” but make the realities of genocide ever-present for the viewer/listener (11:06).

2. Working Relationship with Director Jonathan Glazer

• Burn and Glazer's working relationship spans 25 years, starting with commercials and music videos (04:14).
• Glazer’s process: He “likes to work together” so post-production was a year and a half of close collaboration to “constantly calibrate” the sound, never wanting to cross the line into sensationalism (05:08).
• The family drama was constructed independently of the camp's sounds, which were only added later to intensify the juxtaposition (08:07).

3. Immense Historical Research & Authenticity

• Burn accessed the Auschwitz Memorial Museum’s archive and read survivor testimony to catalog “hundreds of different” specific sounds—everything from morning roll calls to gunshots to the hum of the crematorium (06:45–09:07).
• Ensured all environmental sounds (birds, motorbikes) were period and region-correct. For camp sounds, “every scenario” chosen was an actual documented occurrence (09:07, 18:32).

“We saw it as two different films: one that you see, and the other that you only hear.” – Johnnie Burn (08:32)

4. Crafting Specific Sonic Moments

• Example: Gunshots from Block 11 (execution block) recorded with authentic weapons at correct distances (08:07).
• Sounds of beatings (prisoners counting out blows), roll call, and dogs barking—all carefully reconstructed based on research (08:07–09:07).
• “Ultimate goal was to not sensationalize that and, and be as subtle as possible, really, which I hope we achieved.” (11:06)

5. The Power and Horror of the “Hum”

• The low mechanical hum—a seemingly mundane sound—is revealed to be the constant operation of the crematorium. Burn describes how he began shaping this:
  • Started with samples mirroring a child’s vocal imitation, “with a fireplace and some cardboard and tubes and a microphone” (16:25).
  • Gradually realized it needed to be an ever-present sound: “a constant problem that they had, in their terms, that it really needed to be a constant thing” (17:25).

6. Juxtaposition of Family Life and Atrocity

• The film’s devastating power comes from the contrast of everyday bourgeois family scenes with horrific audio in the background.
• “There’s a scene where the wife, Hedwig, has the baby and she’s walking the baby around the garden saying, ‘Oh, look at the pretty flowers,’ and we just hear this noise in the background.” (12:55)
• The baby and the dog, unlike the adults, seem unable to ignore the horrors: “the baby, the dog and the grandmother are the ones who have more conscience.” (15:18)

7. Realism & Ethics in Voice Recording

• Most camp sounds were not performed by actors in studios: “We tried to record real human scenarios... we traveled around Europe and, for example, mingled in a riot in Paris to record the sounds of people in pain and shouting” (20:14).
• Artificially staged agony felt “disrespectful and would not warrant a good result.” (20:57)

8. Psychological Toll and Process

• The emotional impact on Burn was significant: “There were days when I felt, right, I’m just going to stop now. I can’t…you can’t do that on this film.” (22:33)
• Took time off to work on “Poor Things” to decompress: “Fortunately, I…did. That was the catharsis I needed.” (22:33).

9. Audience Experience and Reception

• Burn was deeply affected by his first viewing with a public audience at Cannes: “There was quite a stunned silence throughout the credits... you could hear a pin drop.” (23:39)
• The film leaves viewers “held from beginning to end,” forcing them to “choose to be blind, deaf, and dumb to the atrocities”—mirroring the willful ignorance of the characters (11:53).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“We saw it as two different films: one film that you only see and the other that you only hear.”
— Johnnie Burn (08:32)

“We didn’t want to make stuff up… everything had to be a piece of history, because that’s the only way to respectfully do it.”
— Johnnie Burn (18:32)

“You can shut your eyes, but you can’t shut your ears.”
— Johnnie Burn (13:43)

“Ultimate goal was to not sensationalize that and, and be as subtle as possible, really, which I hope we achieved.”
— Johnnie Burn (11:06)

“The baby, the dog, and the grandmother are the ones who have more conscience.”
— Johnnie Burn (15:18)

“There were days when I felt, right, I’m just going to stop now… you can’t do that on this film.”
— Johnnie Burn (22:33)

Timestamps for Critical Segments

• 01:51 – Introduction to the film’s sound concept and Burn’s involvement
• 03:31 – Burn’s initial questions and ethical considerations
• 04:14 – Longstanding collaboration with Jonathan Glazer
• 06:45–09:07 – Deep-dive into research and construction of sound archive
• 11:06 – Burn’s aim not to sensationalize, handling a key sound moment
• 13:03 – Juxtaposition of domesticity and genocide in specific scenes
• 15:34–16:25 – Crafting the haunting hum of the crematorium
• 18:32 – Rigorous placement and historical fidelity for every sound
• 20:14–21:50 – How real-life recordings from European crowds replaced staged pain and chaos
• 22:33 – Burn addresses emotional labor and self-care during the project
• 23:39 – Reaction to seeing the film with an audience at Cannes

Conclusion

Johnnie Burn’s sound design for The Zone of Interest serves as both a historical reckoning and a profound act of ethical storytelling, rendering the unseen horrors of Auschwitz inescapably close. Through deep research, respectful collaboration, and a refusal to sensationalize, Burn shapes a soundscape that implicates both the audience and subjects in the film’s central tragedy—the banality and willful ignorance of evil. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of cinema, history, and morality.

For further listening, explore Burn’s work on other films like Poor Things and dive into more episodes of All Of It for in-depth interviews with leading cultural creators.