A portrait of Gordon Hempton
Silence is not the absence of something.
A documentary by Nicholas Sherman · 82 min · 2010
It is the presence of everything.
There are very few places of quiet left in the United States. For thirty years, Emmy Award-winning nature sound recordist Gordon Hempton has made it his life’s mission to find and record them before they are gone.
Soundtracker follows Gordon on the road and into the wilderness of America’s West. When the noise of civilization intrudes on every recording, his quest takes on a new shape: the search for one sound that captures the spirit of the country.
“This is a remarkable journey: a quest for imperiled Nature by an artist who never stopped listening.”
“…Nick Sherman’s film does what all the best films do — it re-orients and re-tunes our awareness so that we experience the world in a new way.”
Official selection
Premiered at Hot Docs. Played from Telluride to Tasmania.
- Hot DocsToronto2010
- Mountainfilm in TellurideColorado2010
- EcoFocus Film Festival Best CinematographyAthens, GA2010
- Calgary InternationalAlberta2010
One Square Inch of Silence
A sanctuary for quiet, marked by a single stone.
In the Hoh Rain Forest of Olympic National Park, Gordon keeps one square inch free of human noise. If it stays quiet, so does a great deal of the park around it.
Watch Soundtracker