Director Oliver Hermanus and Actor Chris Cooper Wax Lyrical on “The History of Sound”

Director Oliver Hermanus calls his latest film, The History of Sound, “a love letter to the films of the ‘90s.”

The period drama stars Paul Mescal as Kentucky singer Lionel and Josh O’Connor as Boston composer David White, who have a brief but life-changing romance in 1920 while hiking through rural Maine to record local folk music on wax cylinders.

Hermanus grew up in South Africa,