Ben Burtt on Revolutionizing Sci-Fi Sound With ‘Star Wars’ and Creating Darth Vader’s Breathing

Ben Burtt created the sound of my childhood. He gets that a lot.

“Yeah, I hear that often,” says the legendary sound designer, creator of the lightsabre swish and Darth Vader’s electronic wheezing, the voice of R2-D2, Chewbacca and, for a younger generation, that of Pixar’s WALL-E. “I guess I altered the DNA of a lot of young people.”

Burtt, a 12-time Oscar nominee, and four-time winner — he earned Special Achievement Awards for his work on Star Wars and Raiders of the Los Ark, and Oscars for E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade — is being honored by the Locarno Film Festival at its 2024 edition with the Vision Award Ticinomoda, a prize dedicated to creatives whose work has extended the horizons of cinema.