Two Notes in History

With two notes, Steven Spielberg and John Williams changed the history of cinema, in the most unthinkable way possible. Cast your mind back to 1974, in a time before special effects, CGI, and the internet: Spielberg was amidst his troublesome shoot for his first big monster movie Jaws, a thrilling aquatic pursuit for a monstrously large great white shark. Now infamous, the shoot for Spielberg was a disaster: the problems with shooting at sea, as well as dealing with the creation of an enormous shark, meant that the budget had ballooned in size, from $4 million to an eventual $9 million. But most fearful of all for Spielberg was this: had it been all for nothing? Had he created an absolute turkey of a movie, of great white proportions?

And to everyone’s surprise, most of all Spielberg’s, it worked. Yes, the script was good, the shark was terrifying, and the tension was on another level, but we all know the real driver behind the force. Perhaps now the two most famous notes in cinematic history, and what was an absolute masterstroke by composer John Williams. These two notes became the shark, they physically represented in our minds the presence of this beast which we weren’t being shown on screen. One might go as far to say that they became a character of their own: the real monster. The most fantastic soundtracks do exactly this: they become an onscreen presence, flitting between the characters like an invisible force. Music can complete a film, a missing piece in a jigsaw to create the sort of mood which the director is aiming for: without this, a scene can be completely misjudged, to hilarious results. Ever tried switching on the mute button during the opening credits of Jaws? Its just water!

Three types of soundtrack come to mind, the first being the classical score. Generally created by a classical composer, this can use anything from a 4-piece to a fully-fledged orchestra, in order to create as diverse a sound as possible. Usually employed in the most dramatic of sequence, a full orchestra can wrench emotions from side to side. Alfred Hitchcock’s collaboration Bernard Hermann in the original slasher Psycho brings to mind visions of shock and fear: the scratching glissandi are symbolic of the knife which comes plunging down onscreen, striking into the audience’s ears. Composer Hans Zimmer has one of the more distinctive sounds in the business: deep sweeping gestures of the orchestra, swelling the scene with drama and character like no other, whether its Jack Sparrow’s swashbuckling antics, or the beautifully tense moments of inception in Inception (obviously). A classical soundtrack is like a modern day symphony: nuanced, emotive, and hugely effective.

The second distinct type is what I have struggled to name the artist’s soundtrack: it is named as such since it describes a soundtrack featuring solely or mainly the songs of one musician or band. In the same way that albums can tell a story, so too can directors employ the help of a specific musician to ease along their narrative. Famously, Mike Nichols collaborated with Simon and Garfunkel on The Graduate, with the infamous Mrs Robinson lending her name to the now famous (in its own right) track, featured distinctly in the film: Nichols used the calming acoustic sound of the duo to accompany his story of adolescent angst and confusion, set against the summer scape of Southern California. Wes Anderson, as is his wont, demolished the fourth wall in The Life Aquatic by inviting musician Seu Jorge to be a character in the film itself, providing fantastic interludes with his Portuguese acoustic renditions of Bowie. The director provides a gateway for the musician’s unique sound into the film, while also creating a wonderful background to the onscreen action.

Last and by no means least is, again hazardously named, the collection soundtrack: this is where the director has assembled a collection of already released songs, in their own right, and laid them over the reel of their film. This, in many ways, offers the director more freedom, but requires a considerable skill: they must be able to tailor these songs appropriately to their film, rather than the other way round. This can work to great effect, however, when the director engages effectively with what the music is trying to communicate. Mr Tarantino is a master at this skill, delving into the deepest confines of music history and plucking out marvellous choices left right and centre: most memorable is the resonance of Stealers Wheel’s ‘Stuck in the Middle With You’ in the excruciating yet oddly compelling torture scene of Reservoir Dogs, or perhaps RZA’s (of Wu Tang fame) mind blowing mash-up of James Brown’s ‘The Payback’ and Tupac’s ‘Untouchable’, launched at the climax of Django’s revenge story. A tricky skill, but one which can lovingly combine the director’s hard cinematographic work, and their love for music.

Music and film go lovingly hand in hand: where would Spielberg be without his Williams, or Nolan without his Zimmer. What have we learnt: all you need is two notes, and the rest is history.

Top 5: Best Soundtracks

5. 2001: A Space Odyssey – Various

Arguably less a film and more an extended music video for some of the classical greats, Kubrick’s mindblowing visuals fit perfectly with the grandeur of Strauss et al. Most memorable is the eye-popping intro accompanied by Wagner’s ecstatically charged ‘Also Sprach Zarathustra’.

4. Little Miss Sunshine – DeVotchKa

Admittedly an outside choice, but one which is a personal favourite. The Denver-based quartet (named after the nadsat word for ‘girl’ in A Clockwork Orange), lay down the heart-wrenching accompaniment for this outstanding tragi-comedy. Never has music been so upbeat yet depressing at the same time.

3. O Brother Where Art Thou? – T Bone Burnett

The phrase ‘country western’ was near taboo before T Bone Burnett got his beautiful hands all over it: uniting greats Norman Blake and Alison Krauss, along with some of the cast itself, Burnett created a foot-stomping, thigh-slapping, and incredibly atmospheric soundtrack for this Depression-era epic.

2. Reservoir Dogs - Various

A sheer stroke of genius: unsatisfied with convention, Tarantino created his own radio station ‘K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the Seventies’ to play all his favourite songs for him. Just so happens this includes some fantastically appropriate, albeit unfitting, melodies to go with this crime thriller. The addition of the monotonous DJ is just spot on hilarious.

1.    There Will Be Blood – Jonny Greenwood

In my opinion, some of the greatest classical music created in the last 20 years: striking, moving, and chilling in equal measure, Greenwood’s score provides the perfect sound to P.T. Anderson’s unflinching look at greed and evil. And all this from the guitarist from Radiohead. Who’d have thought?

Breakfast with Tarantino

There are two things which Quentin Tarantino loves in his films: violence and talking. And boy does he love a lot of it. Whether it’s Kill Bill’s Bride taking on the army of Japanese warriors known as the ‘Crazy 88’, or the suited and booted Reservoir Dogs chatting over a pre-heist breakfast, Tarantino loves to pile on violence and talking in large quantities. A prime example, and possibly the best example, comes in the now famous Breakfast Scene in his 1995 film Pulp Fiction, the cult gangster hit largely renowned as Tarantino’s finest moment. The Breakfast Scene packs more sass than Samuel L Jackson’s afro, and makes for a thrilling master class of how to make films. Sit back, relax, and tuck into your Big Kahuna Burger, while I tell you why this is the greatest scene of all time.

At first glance, the scene isn’t much. Those with a short attention span might point out that the scene is about 10 minutes talking followed by roughly 10 seconds of violence. What is more, the majority of the conversation isn’t even about violence, but instead about Hamburgers and foot-massages. Those of you looking for instant Tarantino blood-guarantee might be somewhat disappointed. Disappointment, however, is no something which Tarantino allows. Homaging the Sonny Chiba 1974 martial arts flikc Karate Kiba, while interweaving some of his own loquacious dialogue, 

Tarantino delivers one of the most powerful, amusing, and utterly terrifying scenes in the history of cinema.

The two principal characters in the scene, Jules (played by Samuel L Jackson) and Vincent (played by a very quiet John Travolta), are almost unknown to us when we begin the scene. Driving to an unnamed direction, all we are given is a very basic idea of their profession – hitmen – and the power relationship between the two. Jules clearly takes a leading role in this relationship, while Vincent is more than happy to let him steal the scene with some of the cleverest dialogue in the film. A somewhat inane conversation about the term for the ‘Quarter Pounder with Cheese’ is a throwaway gag, which is brought up again later. The rest of the build acts to mount our expectations on what the particular mission at hand is: implications about the ‘badass-ness’ of Jules and Vincent’s boss, Marcellus Wallace, are made, about how he killed a man for giving his wife a foot massage. When we get to the apartment, we are almost in the edge of our seats in expectation about what is going to happen: will they burst throw the door, guns blazing, shouting profanities and shooting everything that moves?

No. They knock on the door, and casually waltz in. Clearly not in a rush, and not in any visible discomfort, Jules politely allows an unnamed man to stay reclined on the sofa, fervently apologising for interrupting them duri

ng breakfast. Samuel L Jackson stands centre stage, in the middle of the room, oozing confidence and menace in equal measure. Dropping the name ‘Marcellus Wallace’ sets an icy chill in the room, but they clearly know why these men are here. Sarcastically remarking that hamburgers are ‘the cornerstone for any nutritious breakfast’ seems absurd in this scenario: Tarantino plays with our expectations of tense drama by making small talk about burgers for breakfast. A visibly terrified Bret, the victim of this intimidation, shakes in his seat while a more than threatening Jules wolfs down his burger and finishes his drink. And like that, Tarantino tells us that playtime is over and business is beginning.

‘’What? What?’, stutters the dumbstruck Bret. ‘’WHAT AIN’T NO COUNTRY I EVER HEARD OF. THEY SPEAK ENGLISH IN WHAT?’’, booms the now terrifying Jules. The juxtaposition of side splitting dialogue and Jackson’s bloodthirsty hitman is almost ridiculous: we can’t help but feel both terrified and amused at the same time. Bret’s measly attempt at an apology is interrupted by the unflinching execution of his sofa-bound friend by Jules’ revolver. The genius of the scene is yet to come: despite retrieving the entirely irrelevant briefcase, Jules hasn’t got what he’s come for. And neither have we. We paid the admission price for a Tarantino film, and by god we want blood.

‘’The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men’’.

Samuel L Jackson preaches the bible like a gun-toting God wearing a suit, hurling out these words of righteousness at the poor, helpless Bret. 

‘’Blessed is he, who, in the name of charity and good will shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children.’’

 At this point, the rest of the room is still, and Samuel L Jackson’s fury-filled face fills the whole screen. His eyes glisten white with the anger of a hundred men.

‘’And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers.’’

Jules’ gun now points straight down the lens of the camera, onto the fear stricken victim of this abuse. Tarantino has delivered to us the perfect scene, mixing laugh out loud comedy with straight forward terror, and all he needs do now is sign off with his signature move.

‘’AND YOU WILL KNOW THAT I AM THE LORD, WHEN I LAY MY VENGEANCE UPON YOU.’’

Bang, bang, bang. And the rest is history. Jules and Vincent deliver a perfect lesson about why you don’t mess around with gangsters, money, and the ruthless Marcellus Wallace. And Tarantino delivers an lesson in how to make an impeccable scene: the film is great, don’t get me wrong, but Quentin gave us his finest stroke in this unforgettable scene. And to paraphrase Inglorious Basterds’ Brad Pitt, this might just be his masterpiece.  

Quick Top 5: Other Best Tarantino Talky/Action Scenes

5. The Jew Hunter Arrives (Inglourious Basterds)

Not only the opening scene of the film, but also the beginning of a beautiful relationship between Tarantino and Christoph Waltz, here showing off the extent of his acting chops and linguistic talent, as a conversation about milk quickly sours as his search for a hidden Jewish family results in much gun fire.

4. Wedding Rehearsal (Kill Bill Volume 2)

A 'touching' reunion of Bill and The Bride in full Black and White flashback, when we finally find out how a heartbroken man orders and executes the 'Twin Pines Wedding Massacre'.

3. Candie Land (Django Unchained)

The revenge epic comes to a climax out this more than tense dinner at the mansion of the evil Calvin Candie, superbly played by DiCaprio, and takes a turn for the worse when Django's cover is blown and the surrounding room are shot to pieces.

2. La Louisiane (Inglourious Basterds)

Whisky, accents, and a fun little card game occupy perhaps Tarantino's longest scene: an undercover meet up is blown when Fassbender's drink order gives up the game, and pretty much everyone is killed.

1. Crazy 88 (Kill Bill Volume 1)

The first of Tarantino's martial arts homages ends fittingly in a full Japanese battle, in one corner the revenge thirsty Bride (played with exceptional devotion by Uma Thurman), and in the other corner, Oren Ishii and her 88-strong army of sword wielding cronies. Let battle commence. 

Television killed the Film Star

Back in the day, whatever day that was, a film was enough. We’d go into the cinema, sit down in their painfully upright seats, unpeel our feet from the sticky floors which know not the meaning of the word ‘mop’, and enjoy a couple of hours of storytelling, pure and simple. There was something special about film which stole our attention, as if entering into that dark room was akin to walking into the world of fantasy which the film was capturing. Talk to your parents (or indeed, if you are parents, then talk to yourself), and they will fondly reminisce about the 4 cinema trips a year, if that, and how the ‘pictures’ was a special treat for them. So what happened? What do I mean ‘what happened’? Well, it seems, and I may be wrong, but that the little brother of the cinema, formerly known as the television, has perhaps stolen this magic, and crowned its ‘TV series’ in place of the film. So what happened?

The first formal rise of television from popularity to global superstardom can be recognized in the advent of the boxset. Formerly having to wait a week or so for the next episode of your favourite TV show this meant you could now watch the whole series on demand, without a care in the world (other than the prospect of wasting away hours of your life in a comatose slumber in a darkened room in front of the blinking television). The boxset meant we could avoid the annoying ‘next week on [insert TV show here]’, instead fast-forwarding through the week and arriving at the next episode instantly. Most importantly, however, it meant we could never miss a thing: we could start a series when we wanted, regardless of whether we had even been born when the programme was first aired. My childhood was forever changed when one birthday brought me the first 7 or so series of The Simpsons, a gift which resulted in the disappearance of about a week of my life. As I grew up, the dripfeed was changed into 90s comedy gold such as I’m Alan Partridge and The Day Today, an attempt by my father to inject his same sense of humour into my brother and I. What it meant, however, was that this TV gold wasn’t lost in the vaults of television history, but was again accessible and rewatchable forever more.

The internet has added to this increased dominance by the television, allowing viewers to access all these beautiful things from the comfort of their own laptop, and perhaps more importantly to many, for free. It would be argued that for many programmes, the internet was in fact their saving grace, allowing many things to receive a wider audience than it might have otherwise gained. Game of Thrones started on the exclusive Sky Atlantic, but quickly gained notoriety for being largely accessible online, and the third season in fact became the highest watched series of all time, on account of the ridiculously large online audience. Breaking Bad, a personal fave, the mindblowing tale of an average Joe’s descent into evil, picked up extraordinary speed online, particularly through its cooperation with online viewing site Netflix, most notably when the final series was released simultaneously on TV and online: this perhaps being a thank-you, or at least a ‘shout out’ to the online viewership which made this programme so popular. More groundbreaking a phenomenon, however, has been the arrival of programmes made specifically for the world wide web: Netflix has dominated the market with critically acclaimed shows such as House of Cards, American Horror Story, Lilyhammer (a spinoff from the box-set success story The Sopranos), and the long awaited fourth series of cult-comedy Arrested Development. The latter, the hilarious series from the early 2000s which launched the careers of Jason Bateman and Michael Cera, among others, was cancelled midway through the third series: an online launch, therefore, of the fourth series preventing any such risk, releasing all episodes simultaneously and ensuring that no further investment was at risk by screening the entire series. A win-win situation for all.

Perhaps most intriguing, however, in this seamless transition is the production of a sequel in the format: it would seem that television is providing a more steady and stable platform for directors and their ideas beyond the original concept. 90s Coen Brothers crime-noir Fargo has recently found itself a television sequel, in the imaginatively named Fargo: at the time of writing the first episode has just been aired, and is, I assure, worthy of the name, while not meaninglessly cashing in on the concept of the successful original. Man of the moment Benedict Cumberbatch struggled at first with the film format, and came into his own on the superbly produced Sherlock, supremely outclassing its cinematic contemporaries a la Guy Ritchie, and perfectly fitting the three episode mini-series in which it has arrived thrice. TV smash hit Breaking Bad has ditched the idea of a film remake/spin-off, favouring instead the recently penned Better Call Saul, a prequel focusing on the eponymous lawyer from BB, and how he became embroiled in Walter White’s drug empire. It seems, therefore, that the future, too, lies in film.

It would appear that film is perhaps no longer enough. We wait a few years for a film to come out, only with the common occurrence that it disappoints or misses the main points of the book/source material. With TV, we are promised three things: the immense plethora of episodes means that it is simply hard to disappoint, almost guaranteeing something for everyone; it allows for proper character arcs to be fulfilled, rather than rushing out a cheesy storyline in the 2 hour running time a film can offer; and it means we can never miss a thing, with the boxset, the internet, and digital functions such as Sky Plus or Virgin media ensuring that everything is on demand at our fingertips. Film is by no means dead – rest assured, this blog is still very much a film blog – but the future is very much in the hands of television, and by god is it looking good.

Under the Skin: A Review

I promised myself that I wouldn’t do reviews: anyone and everyone can do reviews, and they so rarely offer any insight into the film itself, but simply just another set of stars to attach to the poster, or another ten reasons why this film isn’t ‘fun for all the family’. But once in a while, a film comes along which warrants this 1000 odd words of praise, a film which stands out among the rest, and I have to say that film this year is Under the Skin.

Jonathan Glazer’s third film (after Birth and Sexy Beast) is a truly unique, mindblowing, and utterly thrilling piece of filmmaking which has blown me out of the water. A science fiction thriller, based on the cult novel by Michael Faber, based in Scotland isn’t necessarily the most recognizable film trope, but one which proves its worth tenfold. The film benefits form a successful two act form, divided between the urban turmoil of Glasgow, and the relative harmony of the Scottish highlands. The first act finds us in the most innovative and thrilling segments of the film: we join the recently landed extra-terrestrial as she trawls the streets of Glasgow looking for lone males to lure in, seduce, and eventually harvest for their flesh (a process which isn’t explicitly explained but can be worked out). Through the use of hidden cameras and an extremely confident Johansson, Glazer and co managed to entice random members of the public into the white van: a tiresome procedure, I can imagine, but one received well by the more cocksure alpha males who perhaps fancied their chances. The second act contrasts, as the alien escapes from her motorbike mentor (an enigmatic character to say the least) to the Scottish highlands, where she witnesses both heights of human kindness, and the horrors of human lust and desire. The film benefits well from this change of pace, with a smooth transition from urban to rural ensuring that the film doesn’t become monotonous, particularly with the introduction of new themes.

At the centre of the show, we find an almost unrecognizable Scarlett Johansson, the beautiful Hollywood actress hidden underneath cheap make-up and a jet black wig, which renders her almost anonymous among the scenes of Glasgow’s main shopping precincts. The stone-cold Johansson is utterly compelling and eternally watchable, a resolve which is intensely satisfying considering she remains in the camera frame for almost the entire film. The actress has shown her worth beforehand, both as the loveable ‘girl next door’ in Lost in Translation, and more recently lending her delightful tones to the operating system in Her: in Under the Skin, however, she is unrivalled. Consistently convincing as an alien hidden behind the false visage of the human body, Johansson has mastered the emotionless stare, as if nothing lay behind those big wide eyes. In the seduction scenes, she successfully conveys the animalistic desire for flesh, staring down the prey with the same cold eyes, seeing not a human but rather a target. Most shocking is her unflinching gaze upon a terrifying beach scene, as a man and his wife both get swept out to sea, as she pounces on the Czech tourist who attempts to save them: as she drags away the body, the cries of the baby left behind fill the screen, while Johansson’s emptiness appears nothing but oblivious to this ultimate state of fear of abandonment.

Most impressive about Johansson’s performance, however, is the gradual transition towards empathy, a trait which appears more and more towards the second half: after luring in a grossly deformed man, she appears to take pity on his sense of loneliness and isolation, allowing him to leave the lair unharmed. Her journey into the Highlands, furthermore finds her drawn in by an incredible hospitable Samaritan: we gradually see her affection towards him, as her curiosity with the human race, as well as the contours and features of her own naked body, grows. Essentially, however, she is reminded of the fact that she is not human, and does not belong here: she spits out food in disgust, and jumps away hastily mid-sex. Her ultimate demise is that she finds love for the human people, but can never truly be one, and it is this tragedy which Johansson so effectively carries throughout her performance.

The comparisons to other directing greats has been drawn from all angles: heralded as the ‘heir to Kubrick’, using the same unflinching cinematography and slow movement as the 2001 director. The opening three minutes of space, psychedelic colour, and transformation evoke the ‘acid trip’ finale of 2001: A Space Odyssey, while the use of monochromatic reflective surfaces, especially in the alien’s lair, remind us of the space age technology first imagined by Kubrick. The Observer film critic Mark Kermode draws the inspiration from Nicolas Roeg, in particular his Man Who Fell to Earth, citing the same tale of stranger in a strange land gradually finding solace among the human people, a weakness which eventually proves to be his downfall. To draw these comparisons, however, I feel would be inaccurate, and perhaps even unfair. Glazer here has carved his own style: too real to be Kubrick, and too convincing to be Roeg, Glazer manages to toe the line between reality and fantasy without ever falling too deeply into both. Accompanying the eery visuals is Mica Levi’s chilling score: an immensely powerful exposition, the scratching of strings and trembling of keys unsettling throughout, interwoven perfectly with the imagery on screen.

Glazer’s film is by no means an Oscar-winning film: one can assume he deliberately brought it out at this time to avoid the whole annoyance of Oscar punditry and prediction. It is, however, a piece of art and science in itself: a powerful exposition of stunningly crafted camerawork, a phenomenal central performance, and a fascinating insight into human nature and experience, and the true meaning of what it is to be a stranger.