Before I really get into the subject of this blog post, I just have to say that the film JFK (1991), directed by Oliver Stone, is mind opening experience that quickly escalates until your mind is actually blown. Having been to the 6th Floor Museum, a museum in the Dallas book depository where Lee Harvey Oswald is supposed to have shot President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, I was already aware that the official account of the assassination is questionable at best. Based on a number of of conflicting pieces of evidence, most clearly the angle of the bullet that hits Kennedy in the head on the Zapruder film, it is plainly visible to most that the official story is flawed. This film, while repeating these facts that I already knew, also added to them, and provided a detailed account of an investigation into the motives for covering it up, and the true story behind why JFK was killed. It was the details of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrisons investigation into this conspiracy that brought my mind all the way to the point of combustion.
In JFK, Oliver Stone tells this story by weaving the narrative in between footage of the present in the film, reenactments of conspiracy events, and real footage of the assassination and events surrounding it. Perhaps this visual style is explained by Garrison (Kevin Costner) during a working dinner discussing the assassination case with his legal team. "Y'all gotta start thinking on a different level, like the CIA does. Now we're through the looking glass here people. White is black and black is white." Although this film is long (the directors cut is 206 minutes, the original is only 188), this style of presentation necessitates a whirlwind different shots and camera movements. In the same dinner scene, the viewer is presented with fluid cuts between the different members of the team at dinner and reenactments of background events for the case. At the end of the sequence, however, the viewer is presented with a real photo of Oswald on the cover of Life magazine.
These sequences can be confusing to the viewer, and perhaps would be unintelligible were it not for the film's unique sound design. Referring only to the dialogue in scenes like the dinner meeting and many other, supervising sound editor Wylie Stateman explains that "The dialogue work in that film, from a sound point of view, was just incredible. There were so many layers and it was tucked in so tight, it was like working with a shoehorn. You had to transition out of one thought after the thought had been completed, just in time to allow the next thought to make its transition in. It was an exercise in microsurgery" (Sound on Film, 252-253).
In the same interview, Statemen also discusses the way sound helps to clarify the cuts on screen. "There's discontinuous imagery that makes your mind question its validity. Sound tends to smooth or soothe that phenomenon and can be a very effective tool in taking some of those breaks in action and making them far more transparent to the mind" (253). This is true of the dinner sequence, where, as Garrison says his lines about their level of thinking, we see the supposed doctoring of the photo that was so instrumental in convicting Oswald (at least in the public opinion). The continuous monologue in this sequence, culminating in the conclusion that Oswald may in fact have been a patsy, helps to clarify the action taking place in the imagined reenactment on screen.
The sound design in these blended scenes are only one piece of how the sound is an integral part of JFK. Statement also talks about how he grappled with the length of the film, and issues such as the volume of gunshots in his interview. "We wanted to really lull you into a sense of watch and listen, and we didn't want to box the audience in the ears just because we have a hundred decibels of potential sound pressure we can throw at them. So when there are gunshots, there's no point in making somebody's ears ring...we wanted the guns to sound different from different perspectives...There wasn't any real consensus on what happened that day, and there still isn't" (252).
Through its sound design and the sheer intrigue of the subject of its plot, JFK manages to force the viewer to see things from new perspectives and consider new and horrible possibilities about the assassination of President Kennedy. This film is truly massive in its length and the weight of the subjec it takes on. And hey, Kevin Costner isn't too bad either.
Friday, November 13, 2015
Friday, November 6, 2015
The Thin Blue Line
In 2015, in post-Ferguson America, it is easy to understand why somebody might have some trouble trusting the police. Many police involved shootings of unarmed suspects have tainted the reputation of the police in many communities. This is not to say that all police officers are racist and corrupt, but there certainly are enough to cause noticeable harm, as has been demonstrated throughout our nation's history. Although unrelated to race, the controversy at the heart of the film The Thin Blue Line (1988), directed by Errol Morris, does not improve the image of police officers for many viewers. I do not wish to dwell on this aspect of the film, however, though it pervades throughout much of the narration. I would, however, very much like to address the unique style of presentation and the importance of sound in the film.
The Thin Blue Line is the story of Randall Dale Adams, a man wrongfully convicted of the murder of a Dallas police officer in November of 1976. Adams and his brother had recently moved to Dallas from Ohio. Adams got a job shortly after arriving and shortly before he met 16 year old David Ray Harris, a troubled youth from the town of Vidor, Texas. It was this night that Harris would murder Dallas police officer Robert Wood, only to later frame Adams for the crime.
The film presents the complex and convoluted story of Adams' conviction through a series of actual interviews with the Adams, Harris, and the witnesses in the trial, and a series of reenactments of their sworn accounts. Sound plays an important role throughout these accounts and in the eventual clearing of Adams after the films release.
The first role that sound plays within these accounts is the obvious. The witnesses stories are heard while showing their interview. As the interviews progress into the reenactment, however, and the sound design is expanded. The narration remains clearly audible throughout, sometimes covering the action on screen sometimes cutting out until another visual cut to the interview. We then hear a detailed soundtrack of the events on screen, including cars, boots on asphalt, and gunshots. As the suspense builds (sometimes absent of the reenactments, sometimes paired) a haunting symphonic soundtrack, marked by a dark descending bass scale, adds to the intensity. This musical soundtrack is especially ominous and fitting for a story in which the truth is concealed, despite the many obvious holes in the prosecution's case.
At the end of the film, sound becomes the primary method of communicating the story, as Morris' camera broke down the day of the final interview with Harris. The scene is quiet except for the slightly fuzzy voices of Morris and Harris, adding to the somewhat creepy factor of the line of questioning. Further adding to this effect is Harris himself, and the cryptic ways in which he answers Morris' questions. When asked if Adams is innocent, Harris explains "I'm sure he is...Because I'm the one that knows." When asked if he was surprised when the police blamed Adams Harris states plainly "They didn't blame him. I did. Scared sixteen year old kid. He sure would like to get out of it if he can." In his most direct admission of guilt, Harris says "I've always thought about...if you could say why there's a reason that Randall Adams is in jail, it might be because of the fact that he didn't have no place for somebody to stay that helped him that night...landed him where he's at. That might be the reason."
This audio sequence proves to be crucial not only to the film, but to Randall Adams himself as it, along with the problems in the investigation that it brought to light, lead to his eventual release from prison. To me, this is a demonstration of both the power of film to affect the real world, and the power of sound in general. While the soundtrack initially plays an aesthetic role, adding to the enjoyment factor in viewing the film, it eventually becomes essential to the plot and the filmmaker's mission in producing the film. There's a thin blue line between chaos and order (or something like that) and this film holds that line to a higher standard.
The Thin Blue Line is the story of Randall Dale Adams, a man wrongfully convicted of the murder of a Dallas police officer in November of 1976. Adams and his brother had recently moved to Dallas from Ohio. Adams got a job shortly after arriving and shortly before he met 16 year old David Ray Harris, a troubled youth from the town of Vidor, Texas. It was this night that Harris would murder Dallas police officer Robert Wood, only to later frame Adams for the crime.
The film presents the complex and convoluted story of Adams' conviction through a series of actual interviews with the Adams, Harris, and the witnesses in the trial, and a series of reenactments of their sworn accounts. Sound plays an important role throughout these accounts and in the eventual clearing of Adams after the films release.
The first role that sound plays within these accounts is the obvious. The witnesses stories are heard while showing their interview. As the interviews progress into the reenactment, however, and the sound design is expanded. The narration remains clearly audible throughout, sometimes covering the action on screen sometimes cutting out until another visual cut to the interview. We then hear a detailed soundtrack of the events on screen, including cars, boots on asphalt, and gunshots. As the suspense builds (sometimes absent of the reenactments, sometimes paired) a haunting symphonic soundtrack, marked by a dark descending bass scale, adds to the intensity. This musical soundtrack is especially ominous and fitting for a story in which the truth is concealed, despite the many obvious holes in the prosecution's case.
At the end of the film, sound becomes the primary method of communicating the story, as Morris' camera broke down the day of the final interview with Harris. The scene is quiet except for the slightly fuzzy voices of Morris and Harris, adding to the somewhat creepy factor of the line of questioning. Further adding to this effect is Harris himself, and the cryptic ways in which he answers Morris' questions. When asked if Adams is innocent, Harris explains "I'm sure he is...Because I'm the one that knows." When asked if he was surprised when the police blamed Adams Harris states plainly "They didn't blame him. I did. Scared sixteen year old kid. He sure would like to get out of it if he can." In his most direct admission of guilt, Harris says "I've always thought about...if you could say why there's a reason that Randall Adams is in jail, it might be because of the fact that he didn't have no place for somebody to stay that helped him that night...landed him where he's at. That might be the reason."
This audio sequence proves to be crucial not only to the film, but to Randall Adams himself as it, along with the problems in the investigation that it brought to light, lead to his eventual release from prison. To me, this is a demonstration of both the power of film to affect the real world, and the power of sound in general. While the soundtrack initially plays an aesthetic role, adding to the enjoyment factor in viewing the film, it eventually becomes essential to the plot and the filmmaker's mission in producing the film. There's a thin blue line between chaos and order (or something like that) and this film holds that line to a higher standard.
Wednesday, November 4, 2015
The Conversation
Before I go into a full post about this film, I have to imagine the way I would pitch it to a stranger who had just asked me "Should I see The Conversation?"
Combined with the ominous music, partially drawn from the sound in the opening scene, these sounds help provide a clear picture of Caul's disturbance by clarifying the detail of his destruction.
Sound serves a clarifying purpose throughout The Conversation. In many instances, this sound is the product of an innovative method of recording and presentation. I think, however, my favorite part of the sound how self-reflexive it is. There's nothing like a good movie that knows it's a movie, and here we have a great soundtrack that knows it's a soundtrack.
Do you like meta critical film soundtracks that are full of foley sound? Because if so this film is totally up your alley.
Now that wouldn't necessarily describe my usual first choice of film to see, but in this case, The Conversation (1974), directed by Francis Ford Coppola, ended up being one of my favorite films of the semester. The film centers around surveillance expert Harry Caul and a specific case he has been investigating. Caul carries out this investigation by recording his subjects (a couple) as they walk around Union Square in San Fransisco. He does this by utilizing multiple targeted long range microphones from overlooking windows and by having a man tail the couple in question. Later, Caul is seen mixing adjusting the volume and frequency on each recording to get a complete audio recording of the conversation. It is worth noting that this opening scene is revisited throughout the film to the point where it serves as exposition, rising action, and plays heavily towards the climax of the film as well.
This scene is just one example of both the film's innovative use of sound and the meta critical nature of the film. Supervising editior and sound editor Walter Murch explained the electronic component sound heard in the opening scene of The Conversation in an interview, saying, "This film was made in 1973, but we said: 'There's going to be digital sound. Let's pretend somehow that Harry Caul has his hand on some prototype digital processing equipment, and when he's recording these people's voices, he's recording some kind of digital interference matrixing'" (Sound-On-Film, 88-89). The fact that the sound design anticipates (and pretty successfully) the types of noises made by digital sound interference is innovative in itself, however, it is doubly so when considering the pervasiveness of this device throughout the plot. The presence of these devices and numerous scenes in which Caul mixes sound advance to the meta criticism, showing processes that are inherently similar to processes utilized in creating The Conversation.
Another example of the innovation in this film is also related to the opening scene. In the same interview in the book Sound on Film, Murch described the way in which the audio for this sequence was recorded. When asked if they began with a clean studio recording of the dialogue, Murch responds frankly. "No, we didn't." He continues, saying "We had a conversation recorded at Union Square with three cameras and radio mikes" (90). Murch talks about how this method of recording seemed like it would be simple, but that they encountered a large number of radio waves that interfered with their mikes. After recording the scene several times, they were able to put together a mix of those recordings and additional sound, recorded in a more controlled environment. The methods that Murch and Coppola used and the problems they encountered while recording were relatively new at the time the film was made (Nashville is famous for using radio mikes, but they did that in '75!). Additionally, this method is intensely meta critical, as the sound heard in the film was actually recorded in a convoluted way almost identical to the way this recording process is depicted in the film.
The remarkable use of sound is also present in the final scene, in which Caul himself has been bugged. Caul is shown breaking apart his apartment (perhaps a metaphor for the breakdown he is undergoing as a victim of his own craft) in search of the secret recording device. The sound for this sequence is perhaps the most detailed use of Foley I have ever seen. Every single minute action on screen in this sequence is audible, and it is all added via Foley art.
This scene is just one example of both the film's innovative use of sound and the meta critical nature of the film. Supervising editior and sound editor Walter Murch explained the electronic component sound heard in the opening scene of The Conversation in an interview, saying, "This film was made in 1973, but we said: 'There's going to be digital sound. Let's pretend somehow that Harry Caul has his hand on some prototype digital processing equipment, and when he's recording these people's voices, he's recording some kind of digital interference matrixing'" (Sound-On-Film, 88-89). The fact that the sound design anticipates (and pretty successfully) the types of noises made by digital sound interference is innovative in itself, however, it is doubly so when considering the pervasiveness of this device throughout the plot. The presence of these devices and numerous scenes in which Caul mixes sound advance to the meta criticism, showing processes that are inherently similar to processes utilized in creating The Conversation.
Another example of the innovation in this film is also related to the opening scene. In the same interview in the book Sound on Film, Murch described the way in which the audio for this sequence was recorded. When asked if they began with a clean studio recording of the dialogue, Murch responds frankly. "No, we didn't." He continues, saying "We had a conversation recorded at Union Square with three cameras and radio mikes" (90). Murch talks about how this method of recording seemed like it would be simple, but that they encountered a large number of radio waves that interfered with their mikes. After recording the scene several times, they were able to put together a mix of those recordings and additional sound, recorded in a more controlled environment. The methods that Murch and Coppola used and the problems they encountered while recording were relatively new at the time the film was made (Nashville is famous for using radio mikes, but they did that in '75!). Additionally, this method is intensely meta critical, as the sound heard in the film was actually recorded in a convoluted way almost identical to the way this recording process is depicted in the film.
The remarkable use of sound is also present in the final scene, in which Caul himself has been bugged. Caul is shown breaking apart his apartment (perhaps a metaphor for the breakdown he is undergoing as a victim of his own craft) in search of the secret recording device. The sound for this sequence is perhaps the most detailed use of Foley I have ever seen. Every single minute action on screen in this sequence is audible, and it is all added via Foley art.
Combined with the ominous music, partially drawn from the sound in the opening scene, these sounds help provide a clear picture of Caul's disturbance by clarifying the detail of his destruction.
Sound serves a clarifying purpose throughout The Conversation. In many instances, this sound is the product of an innovative method of recording and presentation. I think, however, my favorite part of the sound how self-reflexive it is. There's nothing like a good movie that knows it's a movie, and here we have a great soundtrack that knows it's a soundtrack.
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