I don’t get around to watching too many movies, but I’m starting to think maybe I should Netflix more. After seeing No Country For Old Men this past Sunday, it really inspired me to push music again. Not in a sense where I feel that I can create music and develop it like a movie, but more along the lines of being inspired to create a piece of art.
There’s a lot of movies that are out there to mean something and have a special purpose. I’m not saying movies are created only to slam dance around with life messages and witty lines, but there are those that simply choose to exist as of piece of art. The Coen brothers nailed this film, and I know I may be a bit late on the running for a review of it, but I have to offer some insight that came to me while I was watching this movie.
No Country uses white space like a magazine would. It displays the visual piece, unobscured, and allows the subject to remain simple yet powerful, drawing your attention directly to it and nothing else. It leaves you focusing, silently waiting and wanting more. The capturing of the town and ambiance compared with the slow-moving plot line and camera movements completed the lazy town vibe the book could only describe in words. In this movie, the landscape and locations were the stars of the film, where the actors merely performed in a cameo role, intermingling with the plot. It just goes to show that a camera alone can tell a classic story with minimal dialog.
After reflecting on these thoughts while I watched Chigurh blow away some guy behind a shower curtain in a motel, I started to think about how other filmmakers operate out of traditional Hollywood production lines. Tarantino is a great example. He lets the actors act and lets the takes run out as long as possible, letting the actors and dialog carry the movie. His editing is a little rough around the edges and isn’t as smooth as the Coen brothers, but he defines his style very clear, like how Pete Townshend would play a guitar. His recording process is that which reminds me of how records were made back in the 50s and 60s where it was generally 1 take the whole band had to nail. And if they didn’t get the song on a take, they would redo it over and over again until they nailed it.
Acting and scene location aside, music and movies have a lot of the same capturing and production techniques. There’s multiple recorded takes for each scene or track, you get all you can out of the recording process when you can and as fast as possible on location. When recording is done, you’re locked away in a room 4x longer than your time spent recording. You’re editing, producing, and polishing what you captured, shaping it and getting it as close as possible to the vision you had when you first started the idea.
Movies are more complicated in production than music, basically and obviously due to being visually and audibly governed. Music needs to work that much harder to grab you and appeal to your senses. I respect what filmmakers do and the impact that they can create through more than 2 human senses, but a movie without a soundtrack is easily forgotten.
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