Why is it so difficult to remain attentive to sound while watching a film? And why is it so rare that we fully appreciate and internalize a musical score? In a culture that bombards us with visual emblems, cues and representations, image frequently subverts sound, particularly in retrospective analysis. We subconsciously relegate the musical score to the background, assuming it is more of an embellishment than a fundamental structural component. Yet, a soundtrack can elicit intense emotional responses and deserves independent analytic and artistic investigation.
The mise-en-scene acquires a notably warmer pallet in the alternate universe; costumes, props and visible light sources furnish a deceptively enticing fantasy world. Coraline. Creative Commons.1
The challenge of formulating a non-verbal audio accompaniment to a narrative cannot be overstated. In constructing an audio landscape, directors risk imposing a generic emotional atmosphere. Such moods are frequently sentimental or melodramatic. Exploiting sound to elicit calculated audience responses is highly problematic: a musical score that reduces the climate to shallow, one-dimensional emotions undermines the audience. Characters and environments tend to lose their originality under the oppressive weight of music that “tells” viewers how to feel. In turn, audiences habituated to overt musical scores lose the ability to formulate original thoughts about characters, relationships and environments. A score might inspire angst, pity, joy or elation, but one-to-one equivocations between musical styles and emotions are rarely interesting. When music is manipulated to induce a calculated response, it fosters complacency among viewers and dulls their capacity to think critically about the music in relation to the mise-en-scene, framing and characters.
Last weekend, I ventured into Muvico 24 to see Henry Selicks’s acclaimed stop-action film Coraline in 3D. Until then, I never had a reason to visit Arundel Mills. But after seeing the film in 2D at The Charles, a trek down to the Mills was my only option if I wanted to see Coraline in all its stereoscopic glory. The first thing you notice as you enter Arundel Mills is the ridiculous scale of things. The whole mall is divided into "neighborhoods," each complete with streets and massive cafes facing massive stores selling computers and televisions. It’s like an airport, only exponentially larger. During the trailers, the sound was overwhelming and obtrusive, functioning only to amplify the impact of mass destruction, mechanical failure or human brutality. In a way, the trailers' sound quality and volume conformed to the grotesque scale of the theater and mall. I consider this type of sound to be exploitative because it obstructs our sense of cinema's visual language and fails to illuminate subtle connections between sound and imagery.
A successful sound universe generally develops an environment's complexity, widening the number of possible associations and interpretations, rather than confining a scene to one monolithic mood (i.e. "melancholy" or "happiness"). Part of what makes Coraline such an intriguing piece of art is the musical score's capacity to evoke new sentiments with multiple viewings. Instrumental details and subtle shifts in tonality, volume and timbre are integrated with a level of craftsmanship that merits the meticulous language of stop-action animation. My emotional response is never identical or formulaic. Rather, I experience conflicting senses of familiarity and refreshing newness each time I listen to the score. Moreover, within the context of each investigation, it is possible to discern conflicting elements: desire and repulsion, harmony and discord.
It would be a disservice to the film to try to analyze the extensive array of technically brilliant elements, including the interiors and landscapes, the characters' physical forms and movements (angular or wobbly, and often "twitchy," according to Selicks) and the lighting (cool/diffused versus warm/hard). Instead, I hope to analyze three realms – Coraline's ordinary home, the art deco theater, Bobinsky's circus tent and the other-worldly garden – to investigate how the musical score and mise-en-scene interact to reveal parallels between characters and their micro-environments.
Bruno Coulais is the film's French composer. He is also well-known in the U.S. for his compositions in Les Choristes, a film that ardently asserts the power of music to counter repressive regimes. The presence of youthful singers from Nice in Coraline identifies the musical score as Coulais'. His work is original and inventive, oscillating between contemplation and agitation. Perhaps the most challenging aspect of writing a film score is to ensure it is unified without being redundant. Coulais achieves such a sense of unity by relying on a core group of instruments: horns and oboes, harps, vocals, piano and percussion instruments, along with synthesizers and bells. He avoids the typical musical motif, instead opting to use certain melodies, rhythms and tones to color specific characters. Thus, individuals and their environments acquire musical personalities that complement their visual impact.
Neutral tones, cool accents and diffused lighting predominate Coraline's ordinary domestic existence. A raked stage intensifies the sense of confinement in the drab interior. Coraline. Creative Commons.2
In Coraline's home, a neutral dinginess pervades the dining room. The accumulation of cool neutral elements - tiles, chipped cabinetry, fogged windows, metallic chairs, kettles and cutlery - cement the sense of ordinary. Her parents are so embedded in the minutia of domesticity that they seem to become human appendages of the monotonous environment. In the office, her father's gaunt, hunched body is echoed by precariously piled boxes and canted camera angles. Coraline's restless form reflected in his computer poignantly encapsulates the gap between her boredom and his frustrations over work. When he sends her on a mission to list the doors, windows and "everything that's blue," Coraline conveys curiosity, insight, independence and slight brooding. Her quest is accompanied by Coulais' "Exploration," a light ballad performed with the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra. A single angelic voice and accompanying harps and piano endow Coraline's childhood with a balance of beautiful innocence and potential darkness. Using the synthesizer, Coulais compiles harmonies (from the solo vocalist) to create an illusion of multiple intertwined voices. The result is a sound metaphor for the paradigm of the only child, who relies on her imagination for companionship.
Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, retired British theater performers. Coraline. Creative Commons.3
Within the universe constructed by the "other mother," one of three luxuries used to entice Coraline is an elaborate art deco theater. There, imitations of Coraline's two elderly neighbors, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, perform an opera complete with intricate costumes, two-dimensional sets and an elaborate pulley system for hoisting figures. It is a testament to the convincing characterization and deft manipulation of the puppets that we perceive the scenario to be authentic. Suspended in the world of Coulais' musical composition and Selicks' animation, we embrace the notion of sculpted characters consciously performing against their own two-dimensional mise-en-scene! Spink's fleshy body is firmly encased in a fish tail and Forcible's voluptuous form is scantily clad in sequins. Rarely in popular cinema is the elderly female body so brazenly displayed, and in this sense, Selicks departs from conventional Western constructs of feminine beauty. However, Coulais' musical score grounds the scenario in a performance culture, where such absurdity seems natural. The music is highly dramatized and full of affectations. And perhaps because the sequence is so flamboyant and unexpected, the lyrics assume a greater weight, even a sense of urgency. It is difficult to ascribe a particular meaning to the opera's narrative, yet the warnings to sailors hint at an ominous future.
Music plays an equally critical role in the faux Bobinsky's circus tent. It lends a sense of magical-realism through vaguely Eastern European melodies and frantic orchestral maneuvers. There is a childish quality to the music, which seems to oscillate and glimmer alongside the synchronized mice. Small bells, cymbals, percussion and fluttering high-pitched brass instruments give the sequence a ephemeral, dreamy aura. But the music also echoes the eerie oboes, horns and chimes earlier associated with the authentic Bobinsky, blurring the threshold between the two parallel worlds.
The final other-worldly wonder is the Fantastic Garden, endowed with luminescent crocuses, tickling ivy and swarms of hummingbirds. The garden brims with color, warmth and movement - pulsing with the vitality of an intricate ecosystem. The visual elements are built up gradually, each striking component giving way to another, until the entire garden is viewed from above to reveal a fauna mosaic Coraline head. The music develops in parallel fashion: what starts as a few lone violins culminates in a jazzy conglomeration of percussion, cymbals, bells, horns and strings.
After viewing the film in 2D and 3D, I have to say that the 3D format undermines the potent textural impact of Bruno Coulais' musical score. Although it certainly adds a technically impressive element to the opening sequence, in which needle-thin metallic fingers deconstruct the fibers, fillings and hair of a doll, it deprives the movie of its cinematic essence, giving it the feel of a video game. Coulais' music, influenced by the French pianist Eric Satie, renders the animation deeply emotional, at once delightful and disconcerting. Coulais' sound scheme renders Selick's work more vivid, immediate and lasting. His impact far exceeds anything stereoscopic effects can achieve.
In an interview regarding the film's fastidious attention to detail and craft, Henry Selicks asserted that his main job was "to keep the beauty under control...to knock down the beauty." Excess beauty is a very real risk when a project involves so many talented people, each engaged in one small component of the whole. But Selicks, through figure twitches and grit, successfully combats perfection. He relies on visual language to convey characters' behaviors and mannerisms, and trusts Coulais' music to inform their deeper emotional complexities. For this he should be commended.
Image Credits:
1. "Pic by Focus Features." Creative Commons. Joanneteh_32. January 30, 2009.
2. "Coraline's Normal Life." Creative Commons. Joanneteh_32. January 30, 2009.
3. "Miss Forcible and Spink." Creative Commons. Joanneteh_32. January 30, 2009.
Wow. That was a beautiful testament to both Selicks and Coulais. Well done!
Posted by: pca | March 07, 2009 at 08:59 AM
Now I must see this film after such an extraordinary critique.
Posted by: tc | March 08, 2009 at 10:38 PM
This is a fantastic critique! I have been listening to Coulais' score continuously over the past few weeks and have viewed the film in both 2D and 3D numerous times. I really agree that the music does not elicit a prescribed emotional response to the characters or the story. Everytime I watch or listen to this movie, I find more things to think about and feel differently for the characters. I think the concept of dreaming and imagination is captured very realistically - the things that happen in the other realm seem absurd in the real world. But aren't dreams always like that? I am an intense dreamer so I had a special appreciation for the ridiculous other world and how much Coraline must have enjoyed it. I could definitely get caught up in a dreamworld like that too!
Posted by: Dio | June 08, 2011 at 12:37 AM