John Carpenters: The Thing

Transcription

1 Film Music Post 1950 John Carpenters: The Thing An analysis and evaluation of the films audio Exam Number: /11/2011

2 2 Introduction The Thing is a science fiction horror film released in 1982 by Universal Pictures, it is directed by John Carpenter, was written by Bill Lancaster and the lead actor was Kurt Russell. It is a remake of the 1951 classic The Thing from Another World directed by Howard Hawks-Christian Nyby and is a more faithful adaption of the 1938 book Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell Jr which inspired Nyby s film (Carpenter 1982). The soundtrack of the film was one of only a few instances where Carpenter didn t score the film himself, due to this being Carpenters first foray into making a movie with a major-studio, instead it was predominantly scored and credited to Ennio Morricone but some works were added by Carpenter in the final cut which he remains unaccredited on the soundtrack of the film for (Bobban 2010). The film follows a group of research scientist in an American Antarctic research station that come into contact with a parasitic extraterrestrial alien life form that attacks solitary prey, assimilates them and intern creates a perfect imitation of its victim. It focuses on the isolation of the environment and ever increasing paranoia of the crew as they attempt to stay alive through the winter as the thing picks them off one by one (Carpenter 1982). The film was released only 2 weeks after Steven Spielberg's E.T. which had a much more optimistic view of first contact with alien life and has been cited as one of the potential reasons for why it was so poorly received upon its theatrical release. Even with the highly competitive 1982 release year The Thing has been citied to be the number one film for its genre that year and potentially even the decade with it now being a huge cult success and rated regularly in the top lists of movie critics and as the 177 th best film of all time in IMDBs 250 (IMDB). The Thing is cited by many as Carpenters most underrated but most accomplished direction effort with its exploration through two main themes, the fragility of human flesh and the paranoia and dehumanisation of man. With stunning mechanical special effects from Rob Bottin that emphasise the first theme and a chilling soundtrack provided by Ennio Morricone that captures the

3 3 second (Muir 2007). In this analysis I shall focus on the four elements of the soundtrack and give select examples of how each one is used to instil fear and tension into the audience as well as drive the narrative forward. The films score The films audio track can be broken up into four main components, Dialogue, Music (both diegetic and non-diegetic), sound effects (SFX) and diegetic background/atmospheric sound. To help with my analysis of the audio track for The Thing I have created an audio timing table (appendix A) and a graphical score (appendix B) that I shall refer to throughout. The reason for choosing to represent the sound of the film in a graphical way is due to it showing quite distinctly how the film is divided sonically into two half's. The opening 50 minutes which is driven primarily by the Morricone's musical score and the last 50 minutes which is driven by dialogue and atmospheric sound with the audio in both half's serving a different purpose. Throughout the film the soundtrack is used in conjunction with many dialogue sections very meticulously to create tension and a sense of isolation, a mixture of juxtaposing styles in the films score, fully synthesised compositions similar to Carpenters earlier works and small ensemble pieces with classical instrumentation by Morricone, are used continually throughout the opening half to help increase the visual tension and paranoia onscreen, with the music and visual cues driving the narrative far more than dialogue. Also in this opening section we have our only uses of diegetic music, which are used in three times, all initially as a tension release bridging across many cuts to emphasise the emptiness of the base or the monotony of life there. The second half provides a stark contrast with the respective silence musically, with no scored music by Morricone from 00:50 to 01:30 and one instance of a low bass drone added by Carpenter it allows all other sound, creaking doors, footsteps, the rushing wind as well as the dialogue and emotional responses, the distress, paranoia and distrust of the characters to

4 4 come to the forefront and really show the effect that isolation is having on the men driving the film to its climactic end. The overall effectiveness of the soundtrack in the creation and release of tension as well as driving forward the narrative is excellent. The balance of the four elements, careful use of non diegetic sound to emphasise subtleties to the audience, large sections of sparse dialogue, a near absence of SFX and powerful atmospheric sounds are used to achieve a deep sense of isolation. In particular scenes with little overpowering the environmental sounds, life and character are given to the environment the crew are surrounded by. The off screen diegetic sounds, wind, rustling snow and sound carrying for miles are more than just to set a scene and establish the location, they are part of the terror of the whole situation. The removal of these sounds from particular scenes, i.e. The Opening scene or The Hot Needle Scene, would diminish the level of suspense and ruin the warranted effect. It is the moaning of the winds swelling through the rickety looking base coupled with the lack of any other environmental references that leaves us immediately uncomfortable and add to the authenticity of the film as an incredibly immersive experience. Narrative use of sound Non Diegetic Under Score Throughout the film, sound is used to drive the narrative forward and to make the audience aware or notice particular important characters or objects which relevant to the plot. The opening credits of The Thing establish straight away the tone of the movie, one of isolation and disjunction which is carried on through the opening 10 minutes (Cue 1-8). The unaccredited opening piece is a full synthesiser composition with long bass drones, slow rising and swelling chords that set the

5 5 unease and tension level immediately above normal. The opening scene is one where sound is used very predominantly to establish a location and continue building tension, making us aware of the settings isolated nature. The sound track has two main components, Ennio Morricone's main theme, Humanity Part Two and diegetic sound from the point of view (POV) of the camera. Morricone's piece is simple with a thin texture consisting of a synthesised rhythmic bass line mimicking a heartbeat and synthetic string sounds playing held chords on top which in themselves are not thick in texture. The piece shifts and moves in and out off the foreground depending on whether the shot of the helicopter is close up in which we here the roaring of the rotors and gun shots, or a far shot when the piece comes to the foreground along with the winds and echoes of the dulled helicopter in the distance. The music in this scene immediately makes the audience aware of the sparse nature of the environment and the tension is carried over from the opening credits with the use of a slow heart beat like rhythm. With a hard cut between the two scenes stopping short the usual fading bass rhythm we are introduced to the characters and the bleak looking research station, the hard cut of the bass line links over to the running engine for the remaining beats which when shut off reveal a near silent environment filled only with a moaning wind. Inside we see the crew for the first time, the ping pong bounce punching through the plucked acoustic guitar playing a sad and lonely plucked melody to finally seeing the main protagonist and hearing our first piece of dialogue, a synthesised chess computer who is the only female in the film. These three scenes continue to establish the isolation of the environment and what seems to be a lack of cohesion between the crew, since there's little conversing and time is passed by drinking scotch. Diegetic Sound By Cue 8we have seen the cracks begin to show as the crew realise there cut off from radio communication and that something isn't right. A prominent cue to let the audience know that there

6 6 is something amiss with the dog occurs at cue 9, the camera slow pans down and as the dog comes into shot, Humanity Pt 2 starts again very low in the mix with the rhythmic heart beat gradually building in volume as the helicopter flies away, it fades as we cut back to the dog looking out off shot at the departing helicopter. The beginning and end of the non diegetic music before the cut to the next scene really leaves a question mark dangling over what this dog actually is and heightens the tension which is immediately released if only for a few seconds with a clever use of diegetic music in the next scene. At cue 10 we hear Stevie Wonders superstition straight away from an outside shot of the bass which releases all tension, due to its upbeat nature and familiarity, especially with Naills blasé attitude to his fellow crew mates. We then cut away from the kitchen and move around the empty base into different rooms hearing only superstition playing as POV sound from the camera varying in clarity and volume depending on which empty room we see next. The sequence is unsettling and takes us back to the uneasy state felt just moment earlier as we see the dog creep around the base and into a side room occupied by a sole individual. Non diegetic Mickey Mousing In the next scenes we get two new pieces of music, both credited to Morricone, Humanity Part 1 and Solitude are the first classical instrument pieces but in a similar vain to the opening music, long bass drones with a high pitch strings playing the harmony on top. Humanity part 1 is used to bridge the gap of time passing from them leaving the base to arriving at the Norwegian station; it is how Solitude is used though that is worth mentioning. This piece is used in 3 sections the discovery of the blood trail, the realisation he committed suicide and the discovery of the tomb. In all three instances the piece swells in not when the characters discover each thing but when it is revealed to the audience, just before we have silence each time to allowing the audience to focus on the response and reaction of the characters before the discovery is revealed to us really emphasising the

7 7 horror and importance of each situation. There is also subtle Mickey Mousing of the actions of the characters in the lead up to the discovery of the ice tomb. As the doc moves from one room to the other we hear a rising scale in pitch and volume on a single violin which matches his footsteps and him getting closer to the tomb, it draws home to the audience that this is a big discovery when the climax is reached looking at the tomb from the POV of the Doc when the shot changes to a wide shot of the room with which the music quietens, becoming long and sustained again. A similar audio sequence occurs at cue 24, a new piece Despair is a sound advance into the scene and mimics the fast rotor blades of the chopper and again is used to show the passing of time as the helicopter travels across the frozen tundra. Rapid, low volume, high pitch strings and prominent slow rising brass create a sense of movement that requires a resolution. The audio again matches the descent into the crater of ice containing the space ship with a descending scale in the brass and again with the walk up to the space ship hatch with a rising scale on the violins. Little dialogue is exchanged during the scene with the underscore and the environment sounds being the prominent audio throughout and as before the emphasis of the sounds and climax of the piece falls not on the cast discovering the whole in the ice but when the camera pans down and pauses after seeing their reaction. As with the two other scenes mentioned it leaves the audience to draw their own conclusions about what is happening and ask why, the lack of uncertainty about what is going on between the crew immediately makes the viewer feel uncertain to. SFXs As mentioned previously SFX are used rather sparsely throughout the score (Cue 19, 28, 33, 35 & 40) only when the thing is transforming or when something is ignited by the flame thrower. All but one of scenes where SFX are used occur without any non-diegetic sound leaving the unknown sounds of the thing, the terror and fear of the dogs in the first transformation or the screams of the

8 8 crew in the remainders to be the only sounds heard making us give them our full attention. The SFX are quite basic, frequency modulation of the vocals of the screaming thing and simple layered textures for other sounds like the ripping of flesh, breaking of bones and the raw of the flame thrower. The audio for which we see the first human assimilation by the thing is very different to all other transformations. There is an underlying unaccredited synthesiser bass drone that smoothes out the scene, linking the cuts together allowing us to focus on the image of the transformed human and provides an emphasis to the cry the thing makes just before it is torched though a pitch sweep. The sound is used with the non diegetic music to show the horror of the situation and feel incredibly uneasy about what is happening and not to make the audience jump which is the purpose of the build up to the later two transformations. Dialogue and Atmospheric Sound It would be disrespectful to analysis the audio track of The Thing without commenting on in more detail Carpenters deliberate lack of sound in particular scenes other than dialogue and the environment and how effectively this generates incredible tension and some of the most memorable scenes in the film. The large section on the graphical score between 00:50 and 1:30 maintains and increase the tension of the earlier musically driven half, in particular Cue 33 and 34 are the two final transformation scenes in which the audience are caught off guard by the sudden attack of the thing, but it is cue 34 I wish to pay closer attention to. The Hot Needle Scene is regularly voted as one of the top scare scenes of all time, up there with Hitchcock's Psycho shower scene and Jaws (Katzman 2006). The misdirection in the dialogue from Macready and the short cuts around the room, coupled with the roaring close ups of the flame thrower and the howling winds of the storm outside makes the whole situation filled with paranoia and the unknown questions about who the thing is are incredibly effective. The scene would be nowhere near as effective if there was any additional

9 9 sounds as the subtle sounds; the scraping knife against the needle, the creaks of the tied up crew on the chairs and the extinguishing needle in the blood work so well that when the stab of the screaming sample hits the audience is so focused on everything else it catches you completely off guard. Conclusion It's difficult to discuss all the ways in which sound is utilised in The Thing to achieve Carpenters narrative and emotional aims as nearly every scene is meticulously edited and uses sound to bring the scenario to life. I ve picked up on a few examples of the different ways the soundtrack is used (or not) in the film to constantly keep the audience on the edge and complement the paranoia and fear felt by the crew. Carpenters The Thing is still to this one of the greatest horror/sci-fi/thriller films of all times and benefited from Morricone's touch ironically however the films score was nominated for a Razzie in 1983 after its theatrical release bombed which is difficult to understand, as its one of the greatest horror scores ever composed and is a masterpiece of generating tension and paranoia. Bibliography Bobban, E. (2010). "Analysis of Carpenter's and Morricone's The Thing." Retrieved , from 0. Carpenter, J. (1982). The Thing (Blu-Ray) Audio Commentary. Carpenter, J. (1982). "The Thing Production Notes." from IMDB. "The Thing." Retrieved , from Katzman, J. (2006). "Top 10 Movie Frieghts." Retrieved , from Muir, J. K. (2007). Horror Films of the 1980s, McFarland Publishing.