Most of the apocalyptic films and literary works have a common worldview: on the earth, where resources are depleted and polluted, human beings are useless. Regardless of whether there are 10 billion people or 1 million people, the precarious 6% of the surface and underground resources are not enough to provide people with material and energy support such as food. Nuclear explosions, floods, ice ages, infectious diseases, interspersed with intelligent creatures that traveled from a few light-years away to attack the earth, people died either from dust suffocation or from space attacks. Out of old age, death, and other fragile instincts, human beings are no longer sufficient for labor, except for some irreplaceable mental labor. So we started to build communication bases like the Tower of Babylon, to create bionics, and to mobilize them to build survival bases around the universe just like queen bees mobilize worker bees, to make soil, reclaim resources, and reproduce offspring.
Sounds very tedious, doesn't it? Since it is possible to create offspring to reproduce with artificial uterus capsules, all sense of destiny and mission have disintegrated. What else can we do in the waiting-to-die setting, it's entertainment.
Recreation, recreation, and passing time, the extremely scarce materials stimulate the abnormal development of spiritual consumption. In "Metropolis", capitalists still have the leisure to build gardens. In "Blade Runner: 2049", even wood is precious. What is more terrifying than resource monopoly is the nothingness after the great radiation and the great flood. But human beings want to live under any circumstances, and to live is to seek happiness. Assuming that we already live in a minimally graded safe area, we rely on survival capsules for movement and lodging, only minimal non-vacuum tube-controlled outings, and no longer have any real meaning of open space and public space, except for sex, knowledge, and Entertainment, what else can comfort us who lack communication and space the most?
I'm afraid that's why the directors use "playing the characters themselves" to insert all kinds of music. Everyone loves listening to music. They have the taste they inherited from their grandfather. It becomes very human—the protagonist becomes relaxed and begins to release sexual tension; the villain becomes talkative and fills up with flags—so that the narrative is smooth and emotionally moving, making up for the exhaustion of insufficient funding and overcrowded lines (perhaps just the opposite). ).
The role of music at this time is like a Western-style "prophet". The director opens the score like a Bible, the choir is in place on the hard drive, and the audience can decide whether to accept the sermon or not. In short, we have to open up something that is not written on the front of the script to broaden the audience's thinking space. Giving more space is not always a bad thing, no one wants to teach people to speak sentence by sentence, no matter whether they are taught or taught.
But there is one thing that the era of "Metropolis" did not expect. In addition to classical music, later works have also found resonance in jazz.
In fact, the purpose of this article is really not to introduce Dennis Villeneuve's musical taste, so many film reviews of "Arrival" and "Scorched Earth City" have been exhausted. It is a small experience based on the evolution of "Blade Runner: 2049", and does not involve analyzing the foreshadowing of film reviews and picking up the eggs of the next film. What kind of resonance does jazz give people? Yes, everyone's experience is definitely different. strength? humor? The urge to dance on a rainy night and smoke afterwards? Buffer before making a decision? No, these things can be done by changing the song you like. The director certainly does not think completely from the perspective of building the viewing experience, that is the matter of sound supervision. The director will only think what the director can think, and let everyone in the movie do what and where.
There is a concept that has already appeared in the previous article. Those jazz music are played by the characters themselves. Their "own music" is different from the exclusive BGM in long TV series and animated series. The song hummed during the debut brought a logical barrier to the viewing of the movie. We're "interrupted" from a space full of the sound/music scenes needed for the plot, and the characters start to express themselves aimlessly. The narration has a plot purpose, and this "self-contained music" only vaguely expresses one of the characters' intentions or emotional tendencies, and also prolongs the audience's judgment of events, and passively shifts the focus to the characters. It's beautiful, isn't it? Jazz is always in my heart.
Big mistake. The status of classical music and jazz in sci-fi movies is not "a little white flower in the apocalypse", but really thinks that there is no better choice. Vent-type music is updated very fast. No matter what supporters think or like, they must keep changing their labels frequently to match the rhythm of music development. And according to the setting of the apocalypse theme, real musical instruments will be very precious in the future, and various electronic musical instruments and synthesizers can completely replace the role of real musical instruments. Players will probably perish, and only practitioners of repairing data and re-arranging will need to emerge. Besides, "Alien: Covenant" has already demonstrated the superb performance of androids, so it is not a "job" that humans can do. The concert should still be there, but there is no singer who is out of tune and is not complete.
Pop music is still so popular, as long as there are "advertising songs" and "game music", they can reproduce tenaciously. Including utility bells, trams and other traffic signs, there will always be some left. Classical music is suitable for all small spaces, theaters, capsule houses, schools. This well-developed and highly recognizable music is played in public, everyone’s thoughts will be interrupted involuntarily, and the itinerary behavior will interfere, which is very suitable for the future world (dystopian theme) movie-making spatial order. A moment of consensus, the collective unconscious, presumably hearing and smelling is best elicited.
Take a middle value between pop and classical as a character choice without authorization, then jazz and rock. Compared with the future music, these are very retro, but Ma can be lyrical, can fit the plot and characters, has both consensus and personality, and is very suitable for shaking out things that are not suitable for confession. However, as mentioned earlier, the development of music was too fast for that era, and data custody was really a problem. In the era of cloud data, where solid media can be wiped out, converting them into fluid media storage is a huge project. Luckily, the "Cloud Atlas Sextet" throughout "Cloud Atlas", in more cases, it should be that after data destruction like a "big blackout", only some "new punches" can be restored by human beings, which can be edited into retro style. Reggae, funky jazz, vaporwave or something.
Since apocalyptic music is to be completely separated from physical instruments (except for human generators of vocal music) and solid media, processing the sound fragments of the past has become the only option (in fact, it is almost the same now). The first choice is "composing" and singing, without a doubt. Jazz singing is flexible and diverse, with or without soundtracks, those who can sing can't sing, those who have a good voice but not, and whoever wants to come can come. Pure music also works, the same diversity, what does diversity mean? Without a doubt, freedom. Retro and free, isn't that what we've been chasing Elvis for for more than 60 years?
Personal space, variety, and freedom are the most extravagant things in apocalyptic themes. It seems that there is no choice other than inserting music and pictures into the movie, but carrying photos and pictures with you doesn't quite fit the "set", but K carries his holographic projection doll with him. Think about it, take out a photo (like the one at the end of Star Trek: Beyond the Stars) in the silence, lonely, double lonely, lonely ninth power, nuclear-explosive loneliness. No, no, you have to make some noise, make people laugh, and then go and have fun. Tango, boxing, sex, and 3D-printed nanofood are better than cooking real garlic. There is no way, people have superficial nature and overflowing feeling, all we want is these, the real space and the perceptual space can be combined to form "alive". The director can't rush into the camera and read the Declaration of Human Rights like Rabelais wrote a novel. The best way is to add music, play music, and make more music. Thanks for editing, don't make it like "The Wizard of Oz".
Not only in the "future", jazz represents the world of freedom, this kind of thing has been done in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. Because of the lack of materials, young people came up with the idea of using X-ray films as record media to release underground music, such as rock, jazz, and slobbering songs. Due to its weak strength, a record can only be listened to about 10 times before dying. However, due to the difficulty of production and the fact that it is too thin and can only be filled with music on one side, the black market transaction price is extremely high, and the quality is also full of uncertainty. This illicit trade was not ended by the authorities' "music patrols," but collapsed by the passage of tapes. In the era of high cost, everyone has the spirit of adventure, but when the supplies are sufficient, the fun of adventure is lacking. People still want to have fun, all the time. Thinking this way, no matter from the consideration of the director or the audience, from the consideration of the film or the need to watch the film, the music of the jazz and rock generation is indeed an ideal father's son song, which is in line with the large and small cannibalism in the film. The "Humanity Dilemma" - where do we come from, where are we, what do we eat tonight, do androids listen to X-ray records?
Yes, these problems can be solved, just: one more kiss, dear, and one more song.
View more about Blade Runner 2049 reviews
