Importance Of Sound In Raising Arizona
tensions in the films. We can look to the famous chase scene from “Raising Arizona” where H.I., Nicolas Cage’s character, attempts to seal a package of Huggie diapers from a quick mart and a mad series of events and error ensues. AS the scene progresses more and more characters are added, a pack of wild neighborhood dogs, police, store cashier with a shotgun, and the music never lets up on the pace. Even while all of this crazy action is happening, the cartoon-like music foreshadows that nothing bad will happen to any of the characters. Yet the most impressive part of this scene goes entirely unseen. It’s the fact that the brothers “meticulously map out the visual and aural choreography of each and every scene in their films” (Gupta). The Coens
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The Coen brothers employ silence in a majority of their noir films, with the sole purpose of heightening the drama. Within the absence of sound exist certain imperceptible sounds. Burwell mentions that the brothers write knowing the importance of the sound and the music and that they “put space in their films for that, and a lot of people don’t, but they actually feel free to have a few minutes where there might not be any dialogue.” The example that Lievsay used to illustrate this idea for the audience was the creaking of the trees heard throughout “Miller’s Crossing.” Lievsay said “a lot of time when you’re going to emphasize that it’s really quiet, then you add something that is not very loud that you can clearly hear and that makes the audience think, wow, I can hear the trees creaking, it must be really quiet.” According to Burwell, sound and music must be allotted their own “moments” so even when it overlaps, the different sounds are working with each other, not against. A technique that Burwell found useful to facilitate these kinds of “moments” is to divide up the frequencies between himself and Lievsay. One would mix the high while the other would mix the low. They also succeed in incorporating music in scenes where the viewers expect music to be featured in the background. The film No Country for Old Men exemplifies Burwell's exceptional prowess in musical restraint, and a score seems almost entirely absent from the film. In fact, the film was produced with about 16 minutes of music, 8 minutes of which are accompanying the credits at the end of the movie. In an interview Burwell explained how instead of composing a traditional score he and the Coens opted to use state sounds after they realized that anything resembling traditional music would decrease the tension in the film. “Obviously there are traditions in which music can increase tension,” said Burwell, “but the film, in its silent mode,
The Coen brothers employ silence in a majority of their noir films, with the sole purpose of heightening the drama. Within the absence of sound exist certain imperceptible sounds. Burwell mentions that the brothers write knowing the importance of the sound and the music and that they “put space in their films for that, and a lot of people don’t, but they actually feel free to have a few minutes where there might not be any dialogue.” The example that Lievsay used to illustrate this idea for the audience was the creaking of the trees heard throughout “Miller’s Crossing.” Lievsay said “a lot of time when you’re going to emphasize that it’s really quiet, then you add something that is not very loud that you can clearly hear and that makes the audience think, wow, I can hear the trees creaking, it must be really quiet.” According to Burwell, sound and music must be allotted their own “moments” so even when it overlaps, the different sounds are working with each other, not against. A technique that Burwell found useful to facilitate these kinds of “moments” is to divide up the frequencies between himself and Lievsay. One would mix the high while the other would mix the low. They also succeed in incorporating music in scenes where the viewers expect music to be featured in the background. The film No Country for Old Men exemplifies Burwell's exceptional prowess in musical restraint, and a score seems almost entirely absent from the film. In fact, the film was produced with about 16 minutes of music, 8 minutes of which are accompanying the credits at the end of the movie. In an interview Burwell explained how instead of composing a traditional score he and the Coens opted to use state sounds after they realized that anything resembling traditional music would decrease the tension in the film. “Obviously there are traditions in which music can increase tension,” said Burwell, “but the film, in its silent mode,