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A math guy's random thoughts. |
| A math guy's random thoughts. |
| Coming Home Again in Junebug My third entry in "The Soundtrack of Your Life"  , another catch-up entry. The title of Thomas Wolfe's book, You Can't Go Home Again, captures a loss that resonates with our modern world. Wolf, a native of North Carolina, doubtless personally experienced this loss since he spent almost all of his adult life away from his native Ashville. Many others, myself included, have departed rural roots for more cosmpolitan and urban settings, only to discover later in life what they've lost. I have no regrets for having departed rural Iowa, but I acknowledge I lost something that I can't recover by doing so. Junebug is, in part, a movie about this kind of loss. It's the story of George, a North Carolina native, and his sophisticated art collector girlfriend, Madelline, who decides to meet a Southern folk artist from George's hometown. This results in a collision of cultures and memories involving George, his parents, his ne'er-do-well brother, his brother's expectant wife, and, of course, the culture which gave birth to George and his family. The movie is worth watching for many reasons. The opening scene where Madeline meets the local artist is a gemlike vignette that, all by itself, makes the movie worth watching. But one scene in particular is pure genius. It captures everything that the movie is about. It's set at a church social, a dinner held in the basement of the local church. It seems that George, played by Alessandro Nivolo, was a well-loved member of the choir, and he's invited to sing. The hymn they choose is "Softly and Tenderly." The lyrics are a perfect match for the conflicts in the movie, with Jesus calling for the dearly departed to "come home." The blending of the promise of redemption, the inevitable loss, and the mix of expectations is what makes this so brilliant a choice. George, of course, ultimately discovers you can't go home again--if only he'd read Thomas Wolfe before he tried! In any case, as Nivollo sings, the camera pans across the other actors, whose expressions provide deep insight into what's happening to their souls while Nivolo sings about Jesus calling, softly and tenderly. To start with, there's Madelline, played by Embeth Davidtz, whose face reveals wonder and astonishment at seeing a new and unexpected side of her boyfriend, George. Ben McKenzie, who plays the brother, manages to convey both hostility and agression by barely glancing his brother's way while chewing tobacco. Amy Adams, who plays the pregnant wife in an Oscar-nominated performance, follows the lyrics with a religious rapture. Perhaps my favorite is George's mother, played by the ineffable Carla Weston, who silently mouths the words that her beloved son is singing. But what brings the whole scene together is Nivolo's crystaline tenor, pure and perfectly on pitch. He sings a cappella, accompanied only by two extras, drawn from the locals who populated the scene. Their voices, too, are perfection. The whole scene, the song itself, the singers, the expressions of the actors, and editorial cutting combine to make this one of the most memorable bits of cinema I've experienced in any movie. It's rare for a musical interlude to so perfectly capture the themes and conflicts of a movie. I replicated at least some of this scene in a novella I wrote many years ago, On the Road. It's in my short story anthology, available on Amazon:
Here's a link to the scene from Junebug: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO6RwS3BBu8 Listen and weep for what we've lost or, just maybe, rejoice for what we've found. |
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| Non, je ne regrette rien This is a catch-up entry to "The Soundtrack of Your Life" Edith Piaf's 1960 recording of Je ne regrette rien is an all-time classic. You don't have to understand French to appreciate the song. It's driving tempo and her triumpant rendition say it all. The lyrics are powerful even without the music. It certainly helps if you understand them. You can find a translation here: https://www.frenchlyricstranslations.com/non-je-ne-regrette-rien-edith-piaf-fren... Christopher Nolan's movie Inception reinforced my love for this song. This movie is about the power of memory and raises questions about how memory and reality intersect. The song is a perfect complement to the themes of the movie. In fact, it's in the DNA of the movie. It's obvious that the song cues the start of a "jump" to one of the movie's dream levels. What's less obvious is that all of the music in the score is a subdivision and mulitplication of the Piaf song, sometimes at varying tempos. For an audible example, there's this YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVkQ0C4qDvM which plays Piaf singing at the normal tempo, then slows it down. The slow version is recognizable as the thudding blats that accompany the start of the transitions to new dream levels! For a discussion, see this article in The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/jul/29/inception-soundtrack-edith-piaf One genuis--Nolan--applying the genius of others--the lyricist, the composer, and Piaf's rendition. That's what makes this song so memorable for me. I used this song in a chapter to a novel I'm working on. The chapter called for a young man to sing to his lover, and was inspired by this awesome rendition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=layECWup8sU I even used the vocalist's appearance to describe my character! Max Griffin Please visit my website and blog at https://new.MaxGriffin.net Check out most recent release!
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| Soundtracks--Bohemian Gravity. This is my first response to "The Soundtrack of Your Life" for February, 2024. "Bohemian Rhapsody" is one of my favorite Queen songs. This genius combination of classical forms with rock and roll rhythms is both captivating and fun. I've also always been fascinated that one of the founders of Queen, Brian May, is also an astrophysicist. Not many bands have founders with scientific credentials! Which leads to the particular cover of "Bohemian Rhapsody" I want to credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rjbtsX7twc This is an incredibly clever discussion of quantum mechanics set to the tune of "Bohemian Rhapsody." It features one singer performing all the parts, threaded together in an awesome video and vocal showcase. It's worth watching just for the sock puppet Einstein! The vocalist has a whole sequence of these clever science-set-to-music collages. I'll probably feature more in this sequence of posts. Max Griffin Please visit my website and blog at https://new.MaxGriffin.net Check out most recent release!
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Take on me is an excellent choice.
Interesting... and thankfully, not germaine to me at this time 
