Arrival – UCL Film & TV Society

A Decade in: Scores

Alex Dewing — Sun, 29 Dec 2019 18:00:47 +0000

We got some of our writers to put on their headphones and share their picks of the best scores, songs, and composers of the last decade.

Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Arrival (2016)

The Arrival score and its sound design are an indelible aspect of the film’s sensory experience. To me, Arrival is an incredibly immersive film. Denis Villeneuve successfully takes on the challenge to adapt ideas as dry as language determinism and science fiction physics. The sonic loops, sustained pianos and gentle orchestra composed by Jóhann Jóhannsson convey the tenderness and the eerie puzzle that the characters face. The inclusion of Max Richter’s On The Nature of Daylight was the reason for its disqualification from the Oscars, but the piece opens and closes the movie as an anchor and seals the metaphor about time and memory. The heptapod aliens in the film produce unsettling deep vibration-like sounds to communicate. In contrast, the soundtrack is much lighter and almost airy. However, it’s also definitely dream-like but uncanny enough to never be comforting. The combination is in harmony. This score should be one of the best in the decade as it fills the deep visual and auditory blanks in Arrival’s overall design. It howls for the audience’s attention and gently guides them through to the film’s conclusion.

Emma Davis

Howard Shore’s Hugo (2011)

Scorsese’s Hugo was one of 2011’s most enchanting films and it’s score was nothing short of a wand in the process. Traversing through the chaos and crowds of Paris’s Gare Montparnasse railway station alongside the film’s protagonist Hugo, can only be truly captured within the trickling and tapping notes of Howard Shore’s score as Hugo sets out on a mission to fix, find and flourish amongst the mechanics of a clock. Shore’s 21 piece collection strings Hugo’s moments of panic, stress and squire perfectly across the film’s emotional pillars of love, anguish and frustration. The consequent emotional complexity of the film’s music allow it to punctuate and make sense of the action within. The transitions between the musical pieces are effortless and offer a firm wink towards the fickle nature of childhood and relationships as Hugo grows within the confines of clockwork magic, discovers friends amongst a rabble of cruelty, and finds footing amongst his family’s history. Where the music’s cadence falls between moments of tension and frivolity, joy and despair, Shore manages to capture it all. It is hardly controversial to suggest that this film would lack character and persuasion without its compassionate and acute score.

Ellie Lachs

Thomas Newman

As my number one artist on Spotify for the last 4 years (ie. since I started using the music service), it would be unjust for me not to bring a spotlight onto Thomas Newman as one of the outstanding composers of the decade. Having scored everything from the high-stakes action of Skyfall to the nostalgic trip back into the ocean with Finding Dory, it’s impossible to pick just one score to highlight. Newman casts his net wide, taking on a variety of projects in different genres, and yet his iconic delicacy of style is always notable but never to the detriment of the film. His use of repetition, particularly in the percussion section, alongside the varying instruments that are used prove his versatility and make for soundtracks that call to be re-listened to after the credits roll. It is his unique prowess at creating a sense of immersion, however, that makes him stand out to me this decade. You need only listen to ‘…Shells’ from Finding Dory, ‘Amen’ from The Help or ‘Precious Metals’ from Passengers (but just listen to the OST for that, don’t waste your time watching it!) for instant relaxation, as if you were floating peacefully underwater or dancing through the stars.

Alex Dewing

Hans Zimmer’s Inception (2010)

Christopher Nolan’s Inception was arguably one of the best movies of not just the decade but of all time, and Hans Zimmer’s score played no small part in this feat. More importantly, this score heavily influenced film scores for the entirety of the decade. The loud hits that first became popular with this score became a great influence to action movie scores. But leaving its unquestionable influence aside, Inception‘s score brilliantly captures the tense and mind-opening essence of the movie, regulating the tone and putting the audience on the edge of their seats. The pieces “Mombasa” and especially “Dream Is Collapsing” perfectly capture what Inception is. The score also has to be given credit for doing the theme of dreams justice. However, Zimmer puts his greatest stamp on the movie and the decade at the very end of the movie with the masterful “Time.” I personally don’t have enough adjectives to praise this piece of music. Inception’s score is a masterpiece, legendary in both its influence and incomparable quality.

Kerem Uzdiyen

A Decade in: Directors

Alex Dewing — Sun, 15 Dec 2019 17:26:34 +0000

A selection of our writers reflect on the directors who stood out this decade; whether for their cultural contribution, the work they’ve done, or the personal impact they’ve had.

Denis Villeneuve

Though quantity certainly does not equate to quality, Denis Villeneuve’s output of six feature films this decade is nothing short of a exhibition of excellent craftsmanship. Captivated by Prisoners (2013), I found myself anticipating every new Villeneuve film, and he never disappoints. His impressive streak of films – Incendies, Prisoners, Enemy, Sicario, Arrival, Blade Runner 2049 – definitively affirms him as one of the breakout directors of the 2010s, as well as positioning him as an influential player in the direction and potential of sci-fi cinema to come. His continual exploration into trauma and violence coupled up with a frequent collaboration with Roger Deakins brings to cinema worlds that are cold, harsh, yet beautiful. The season of winter comes to mind: the frosty forest of Prisoners, Ryan Gosling’s K lying in the snow, the cool colour palette of Arrival, silhouettes against the dawn breaking in Sicario. Psychological isolation and existentialist dread persist throughout his filmography; qualities that, in my opinion, are reminiscent of this decade in the Western world.

Plus, the ending of Enemy alone speaks for itself.

Xinyi Wang

The Safdie Brothers

When I think of the Safdie brothers, I think of anxiety. Right before the 2010s began, Josh and Benny Safdie premiered their second feature, Daddy Longlegs, at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. The film was heralded as setting a new standard for DIY cinema, a descriptor that would soon encapsulate the body of their work. Now at the end of the decade, with five more films under their belt – Lenny Coke, Heaven Knows What, Good Time, and the soon-to-be-released Uncut Gems – the brothers have established themselves as cult indie film royalty. NYC born and bred, their films embody a New York minute – urgent, colourful, everywhere at once. They cast first-time actors they find on the street, they film without permits, they edit, write, and direct all of their films; the brothers possess a particularly Millennial hustle that allows them to create content constantly, always on their own terms. They represent a new generation of filmmakers, kids interacting with cameras from day one who aren’t afraid to use them. Yet with each film has come a larger budget and increased acclaim, challenging the do-it-yourself attitude that drew them their initial cult following. As big studios clamour to fund their projects, an important question emerges: can the brothers maintain their creative integrity in the face of a hyper-commercial (and confining) industry? Creating meccas out of minutiae, the Safdies have shaped independent cinema over the past decade, while simultaneously representing the precarity of its future.

Maria Duster

Alejandro González Iñárritu

The 2010’s was a decade of many great directors but, in my opinion, none stood out quite like Innaritu. He started off the decade with the heavily-acclaimed Spanish language film Biutiful which cemented him clearly as a visionary and talented director and proved that Babel was not a one-time hit. But it was really his move to American cinema that changed everything. In 2014 and 2015, he directed two completely different kind of films in Birdman and The Revenant but somehow mastered the craft in both of them. He became the first person since Joseph L. Mankiewicz in 1950 to win two consecutive Academy Awards for Directing. While the Awards have been heavily criticized in recent years, both of his wins were absolutely well-deserved. The style of Birdman made it a real stand-out and perhaps one of his greatest feats was getting the best out of Michael Keaton for a fantastic performance. With The Revenant, he almost abandoned dialogue as he let Leonardo DiCaprio, and to a lesser extent Tom Hardy, do what they do best in a beautifully shot film, demonstrating human nature in its core. Both films were visually scintillating, showing Inarritu’s eye for the camera and were brilliantly crafted shot-by-shot. While he did not make another feature-length film this decade, his three efforts were more than enough to make him my pick for the Director of the 2010’s.

Kerem Uzdiyen

Ava DuVernay

When They See Us is a phenomenal television series. Thirty years ago, the boys accused of the 1989 Central Park jogger case were demonised by the American public. Now, their stories were sensitively and shrewdly presented by DuVernay to the world. With the five men exonerated legally and culturally, this is emblematic of what makes DuVernay one of the decade’s most relevant and best directors. She uses her artistic prowess to express the history and predicament of African Americans. My favourite aspect of her direction is how she frames faces and uses space. The audience is confronted with not only the character’s hardship, but her actors are given close-ups that emphasise their emotional journey. Her characters may be facing institutional persecution or a literal prison cell, and she frames them off-kilter to knock the audience off balance too. Although her filmography has reoccurring themes and ideas of black self-determination, social justice and empowerment, DuVernay has a strong hold on projects with different needs. While Selma was a historical drama which celebrated Martin Luther King, it was more spectacular than your typical biography film. Her documentary 13TH was a rigorous examination of the prison-industrial system but enthralling and never losing a watcher’s attention. Considering DuVernay’s initial career as PR in Hollywood, her current projects are a stark contrast.

Emma Davis

Taika Waititi

I would argue, it is impossible to not find utter joy in the work of Taika Waititi, who has stolen the hearts of audiences over the past decade with his deadpan humour and absolute charm. After dabbling in directing TV episodes (including my favourite Flight of the Conchords), this Kiwi actor / writer / director (/ infinitely cool human) truly found his footing during the last decade. There are few directors who manage to find the balance between intelligent humour and the downright silly when it comes to comedy, but here Waititi is a pro. Whether it’s his critically acclaimed Hunt for the Wilderpeople, the big-budget and bigger-studio Thor: Ragnarrok, or the cult-classic What We Do in the Shadows, Waititi evokes childish delight from the audience that never fails to make you smile. His films are bright and bold, and in an industry where films so often profit off being stoic and serious it’s refreshing to see someone unafraid to not take themselves, or their work ,seriously. This, of course, doesn’t mean there is nothing serious to be found in Waititi’s filmography, you need only watch Hunt for the Wilderpeople to know that this director can have you crying with tears of saddness one second, and laughter the next. A true master of humour and drama, this once indie director may have found a bigger fan-base but frankly, he’s more chaotic than ever and I can’t wait to see what he brings in the decade to come.

Alex Dewing

Best Picture Spotlight: ‘Arrival’

Chloe Woods — Mon, 13 Feb 2017 09:29:43 +0000

Editor Chloe Woods takes a spoiler-filled dive into Denis Villeneuve’s stunning sci-fi drama – which took home a BAFTA award last night and is now nominated for 8 Oscars.

If you have not yet seen Arrival, please be aware that 1) this piece is chock-a-block full of spoilers, 2) this piece won’t make much sense and 3) this piece strongly advises you to beg, borrow or otherwise obtain a copy of the film as soon as humanly possible.

The screen goes dark. The credits roll. As the lights come up people stretch, hunt for bags, and remember their half-finished popcorn by tripping over it. Two rows in front of me I hear this pronouncement:

‘The aliens had visited before.’ A middle-aged man, offering words of wisdom to a beffudled companion. ‘That’s why she’d already been having the visions.’

Normality, we might say, is restored.

You could make it up. You just wouldn’t want to. Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival received its wide release in the USA two days after the election of Donald Trump: a demagogue who on first, second and all subsequent glances is the precise antithesis of everything Arrival says and appears to be trying to stand for.

This is what we call “timely”.

Arrival’s particular release date almost certainly fed into the rave around the film, since critics rarely fall into Trump-voting demographics, and at least passing mention of that timeliness made it into every review of the film I’ve seen. The comparison was generally kind to Arrival. The USA might be on a path to isolation, brutal populism, and social if not literal self-destruction (and Britain apparently determined to shackle itself to America’s star-spangled fate); but at least there is this film – this brave, clear-sighted, wonderful film – to show people a better way, just when it’s most needed. If films like this can be made, seen, nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars – surely the situation’s not all that dark?

This is what we call “optimism”.

How the hell are people supposed to learn from something they barely begin to understand?

(via Art of VFX)

The aliens had not visited before.

“Before” is a fluid concept for Louise Banks (Amy Adams). Time itself is perfectly linear, and – being part of time – so is Louise’s own life. It’s her perception of her life, and the passing of time, that decouples itself from simple forward motion over the course of the film. We see best how this works when Louise uses it to crucial effect in the telephone sequence: she looks ahead to gain information from a later point in time. From the presentation of the scene, she doesn’t simply observe her future self but is, in the moment, both at once. A life does not need to be experienced in order.

I used to think this was the beginning of your story. Before the heptapods, before the impossible ships, before the decipherment of an alien language, Louise Banks lived through highlights of her daughter’s birth, childhood, and death. If the future, why not the past? Why not show her younger self what is to come? (If she deliberately showed herself anything at all. Maybe some events simply echo through your life, spilling over into a time you didn’t know such things were possible. It’s not the aliens she sees, after all. It’s the important things.) Equal parts explanation and promise, the visions that haunt Louise through the film don’t mean anything extraordinary occurred before the heptapods’ arrival. They mean “before” no longer matters. They mean “beginning” no longer matters, and so never did. I used to think this was the beginning of your story – where? At birth? Louise knows better than that. In the dreams? The dreams both lead to and are the result of future events. This is the unbreakable loop of causality time travel so often traps us in. If the future is known, how can it be chosen?

The first obvious message of this film is: talk to each other.

There is a theory in linguistics called the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, which posits that the words we use structure the way we see the world. Orwell was a fan of the concept. At its extremes it fails: our thinking shapes our words as much as our words shape our thinking, and in a sense we invent all the words we use. We may be able to judge what words like table and spoon mean to the people around us – but what about words like hope, or justice, or – tool?

Though it becomes harder when we speak different languages, the real difficulty arises when we must accommodate different ways of seeing the world. This is the case in Arrival, not only with the heptapods, but most strongly illustrated by them.

All conversations are an act of translation. Talk.

I would be extrapolating, if Villeneuve didn’t spell all this out quite clearly in the structure of the heptapods’ writing. And if the main character was not a linguist who could literally, liberally, spell it out.

The heptapods have never seen time as linear. They, like Louise, are capable of using that knowledge: all of their actions are based on an understanding of what they will meet on Earth, and what will happen afterwards.

Did you realise, watching the film, that Abbott must have embarked on this mission knowing it was going to die?

The second obvious message of this film is: trust each other.

Arrival has no villains. It does not even, really, have antagonists. The people who cause the film’s climactic conflicts are good people presented with the utmost of sympathy. They do not act out of greed or selfishness, and are to be found on all political “sides” – and because of their choices the world teeters on the brink of cataclysmic crisis.

The handful of military and national leaders who shut down the previously international effort to understand the heptapods do so motivated by genuine fear of others’ intentions. They have no evidence to support this fear. It is rooted in their own biases. People who want nothing more than not to be attacked will believe others wish to attack them.

Trust, the film says, that those others only wish to attack you because they believe you wish to attack them. That there would be no such wish if each saw the other’s desire driven only by mortal fear. That we do not, at the beginning, wish more harm than good on our fellow beings. And so trust.

(This is one point on which I truly wish I could believe Villeneuve was right.)

Time is not linear. It may not even exist.

Children ask, “Why can we see the past and not the future?” We can’t. If we could, the study of history would be simpler. We see the impressions left on us by a place we have passed through, and time itself consists of a series of moments. But this is the kind of philosophy real philosophers sneer at. Are we the same beings, from one now to the next? Or are we destroyed utterly in one second, to be recreated in the next?

“Beginning” and “ending” have no meaning. That’s why it’s not the promise of a full, long life that makes it worth living. We see that Louise’s daughter Hannah brings laughter to the world, and knows it. Does the pitiful end of her life discredit that? Do ours?

Because the less obvious message of this film is: live.

Some people have commented on what this film says about great revelations. The film says, they’ve argued, that most people when faced with world-shattering discoveries will quietly file them and return to worrying about everyday life. This is not untrue. Some have also interpreted Arrival to mean it would make no difference to us if we knew our own futures, because we would still be obliged to live them, and this, too, is not untrue.

All fiction is rooted in reality. Arrival can say these things because they are already real aspects of our own lives. We don’t know our futures, you say? Nonsense. We know that we will die. (All comments on immortality should be redirected, unless you’d like a lecture on the heat death of the Universe.) We know that, unless we are very exceptional, people we love will either die or be left to grieve for us. We know that, unless we are very exceptional, we will have people to love. There you are: your future, in its most critical points. But when we were small children we did not know this, and learned with horror of the inevitability of death – and, in most cases, returned to worrying about everyday life.

So this is nothing new.

But you must remember it. This is the point. Louise will not forget, now. Nobody in that world will forget the day the heptapods came or the gift they brought, even as book deals are signed and lectures dozed through. We live in our everyday lives, but we live poorly unless we carry our understanding with us. We can’t drop it when the credits roll and return to normality. Normality contains everything.

If this is time, then what of choice? This is the old difficulty of time travel: if we know our own futures, to what extent can we be said to choose them?

But we are still thinking linearly. We know the future because it is what we did choose. Even in the world of Arrival, alternatives can only be guessed at.

This is hard – there are no words for this.

Louise’s actions will not be the same as if she had no knowledge of the future. That factor cannot be removed. But they will be her actions, and create that future; and choices made in her future will affect her present. Don’t think of time unfolding: think of ripples in water spreading out to meet each other.

This is where the film departs from all sense of reality. We cannot see the world like that. But science fiction does not have to be possible.

We call it timely, and we do have reason.

In the months since this film was released, we have watched the country it was made in retreat further from the rest of the world. Commenters have made the obvious points, about communication, and trust, and the aching similarities of all living beings in their beautiful fragility and so their shared right to an unpersecuted existence. And etcetera. These are points, but I do not believe they are the point.

Don’t be afraid to live for fear of pain. Accept that you will suffer: you know enough of the future to understand that.

Trump’s supporters deny it. Not all those who voted for him, but the ones who bought into his message and continue to. Make America Great Again. Those who fear a future both known and unknown build walls to keep the world out, and hide from reality, and lash out at anyone or anything that poses the slightest risk. A country as much as a person can do that. This is what America is doing now.

Louise Banks had a daughter knowing she would lose her. Abbott came to Earth knowing it would die. Maybe that makes it easier – knowing the shape of things as well as the colour. Maybe it is easier to face difficult things if you have no alternative but to acknowledge them. Unlike them, we can forget our futures. We must strive not to. This is frightening; but ultimately, Villeneuve suggests, it is the way to achieve less pain. What would have happened if no heptapod had been willing to make the sacrifice Abbott did? The humans would never have noticed, but the heptapods’ society would have been forfeit.

Arrival is not only timely because it sends a message of tolerance. It is timely – at all times – because it challenges us to be braver in our very approach to the world.

I’m imposing myself on the film. I apologise. Maybe all I’ve read into it isn’t there; or maybe it’s there because it’s part of life, not because anyone intended, and you could see the same in any film. But I don’t think so.

Denis Villeneuve is working in the best tradition of sci-fi: visions of other worlds held up as a mirror to our own. Deceptive in its simplicity, this is not only a beautiful film, or a well-acted one, or a timely one, though it is all of those things. Arrival is important. And – being a non-blockbuster, a popular but still relatively niche work of science fiction – it will not be seen by nearly the number of people who should see it; nor, most likely, will many of them understand what it is trying to say. Important but, in the manner of many of the most important statements, liable to be forgotten.

We’ll never be able to quantify what effect it might have had.

But time will tell.

Arrival is still screening in select UK cinemas, and will be released on UK Digital HD services on March 6, followed by Blu-ray and DVD on March 20 (for the less patient, it’s out now on the U.S. iTunes store). See the trailer below:

PODCAST: Arrival, Nocturnal Animals, and Bleed For This

UCL Film & TV Society — Sun, 04 Dec 2016 12:35:19 +0000

This week Helena and Tom take to the podcast to discuss the Amy Adams double bill of Nocturnal Animals and Arrival and get the skinny on this week’s Bleed for This. As well as discussing all the week’s hottest news and upcoming releases.

The pair also tackle the compatibility of Wes Anderson and H&M, whether it’s still possible to spoil Soylent Green and award Armie Hammer the title of Matinee Idol.