One of the great buy-ins that a movie audience makes is the concept of a soundtrack. The idea that as you are watching action take place there is music telling you how to feel, a sound cue that lacks a source in the cinematic world of whatever movie you are watching. We all accept and expect this soundtrack. When it not around, it's unnerving. For example: No Country for Old Men is a movie that has minimal (and I only say minimal to cover my ass) non-diegetic sound. There is a lot of silence No Country, of course it's thoughtful and meaning-laden silence, but still... it's freakin' quiet (if you want an even more snotty film that addresses and constantly challenges the tacit acceptance we have of non-diegetic sound, see Godard's Une Femme est Une Femme. Or, you could not and save yourself the headache.).
But I don't want to talk about the Coen Brothers, really (and I don't want to talk about Godard [ever]).
I like the soundtrack, I often wish my life were set to a soundtrack. I have a cd called Music for TV Dinners, which is full of 1950s music used to sell Modernity (think film shorts about "Industry!" or Ren and Stimpy). TV Dinners is a cd that is over the top, but so gleefully so, that you buy into it (I feel happy! I want to work faster!). I enjoy a soundtrack done well; one that provokes the feeling it's supposed to without hitting you over the head with it.
I'm talking about The Dark Knight.
I saw it last night, and needed twenty minutes of silence to extricate myself from it afterwards. I could talk about the acting (Heath Ledger was the Joker. I was half tempted to write about the Joker and the "Space Cowboy" from Gerald's Game, but didn't. I loved Aaron Eckhert as Two Face. The casting was dead on.), but I won't.
I will talk about the sound. The film is saturated with a feeling of intense unease. Intense Unease, even. Listening to the score in isolation (by Hans Zimmer) right now is making me tense, but it confirms what I remember (it's long but worth it!):
Lone high pitched sound getting louder and more mechanical, then stopping for a while and building up again. I hear this and it feels like sonic confirmation of what the Joker himself says (rasp/whines, whatever), that they have a case of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object... and it's pretty clear who is who.
For an expert's review of the soundtrack read here posted by Amber at 3:06 PM
