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
also employ music in the comedies to draw the attention of opposing forces. For instance, in The Ladykillers, the producers depict a conflict between the spiritual and material world portrayed by the religious Marva and Dorr respectively. In the film, Dorr is a thief who takes up a career in classical music to fool the other characters. In the initial scenes, the Coen brothers succeed in creating a connection between money lust and the hip-hop, and this is shown when Marva is seen making her way to the police station while the neighbor plays the track “I Left My Wallet in El Segundo” by A Tribe Called Quest. In another scene, Gawain is shown to be listening to “Another Day Another Dollar” by Nappy Roots, while in the casino with a chain decorated with a large dollar sign hanging around his neck. The wallet song is played again after Dorr’s gang steals the money. Therefore, the Coen brothers employment of music is impressive, especially the hip-hop music which represents materialism. The brothers also make use of church music that is frequently used to depict innocence and respect for the spiritual world. An example is shown in the scene where Dorr asks to rent rehearsal space from Marva, and he is seen insisting that his group will play only church music and not hip-hop music. Another film produced by the Coen brothers that highlights musical tension in a subtle manner is the Hudsucker Proxy, which depicts the occurrences of Norville Barnes, a character played by Tim Robbins. Barnes was a recent graduate of Muncie Business School, and is awarded an employment opportunity at Hudsucker Industries as a mailroom employee in New York. His first big job at the company was to deliver a package to the boss, only to find out that he had committed suicide by jumping from the 45th floor to his death. The successful suicide attempt was followed by the other business executives developing a plot to hire an incompetent individual to fill the top seat of the business in a bid to make the stocks fall so that they can buy up the company. Consequently, Barnes is chosen, but the events do not turn out as expected. On the contrary, he makes an invention for kids, which results in a skyrocketing of the company stocks. In the beginning, Barnes maintains his working class ideals but later replaces them with white-collar attitudes once at the pinnacle of the power structure (Roberts 26).
Amy Archer, a character played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, carries out investigative journalism in the company, only to find out that Barnes was spending money on expensive music that was reserved for the nobility, in addition to having significant personal sculptures made of him, whereas many blue-collar employees were on the brink of losing their employment. In the movie, the Coen brothers employed Aram Khachaturian’s music such as “Saber Dance” and “Spartacus.” Khachaturian’s music is used to depict the manner in which Barnes was expected to conform to the rules from the people who were higher up in terms of authority, just like the singer in traditional Russian societies. The composers in the early and mid 20th centuries were urged to write music aimed at bolstering the support of the nation just like large co-operations might hold events to punish naysayers and keep the morale up. The use of Mozart later in the film instead of Khachaturian was a depiction of the ways in which Barnes had changed. Another audio tactic that is unique to the Coen brothers’ style of production sound is capturing high quality sound of every line of the script while shooting in hopes that it can be used in the final mix. Acording to Lievsay, the brothers are extremely conscious and usually successful at getting a good recording of every line in the script before they finish shooting so they rarely have to incorporate ADR rather than original production sound. “Sometimes the best sound is the absence of sound” (Gupta).
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 tension meter was at the max.” In addition to the film having minimal music, the characters also remain silent for long periods. The majority of the sound in the film is derived from objects such as drones as well as the sounds of the Buddhist singing bowls and air streams of compressed the compressed air that came from the gun that Anton Chigurh (a character played by Javier Bardem) used. This is how steady-state sound emerged as the solution for the films. Burwell says, “they don’t have any beginning and they don’t have an end.” He would use sounds like sine waves, Tibetan singing bowls, sounds of wind, or humming cars.” The other sources of sound included air ducts, crickets, and the traffic. Consequently, the audience is forced to pay attention to either the ambient sounds of the environment or utter silence and tranquility. Further, the audience is denied the aural clues they would desire for plot development, resulting in much more surprising reactions for any events that follow. On the other hand, music sometimes gives an artificial feel to the movie, making it less real. However, real lives of people do not always have background music, and, as such, Burwell understands that silence is tenser, disturbing, and realistic, making it a powerful tool when effectively employed in filmmaking. Another film directed by the Coen brothers in which silence is efficiently employed is the movie Barton Fink. Nonetheless, silence is not used extensively even though the cast succeeds in creating a general dramatic effect while still bringing out the core concepts of the film. The film features John Turturro who plays the character of Barton Fink. Fink is a writer who has recorded immense success in writing plays for the people of New York and is presented with the opportunity to move to Hollywood, an offer he accepts. In Hollywood, he is required to write a