Màrius Viñas Creus
Welcome to the analysis of the film The arrival, in this blog you’re going to find out more about the importance of the sound in this film.
- Introduction:
The Arrival is a 2016 American science fiction drama film directed by Denis Villeneuve and adapted by Eric Heisserer, who conceived the project as a spec script based on the 1998 short story “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang. The film concept of the film is Amy Adams as Louise Banks, is working as linguist with the army of the United States to discover how extraterrestrials communicate with each other and how the humanity can talk with them. The hole point of this, is that hose extraterrestrials are in the planet Earth, so they have to discover what the aliens want and how they can fix it. Arrival had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 1, 2016, and was released theatrically in the United States by Paramount Pictures on November 11, 2016.
2. Development of the subject:
I have choosen this film because they talk about communication. In the film, the communication is so associated with the music. So, the music has a lot of relevance in the majority of the scenes. In this case, the scene that I’m analyzing is one that appears almost in the end of the film, where Louise Banks discovers that the language of the extraterrestrials can work as a key to see the future.
Let’s analyze the scene, these scene is so important because it is the begging of the communication and the interaction between Louise as a linguist and the extraterrestrials. We see a helicopter going into the directon where the aliens are. Furthermore, when we are getting closer to the aliens, we start losing the ambience sound, and we only can hear the sound of the aliens, and how they are starting to communicate with Louise. The way that the Aliens communicate, is incorporated as a song, that follows the helicopter. (Filmthusiast. (2023, 16 October). Arrival (2016) – Seeing the Ship [Vídeo])
Let’s analyze another scene. At the beginning, you can’t hear the ambience sound, there is only silence, and the music that starts plating in the background to. However, everytime the music increases the volum and we are teletrasporting into the future, so the music, decides when we are travelling into the story. Then, we can hear all the scene, where there are some dialogs, and then, they repeat the same estructure like in the beginning, thanks to the music, we move backwards, and with a sound that is related to the aliens (2:00) we go back to the reality. The scene increases the rhythm, as the music does, and the scene ends when the music ends too. (Why You Laughing ? (2021, 22 January). Arrival- Dr Banks meet General shang [Vídeo])
Why the Sound Design in ‘Arrival’ is a Masterpiece
3. Conclusion
In conclusion, the audio in film is so important, maybe when you see the film for the first time, you didn’t realize wich is the importance of the sound (music, dialogs, noise, etc) But when you start analysing the film scene by scene, you realize that the estructure and the whay to express the communication in this film is so unique. If you want to learn more about the film, I highly recomend you the videos ¨What’s the Musical Language of Arrival?¨ and the video ¨Arrival’s otherworldly sound design deconstructed¨ that you can find in the Bibliography space.
4. web/bibliography.
I talk with the teacher of Soundtracks about the structure, the rhythm of the film, and how they use the music to communicate the feelings of the characters. I analyzed the film and the scenes that I used are:
Filmthusiast. (2023, 16 octubre). Arrival (2016) – Seeing the Ship [Vídeo]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G87Vjg-tP7c
Why You Laughing ? (2021, 22 enero). Arrival- Dr Banks meet General shang [Vídeo]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXEJhtNCvYE
What’s the Musical Language of Arrival? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb8fj01USlo&t=279s&ab_channel=ListeningIn
Arrival’s otherworldly sound design deconstructed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAg6V8jleMU&ab_channel=INDEPTHSoundDesign
Link of the presentation: https://www.canva.com/design/DAGBimJidMg/QjgCegccnipAjFRSmNKNLw/edit?utm_content=DAGBimJidMg&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton
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