The Greatest Sound Scene Ever! - Assignment #2

Kit McDonald

No Country for Old Men

The greatest sound scene ever is this clip from No Country for Old Men.  The film was directed by Joel & Ethan Coen and released in 2007.  It’s based on a Cormack McCarthy novel by the same name.   It follows three individuals through two hours of chase, suspense, and violence.  Llewellyn, played by Josh Brolin, finds $2 million in the west Texas desert, and the ruthless and cold-blooded Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) is hunting him down to collect the money himself, killing anyone in his way.  Tommy Lee Jones plays the sheriff who is trying to find the killer and restore peace to his county.

Sound Team

Sound Editor: Skip Lievsay Sound Designer: Craig Berkey Composer: Carter Burwell Production Sound Mixer: Peter Kurland Foley Mixer: Greg Orloff

Accolades

It was nominated for eight Oscars, including “Best Sound Editing” and “Best Sound Mixing”, as well as several other awards.  At the Oscars, it won four categories, including “Best Picture” (but notably neither sound award).   It did win the Cinema Audio Society award for “Best Sound Mixing for Motion Picutres”.

The Scene

This scene is almost halfway through the movie.  Llewellyn and his bag of money check into a motel – his first order of business is to hide the money in the ventilation system and then immediately check into another room from which he’d be able to access the same vent.  Little does he know, Anton has a tracking device for the money and was able to close in on him in the motel.  Anton checks into a room down the hall and prepares to slaughter Llewellyn and retrieve the case.  You will see Anton (dressed in black) run into the room he thinks the money is in, as well as Llewellyn trying to retrieve his money, making as little noise as possible.  Pay special attention to the weapons Anton is using, as well as the musical score, the ambient noise, and notice how they build suspense.

The Greatest Sound Scene Ever!

Sound is an extremely important part of this film.  According to sound editor Skip Lievsay and composer Carter Burwell, the Coen Brothers know the importance of good sound, and they write sound right into their scripts, just like we talked about with the Randy Thom Manifesto.  They are very conscious of the sound for the characters or environment, they aren’t afraid to leave long stretches without dialogue, and they leave space for it through the whole process.  They are so meticulous about capturing good audio on location that there is only one single ADR line in the entire film, and that’s because Javier Bardem had a lot of trouble with the pronunciation at the time.  The other unique thing that happened on this film is that Lievsay and Burwell were able to work together from the beginning; they say it is not unusual for sound department heads never to hear what the others are working on until the final stage, and then the dialogue, effects, and score are all competing with each other.  Instead, they worked together to create music and effects that complemented each other and heightened the sonic experience.  They found that no matter what kind of scoring they attempted, it lessened the tension of the film, and this story depends on you being completely tense through the entire two hours.  Finally, Burwell settled on something experimental: tonal music underlining effects.  Sine waves and Tibetan singing drums create an eerie pitch that they were able to tune the sound effects of cars, gunshots, and wind to, and you almost never notice the music is playing until it is gone.  You do hear some of that under the gunshots in the scene we just watched.  In total, there are only sixteen minutes of score total, including the end credits.

And then there are the effects!  In the original novel, McCarthy describes the shotgun and silencer as, “like someone coughing into a barrel”.  There is no actual gun in that sound effect; instead Berkey used a lot of high-pitched noises, like women’s screamed pitched even higher, paired with a low thumping noise he discovered accidentally while they were already on set.  The pneumatic cattle gun he uses to burst through locks (and, earlier, someone’s head), Berkey admits he didn’t even research what those sound like in real life.  Because he wanted something impactful and two-part, he used the sound of a pneumatic nail gun.

Finally, there is the silence and suspense.  This whole film is wrought with tension, beginning to end.  Most of the ambient noise is comprised of wind or car sounds (which also give a great indication of location in any given scene), and the minimal score is layered under that.  The long stretches of silence combined with the on screen tension make you hold your breath and really heighten the tension, and when you hear the bag of money squeaking against the vent shaft walls, followed by the immediate cut to Anton listening at the door, you feel genuine fear for Llewellyn’s safety.

Further reading: 

This link contains a very interesting interview with Curwell and Lievsay!  

Listening Essay - Assignment #1

Kit McDonald SNDS 701 MW 5-7:30PM

The Dog Park at Daffin Park Sunday, 6:55 PM

Ky is trying to goad our dog, Maddie, into running and playing; this involves speech, the sound of her scratching Maddie’s back, the sound of her feet moving around in the dirt

A hound is baying at other dogs

Lighthearted conversations throughout the park

People shrieking happily as dogs jump over them

Laughter from the other end of the enclosure

Clapping and “baby talk” voices to dogs

Growls and barks – so many voices and tones!

Jingling of tags on collars

Clanging as gate opens and closes

Low engine rumble of a muscle car on the road behind me

General hum of traffic

Radio of a car passing by [rapid, subject to the Doppler effect]

Splashing of dogs running through pool and mud - two distinct sounds!

Shuffling of dogs in the dirt and leaves

Fat dog panting heavily – asthmatically – as he jogs by

Sticks and leaves crunch under people’s feet

There must be a bump on one of the surrounding roads.  When they cas go over it, their sound changes and I can hear a dull thunk

A truck makes a crashing sound as it goes over the bump

Bug chattering

Pat-pat of jogger passing by

Passing car made a squeaking, grating sound.  Maybe they should have that looked at…?

Bird chirping rapidly

Car honks

Dog coughs

What I learned: I did achieve the learning goal of being “more in tune with the sounds in the […] environment”, but this exercise didn’t enlighten me, so much, as to the sounds around me that often go unheard, as it did to the way I conceptualize and talk about sounds.

It was especially interesting to see how elements of multiple environments seemed to interact.  There were the sounds of the dog park, of course.  But the dog park was located within a larger park, so I could hear people talking as they walked by, for example, or joggers’ feet patting on the ground.  Then, there was the added environment of being very close to a busy road and intersection, so it wasn’t just dog park sounds, which alone would have been enough to fill this list.  

Plus, it was eye-opening [ear-opening?] to realize how many different voices for the same sound there were: people shrieking, but with joy, not fear; the infinite variety of barks and growls from dog to dog and in varying situations, used to signal different things; the differences in all the cars’ motors as they drove by.

What struck me most, though, was the way I talk about sound and the way I conceptualize it.  Almost every sound I identified in my list I had written in my notebook as an associated noun: “jogger”, “car”, etc.  It took an extra level of focus to be able to describe the sounds without the metonym.  Each sound immediately conjured an image of what could be making it – even if I wasn’t looking in its direction – and that object became shorthand for the sound itself in my notebook.