Kent Film Club - Edie Brennan (Thursday 15th August 2024)
This week Chris Deacy is joined in the studio by Edie Brennan to discuss the films; The Zone of Interest, Bait, Elephant, and Another Round.
Transcript
00:00Hello, and welcome to Kent Film Club.
00:15I'm Chris DC, and each week I'll be joined by a guest from Kent to dive deep into the
00:20impact certain films have had on their life.
00:23Each guest will reflect on the films which have meant the most to them over the years.
00:27And every week, there will be a Kent Film Trivia, where we quiz you at home about a
00:31film that has a connection to the county.
00:34And now, let me introduce you to my guest for this week.
00:38She is a musician and film theorist, researching in areas of experimental cinema and sound
00:43design.
00:44She is Edie Brennan.
00:47Great to have you on the programme, Edie.
00:48Yeah, hi.
00:49Thank you so much for having me.
00:50Absolute pleasure.
00:51Now, I don't know your films in advance, but I know I saw this at the Curzon in Canterbury
00:55not too long ago.
00:56That's one of my favourite places.
00:58Yes, absolutely.
00:59I picked this film because it's a very topical film, very recent as well.
01:03It famously won the award for best sound design, which is my kind of whole area.
01:10And that's also what is linking the films that I picked today, is their really fantastic
01:14sound design.
01:15Yeah.
01:16And it was hugely impressive, and I remember even actually as the credits were rolling
01:20at the end, and you heard the horror, and actually that was one of the times when I
01:26really noticed, so that's obviously something to pick up on, but really noticed the way
01:30in which sound really impacts on the way that you interpret a film.
01:35Absolutely.
01:36And I think for this film as well, the sound is as important, if not more important, than
01:40any other aspect of the filmmaking, which I suppose is not to belittle any other aspect
01:44because it's a really incredibly made film, and it's really beautiful and very, very impactful.
01:49But I think the sound is so important.
01:52When you listen to the film, there's this sort of rumbling throughout the entirety of
01:56it that starts right at the very, very beginning, and it presents almost two different films
02:00at the same time.
02:01So there's one film that you can see, and another film that is completely different
02:05that you can hear, and it's the kind of competition and the combat between those two films that
02:12I think really gives it the impact that it has, and it's when that sound kind of disappears
02:18in one scene sort of towards the end that you really notice it, which I think is just
02:22a really, really incredible way to put a film together.
02:26And considering it's subject matter as well, it's a film that has more than one thing going
02:31on because there's the surface level when it's sort of this beautiful family having
02:34an idyllic time, but of course the horrors of the concentration camp literally on their
02:40doorstep.
02:41And the sound design gives us that sort of underlying trauma and tragedy, which isn't
02:47portrayed in what we necessarily see in all of the scenes.
02:50So it's almost a film that through the absence of what it's all about, it actually makes
02:54the subject matter even more impactful and actually more horrendous, almost unbearable
02:57at times to watch.
02:58Yeah, absolutely.
02:59And like you say, having this family who are kind of living their idyllic life right next
03:04to sharing a wall with a concentration camp, which is one of the most horrific environments
03:10you can imagine, and you have this really beautiful home right next to it, and those
03:15two things really conflict in a way that, like you say, the absence of the kind of explicit
03:21nature of what's going on draws more attention to it, which is just really, really fantastic.
03:27And I think also incredibly relevant, incredibly topical.
03:31And Jonathan Glaser had a really wonderful acceptance speech as well at the Oscars, which
03:35I think really hit the point home about the ideas of being able to have something so close
03:41to you and be able to kind of block it out in a sense.
03:46Yeah, it's fantastic.
03:50And in your case, obviously because your work is in experimental sound design, were you
03:54aware before the film, I'm guessing that you were, why the film had such an important influence
04:01in this regard?
04:02Absolutely.
04:03And I think it was impactful on the way I thought about sound design as well.
04:07I think it opened up some creative doorways, I would say, in terms of what can be done
04:12with sound design.
04:13I mean, when you think about it, sound design is relatively, in the scale of film as a medium,
04:19relatively new.
04:20I mean, it was only really established as a practice or as a job on a film set in the
04:27late 70s, early 80s, you know, Walter Murch kind of pioneered that, so we're still finding
04:33things out about what we can do with it, which is so, so wonderful.
04:38And I think this is a great example of kind of pushing that boundary as to what can be
04:42done with sound design.
04:44Absolutely.
04:45And is this one that you would use, I suppose it's too early, perhaps with your students,
04:48but is this something that going forward you'd, because they may well have seen it because
04:52it was a very recent film, but is this something that you could imagine teaching?
04:55Absolutely.
04:56And I have brought this film up with students before because, you know, when I've taught
05:01sound design and when I've taught sound practice, that has been something that I really, really
05:07like to talk about is the kind of experimental nature of what you can do with sound and the
05:12potential to kind of create an impact with your sound based on its relationship, I suppose,
05:20with the visuals.
05:21So you can have a film where the audio and the visual are really, really closely bonded
05:25and the link between the two is very clear.
05:29And the wider you make that gap between the sound and the visuals, in my opinion, the
05:33more impact you can get and the more scope there is to be really creative with it, which
05:37I think is what they've done here as well.
05:40In terms of the kind of discomfort that it causes, it's, you know, it's a film I can
05:45rewatch it as many times, you know, I won't get tired of this film, but it's not comfortable
05:51to watch by any means.
05:53I don't think you really should be comfortable watching it either.
05:57There was an interview with Jonathan Glaser about creating the sound for this film that
06:02I thought was so telling of exactly what they were trying to do, which he said that as the
06:08film continued and as they got further through the mix of the, you know, the soundtrack,
06:13they had to make the sounds worse.
06:16They had to make them more uncomfortable and louder because by the time they'd gotten to
06:19that point, they're blocking it out.
06:20So there's a subconscious thing, which I think hones into the message of the whole film.
06:24You get so used to it that you kind of just block it out.
06:27So they have to keep increasing the discomfort levels so that you remain conscious of what's
06:32going on.
06:33Yeah.
06:34Well, it's time now to move on to your second chosen film and you've gone for Bait.
06:39Bait.
06:40Yes.
06:41So this is a film by Mark Jenkin.
06:42It is filmed completely in black and white.
06:45It's filmed on film.
06:47It looks like it's a film that's a lot older than it actually is.
06:50This film was made in 2019, but you probably wouldn't know that from watching it.
06:56And it's, it's again, incredible sound design.
06:58So Jenkin was the co-sound designer for the film as well.
07:01And for me, this has been in a really, really influential film that I've revisited.
07:05I saw it when it first came out.
07:06I studied it when I did my undergraduate.
07:08I studied it again in my master's and then I've also talked about it with students as
07:12well because it's so incredibly, impeccably well made.
07:15There was no on location sound at all.
07:18So when they went into the final edit for the film, everything is ADR, everything's
07:22foleyed, but from scratch, from absolutely nothing that was recorded on set.
07:26So there was no point of reference for them.
07:28And what they actually did to make the sounds, they made a sound booth on the beach where
07:34the film was created in Cornwall out of driftwood.
07:38I can't remember who said it, which is quite bad form, but in an interview with Mark Jenkin,
07:43I think it may have been him that said it, said that it gave the sound of the film a
07:48saltiness and I think that's just the perfect way to describe it.
07:51It's so kind of crunchy and you can tell it's been dubbed over, but that's part of the effect.
07:58And it's this incredible sort of environmental piece that looks at sort of the class struggle
08:04and the kind of industrialization and globalization and how that affects small communities.
08:11So I think that kind of organic, homegrown sound really aids in that and it's just an
08:16incredible film.
08:17So another example of where the sound actually contributes to the way that the film can be
08:22apprehended and indeed, from what you're saying there, actually felt.
08:26It feels, just the way that you describe it there, it's very visceral.
08:29Yeah, absolutely.
08:31It's almost like you can feel the vibrations of the sound and for me that's really important.
08:35I always say that sound is actually a physical thing, right, because it's vibrations and
08:39it's how your body reacts to those actual physical waves that is going to define how
08:44you're understanding something.
08:46And the film being about this kind of class struggle, it's about a fishing village in
08:50Cornwall and a wealthy family has come in and bought the childhood home of the main
08:54character who's a trawler fisherman and they've turned it into essentially an Airbnb and renting
08:59it out to holidaymakers.
09:01And so that is the kind of crux of the film and the heart of it is the kind of preservation
09:07of these small communities and I think it's an incredible way to look at the world and
09:12the communities that you're in and it's a real, I think of it as almost a love letter
09:17to the place.
09:19Jenkin has another film that's also a Cornish film called Ennisman and it's a horror film
09:25but again it's, the crux of it is the sound design.
09:28I think those two films go incredibly well together as almost a double bill.
09:33I think watching them gives you this amazing appreciation for the space.
09:36And you were mentioning that you wouldn't know to watch it that it was made in 2019.
09:41In terms of its setting, give us a little indication as to the period in which this
09:46is set.
09:48So it's set in the modern day which is another one of those really delightful things that
09:53I find because when you're watching it, because of the look, because of the black and white
09:57and the kind of crunchy sound and everything that just feels very old school and then all
10:02of a sudden you'll see the characters drive in with a really new car or use a piece of
10:07technology that is modern and it's really jarring in such a great way and I think it
10:14almost, it's almost reflexive in a way that it's representing the themes through the construction
10:20of the film because it's made, kind of put together in this way that is just using what
10:25you've got around essentially.
10:27When you get this kind of jarring feeling of seeing the modern technology it really
10:31brings home the theme of these spaces being kind of taken over by modern society.
10:38Yes, and it comes to something I was talking about on a previous episode of Kent Film Club,
10:42The Insider, a completely different genre but suddenly a film where they're using payphones
10:46or you know suddenly you think well actually when is this set and you realise how technology
10:51very much dates a film and some films quite deliberately sometimes have an absence of
10:56mobile phones or as you say a character will suddenly get a mobile phone out and that suddenly
10:59feels incongruous because you might have in your mind imagined that it was set for
11:03example 30 years earlier.
11:04Yeah, absolutely and I think a lot of films try to avoid that sort of thing because when
11:09you do that you've dated your film which for some people they want to avoid that so that
11:14it has this kind of timeless feeling to it but Bait does it really intentionally, really
11:18effectively and I think it does create this really incredible feeling of disjointedness
11:23that I love.
11:24Brilliant, well that's about all the time we have for this first half of the show, however
11:28before we go to the break we have a Kent film trivia question for you at home.
11:33Penthurst Place in the Weald of Kent is a popular filming location due to its medieval
11:38architecture.
11:39Some films which have used the location include The Other Berlin Girl, To Kill a King and
11:44which of the following?
11:45A. The Princess Bride, B. Morris or C. The Remains of the Day?
11:51We'll reveal the answer right after this break, don't go away.
11:57Hello and welcome back to Kent Film Club.
12:09Just before that ad break we asked you at home a Kent film trivia question.
12:13Penthurst Place in the Weald of Kent is a popular filming location due to its medieval
12:18architecture.
12:19Some films which have used the location include The Other Berlin Girl, To Kill a King and
12:24which of the following?
12:25A. The Princess Bride, B. Morris or C. The Remains of the Day?
12:29And now I can reveal to you that the answer was in fact A. The Princess Bride.
12:35The film featured a confrontation scene between Inigo Monteir, Mandy Patinkin and Count Rugen
12:40played by Christopher Guest which was filmed within the Barron's Hall.
12:44Did you get the answer right?
12:46Well it is time now Edie to move on to your next chosen film and you've gone for Gus
12:52Van Sant's Elephant.
12:54Yes, absolutely.
12:56Elephant is another film that in the vein of the Zone of Interest deals with some very
13:01heavy subject matter.
13:03So it is, in essence it's about a school shooting so it is quite intense, it's an intense watch.
13:11And it's a film, it came out in 2003 and it was actually somewhat to my surprise mixed
13:19reactions and it's had very mixed reviews over the years.
13:23One of Gus Van Sant's films from his Death Trilogy, so he's got these films where he
13:28kind of looks at death in sort of different ways.
13:31This one is for me the most significant because it's again a film that I just keep coming
13:35back to and again has this wonderful sound to it.
13:38The film I think is so incredible the way it's laid out where we relive the same hour
13:42or so in a school day from the perspective of a variety of different students, different
13:47characters throughout and so we see the same scenes repeated again and again and again
13:50from a different angle or from a different character's perspective.
13:54So we hear flashes of conversations we come back to later in the background of one scene.
13:59In the next scene that conversation is the forefront and the one we heard before is in
14:03the background.
14:04So we're repeating things again and again and again which I think is just a really,
14:07really clever way to make a film.
14:09Yeah, and I have a feeling I did see it when it came out and it made me think of Larry
14:12Clark's Kids that was from the mid-90s.
14:15But one of those films, and it felt very shocking and it felt in terms of its subject matter
14:18very difficult, but the sound design is something that, do you think it was sort of quite exploratory,
14:24experimental sort of ahead of its time?
14:26Absolutely.
14:27I think the sound design in Elephant is really, really clever because there's very, very little
14:32non-diegetic sound.
14:33So the majority of the sound that we hear, including music, is actually coming from what
14:38we can see on screen.
14:39But the way that it plays around with that and the way that it gets a bit experimental
14:42is that it almost transplants music or sound from one scene into another which is incredibly
14:47clever.
14:48So there's one specific scene where we're just watching the students in their PE class
14:52and they're playing and over it we can hear Moonlight Sonata.
14:55Initially you think that this is music that's been placed on top of the scene and then a
14:59few scenes later we actually swap to one of the students who is one of the shooters at
15:04the end of the film playing that piece of music.
15:06When I first saw that it really affected me because for me that was this character who's
15:10about to do something dreadful, haunting the whole film.
15:16Even when he's not there, he's still there in essence, which is just shown through the
15:20sound.
15:21We also get these really incredible moments towards the end of the film where we hear
15:25sounds that would not be natural for the space.
15:28There's a scene in the school corridor and the sounds that you can hear are a baby crying
15:33and a river trickling and birdsong.
15:37Those are actually compositions by Hildegard Westerkamp who is a field recording composer
15:43and she takes environmental sound and turns them into electro-acoustic music.
15:48So it's this really incredible indication that things aren't as they seem when the sound
15:53and the visuals are so at odds with each other.
15:56And also in terms of the reverberations of the idea, I suppose in terms of any more conventional
16:01film plot, you have the reverberation of what happens in one scene with another but here
16:05you actually have the sound which actually did the same job but in a more haunting way.
16:11Can you think of Mike Ficke's film called Timecode from I think 2000, I saw it when
16:15I was at a film festival in Switzerland and the whole film was different images of different
16:22characters and they'd be talking at different moments and the sound would be switched on
16:24in one scene and on in another.
16:27And in a way you're piecing everything through the sound design and trying to work out what
16:30matches what's on the screen.
16:32But tell me a bit more about Elephant because I remember this was quite controversial when
16:36it came out or at least its subject matter was quite difficult for a lot of people.
16:41In terms of the reception of the film, you mentioned it's a film you could watch again
16:43now.
16:44How would you situate this film?
16:47Yeah, absolutely.
16:48Like I say, it was controversial when it came out.
16:50It came out four years after the Columbine shootings so it's still very raw but I think
16:57this is a subject matter that especially situated in the place that it's situated in the States
17:01is very relevant and continues to be very relevant unfortunately and it is a very, very
17:07heavy film.
17:08It's not an easy watch especially because you kind of know what's coming so you feel
17:14this dread almost.
17:15And I've seen a lot of reviews saying that it's a very selfish film and I can understand
17:21the idea of being somewhat upset at a filmmaker using this content to, you know, people think
17:29to make money or you know, whatever.
17:31But I really love, I think as well as being a very disturbing film, it's a very gentle
17:35and very kind film and I really love that it centres the characters, the students who
17:40are affected by this more so than it centres the students who actually do the shooting.
17:45So it spends more time just looking at people's day-to-day lives and I think that it's centring
17:50them in a way that is showing the real impact rather than it just being, you know, an action
17:55film about a scary situation that happens.
17:58So I see it in a very different way, yeah.
18:01Okay, well it's time now, Edie, to move on to your final chosen film and you've gone
18:05for Another Round which I saw, I think in 2021, not too long after this cinema, the
18:12lockdown restrictions were lifted and I really like this film because it had a couple of
18:18Oscar nominations.
18:19Yeah, absolutely.
18:20This is probably one of my favourite films.
18:22I've rewatched this many times.
18:25It's a Thomas Vinsberg film who also did The Hunt with Mads Mikkelsen who's in Another
18:30Round as well and he did Festin which is another one of my absolute favourite films
18:37and it's a film that, it takes me on a rollercoaster every time I watch it because there are moments
18:44that are really funny and there are moments that are really devastating and that contrast
18:48gives it such an impact.
18:49Obviously it's about, you know, it's a bit of a goofy premise almost where it's about
18:54a group of teachers who decide to keep their blood alcohol content above a certain level
18:59to see how it will impact them.
19:01Initially they're more charismatic and they're more kind of energised and people like them
19:05more and eventually it takes a downward spiral because some of them start to lose that control
19:10a little bit.
19:11But it's another film with really incredible sound design.
19:14I was going to say because as you were, obviously this is the fourth film now and I'm thinking
19:19ah, there's obviously going to be a causal link and I remember the swerve because you
19:23almost feel that as their, as you mentioned, their blood level rises and they're sort of
19:28drinking more and more and how much can they get away with, you see the debilitating effects
19:34on them.
19:35But often there's that sense that there were times when they were just crashing or they
19:37were swerving or they were losing control and in the audience I felt that I was seasick
19:43almost in my cinema seat.
19:45Absolutely.
19:46I think that's a great way to describe it, being seasick, because it's taking you to
19:50all these different places and you kind of experience these ups and downs with these
19:53characters in a very intense way.
19:56As for the sound, obviously it's the kind of link I've got between these films, it has
20:01a very naturalistic sound design for the most part, where it feels almost like they've taken
20:07the on-set recording from the boom, I can just use that in points, but it's very, very
20:12carefully crafted and there's a lot going on and I think what I really, really love
20:16about naturalistic sound design is what happens when you set up almost an oral status quo
20:22and then you break it.
20:23So there are certain scenes in here, particularly one scene near the beginning where Mads Mikkelsen's
20:27character is confronted by his students for his sort of quality of teaching and it's such
20:34an uncomfortable scene, it's so uncomfortable and there are these long pauses between dialogue
20:39and you can hear every rustle of clothes or people fiddling with a pencil and it's so
20:44uncomfortable.
20:46And there's another scene later where the four teachers are at a restaurant and again
20:51we have that really naturalistic sound design but then all of a sudden, as Mads Mikkelsen's
20:55character is getting very in his head, we shift into a more kind of perspective-based
21:01sound design where the sound is more representative of his mental state than what's actually happening
21:06around him and we almost zoom in to a band that's playing so all of a sudden the dialogue
21:12kind of slips away and we just hear this piece of music.
21:16So it's playing around with that realism that creates the impact in this film.
21:21Yeah, and do you find that when you were watching this you were obviously doing two things,
21:27you're enjoying the film but also aware that there's something very technical going on
21:31here but which is actually enhancing, just having an impact on the way that you're apprehending
21:35it.
21:36So is this one that you've also used or can use or will use with your students?
21:41It's not one I have used.
21:42It's one that if I can go back to it I would absolutely do that, that's something I really
21:49do want to revisit even in my own studies as well because I think it's such almost a
21:57master class in kind of technical filmmaking and I think it's really, really fantastic.
22:02Obviously it's a pretty big budget film with some pretty big names in it as well so it
22:09had the budget and it had the scope to do all of these really technical things while
22:14still being interesting and still being, kind of having elements of that independent experimental
22:21style that I just think is really incredible.
22:24Because obviously I wouldn't have looked at it through the lens that you do but what I
22:28do remember is that you saw this dissolution, this fragmentation of the personality and
22:33almost that they're testing themselves, you know, how far can we go, how can we, almost
22:36like Dr Faustus element on this, how can we effectively subvert or challenge what it
22:42is to be human and doing it in an environment where they've got school children around them
22:46and they're taking huge risks but you're watching that and thinking where is this going to go
22:50and you know that it's unlikely to have a very happy ending for all of the characters
22:54all of the time.
22:56Definitely and the ending of the film is, I think, maybe the best part of it.
23:00It's got this incredible song and it's so, in the moment it's so joyful and if you were
23:06to watch it on its own it's the student's graduation party and Mads Mikkelsen's character
23:11breaks out into this incredible dance and he just dances and it's such a wonderful sequence
23:16and it's so joyful and it's so happy but it's in the context of something really tragic
23:20that's just happened and really melancholy feeling so it's this really bittersweet ending
23:25and I think having this piece of really upbeat music that we hear at the very beginning as
23:29well is just so incredible, it's such a perfect way to end it.
23:32Yeah, well I'm afraid that's all the time we have for today.
23:35Many thanks to Edie Brennan for joining us and being such a brilliant guest and many
23:39thanks to you all for tuning in.
23:41Be sure to come back and join us again at the same time next week.
23:45Until then, that's all from us.
23:47Goodbye.