Weekly Fascinations #1
Is Music Supervision Is?
Welcome to the first installment of Weekly Fascinations, where I talk about something having to do with music, something that’s been on my mind. That’s all there is to it. Read on if you’d like.
Last night, I went to see Is God Is at the movie theaters. A unique concept, once a play, made into a screenplay then a movie, all by the same writer. It was a very interesting movie, about the two sides of human nature, specifically when it comes to revenge. I could talk for many minutes about the casting being stellar, I mean it made me hate Sterling K. Brown, and that’s tough. Janelle Monae had maybe 7 minutes of airtime and I was to give her an award. The two leads, Kara Brown and Mallori Johnson, do an amazing job of being “twins” with all that entails, the finishing each others sentences, the looking at each other and seeing glimpses others cannot see. All very good.
One thing that stood out to me was the music supervision. The scoring. The soundtrack. All these terms come to mean similar things to the layperson. But when I see movies, I find that good scoring can make or break a scene. I’m sure others feel the same. Euphoria, a popular hate-watched show, probably wouldn’t have been nearly so successful without Labrinth’s scoring and original music. Lord of The Rings classical backgrounds create battlefield moments alongside peaceful Shire feelings. Old and new, music has always influenced visual media. We’re luckier for it.
Moses Sumney and Joseph Hill together provided the scoring and supervision for the spectacular music of Is God Is. The movie is a take on a spaghetti western, where every character is black, and a lot of it takes place in the south. This all sounds like it would create chaos. But these motifs come together effortlessly, in such a sublime way. When the twins are driving on their “mission”, you hear Death Grips, loud, throttling and toughening music. When the twins are dancing near the state line signs, having the 5 minutes or so of fun the movie allows, we hear Leikeli47’s upbeat and chant-like “Miss Me”. When Janelle Monae’s character is cleaning her whole house top to bottom, and using a spray bottle filled with piss to do it, you’re serenely wafted around hearing “What A Beauty” by Anthony Mawer, creating a Stepford Wives feeling. When the end comes, the end you hoped wouldn’t but does, the end that gives peace and finality to a situation that seems unending, you hear angelic and loving “There’s A Light” by Shirley Ann Lee.
Mixing all these elements together requires a stroke of genius, and music supervisors, when talented, are geniuses in my mind. I’m not sure if others do this but when I listen to a song that grabs me, I pretty much immediately envision what scene I could put it to in a movie or tv show. What characters would be arguing? Which couple would be engaging in consensual naughtiness? Who would be violent, maybe in direct opposition to a song that starts calm. All these decisions come together to create what can be an incredible product.
All this to say…see Is God Is if you can and start paying attention to have music impacts your viewing. You’d be surprised.