(Spoiler alert!)
I saw Drive for the first
time last Christmas on the TV. Not
expecting anything at all, I was blown away, though it was an experience I soon
forgot. At the time, the sizzling
synthesizer soundtrack, neon-lit Los Angeles and Noirish protagonist’s questionable ethical journey fired me up – it
seductively woke me from my over-fed holiday stupor. At the time, I hadn’t realised why it had affected
me so much…until I watched Radio One DJ Zane Lowe’s recent ‘Rescore’ of the film’s soundtrack.
Having seen the film just once before, I had no emotional attachment
to the soundtrack – I had forgotten the comparison. The new score was initially apparent, slightly
intrusive but not unpleasant (I had been primed by Lowe’s online introduction). I was aware of the artists – by adding voices
– particularly British ones, the effect was slightly separating – somewhat
distracting. However, the smooth flow of
the title music began to underpin the overhead shots of the broad and blue
sweeping highways. These moments were Bladerunnresque,
seductive but predictable and what I was expecting Lowe to have done with the
material.
But something strange began to happen; the music disappeared – For
most of the film I forgot my ears. I wasn’t able to separate between the visual
and the aural. The experience became a
boundary blurring, multi-modal and ultimately synesthesial situation. The soundtrack was adding depth to everything I was seeing, the
cinematic plane became thickened and texturised (it also helped that it was
broadcast in HD). It felt like I could
touch everything I was seeing – haptically engage with the space beyond the
screen.
The music heightened my awareness of the materiality of the
film. The garage felt now like an
operating theatre, a place of clinical preparation. Normally dormant items became complicit in
forcing home the harshness of metal weaponry used later in the narrative. Strip lights were sinuous and sword-like. Snap-On
tools were shimmering shards of ice, promising razor-sharp incision. Cinematic matter became intensely connected to my own connective tissue. I became interstitially entwined in the chromium
spectacle and curiously overwhelmed – this was a particularly prescient feeling
in the number of violent scenes that the film contains.
I made vague connections with David Cronenberg’s car film, Crash.
It’s aesthetic however had been repulsive, grey, washed out and almost
alien; the film’s insular inhabitants
were auto-hedonistic, auto-masochistic, selfish and self-serving
singularities. For me, Drive’s visuality
was at times, white hot and clinical; the electric effect was helped by largely
being filmed at night – the contrast between the halogen clarity of car lights and
the tyre shine darkness of LA’s back streets was palpably distinct. The video-game vacuity of the Driver’s
expressionless face enabled me to project my own onto his; his calm,
non-committed gaze, once again reminded me of the characters from Crash. His actions (driving a car) seemed to speak
much louder than his (frustratingly few) words.
I saw what he saw but I felt I could feel more than he could feel – I
feel this was largely due to the new and miraculous arrangement of sound and
vision
The overall effect of the new score was mesmerising and at times
peculiarly seamless. In my opinion, Lowe did an amazing job – one that
compelled me to write something. He
obviously knows and loves the film and of course, knows how to express himself
(and the condition of others) through music. The alchemy here though, was
to sensorially arrest (this particular viewer) with a flowing and inseparably
immersive combination of appropriately selected sound and vision that was
impossible to forget.
R1 Rescore Web-Site: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04p5k25
