Oren Boneh in studio
From Lubitsch to Lynch | Artistic Issues
When asked what interests him so much about composing music for a silent film, the first thing Oren Boneh mentions is his love for the absurd situations found in everyday life. ‘We put so much effort into trying to maintain control over our lives, to eliminate any randomness from the universe: absurdity is what happens when randomness tears at the surface of this illusion of control. In silent comedy films, and particularly in Lubitsch's Quand j'étais mort, these everyday absurdities are often at the forefront of the plot.
The music can highlight them, or play with the image/sound relationship to distort the perception of the images, so much so as to alter people's emotional experience of the film. In Quand j'étais mort, Lubitsch's imagery provides a space for music and its power to recontextualize; the husband's suddenly carnivorous smile, for example, can be nuanced by the score's undercurrent of suffering."
Lubitsch's silent films presented an additional challenge for the composer: the famous ‘Lubitsch touch’, praised by film buffs. ‘What fascinates me about Lubitsch's style is his attention to detail; tiny but essential details, suggesting a hidden meaning beneath the very surface of a society that seems devoid of it. Lubitsch makes bold narrative choices that subtly blend a kind of freshness with a certain feeling of inevitability. These little individual gestures, facial expressions and other gestures, were my gateway to the film, shaping my musical vocabulary. Having said that, beyond this granular level, two other dimensions emerge. First, at an intermediate level, we discover the three main protagonists - the cunning husband, the suspicious wife and the wicked mother-in-law - and the specific conflicts that drive the plot. Then, if you zoom out completely, you can see the general architecture of the film, stripped of its idiomatic details (according to the writer Kurt Vonnegut, this is the archetypal ‘man in a hole’ plot). It was at this level that I built the musical form and organized the variations in energy.”
‘My primary goal is to focus the listener's attention on the film, not distract from it. This means capturing the essence of each character, both their cartoonish nature and the many layers of their personality. One possible approach involves exaggerated literal sound effects, tailor-made to express specific physical events. I am particularly inspired by the stop-motion animated shorts of Jan Švankmajer, in which humorous acoustic sounds combine with surreal images to generate a visceral meaning for the viewer.“
“A second approach is rooted in the films of David Lynch, who creates mystery by superimposing Angelo Badalamenti's dark musical textures onto emotionally neutral images, playing with the clichés of film noir. This approach has also been taken to the height of absurdity by the viral videos for Sein Peaks, which superimpose Badalamendi's iconic Twin Peaks music over scenes from the 1990s sitcom Seinfeld: this deliberate combination transforms the comedy of everyday life into an ostensibly horrific thriller, to the point of sheer absurdity. Here again, Lubitsch's exaggerated comedy lends itself to a similar approach. Film music can also, sometimes subliminally, nuance viewers' emotions without them even noticing. By contrast, these two approaches elevate the music to the same level of awareness as the image, without shying away from playing with viewers' expectations or even clichés.”
The Comedy of Electronics | Technological Issues
Lubitsch biographer Scott Eyman wrote that his films “take place neither in Europe nor in America, but in Lubitschland’”. For Boneh, electronics help us get there. Creating a dialogue with the instrumental ensemble in a world of immersive sound, computer music tools are used to create a counterpoint between sound and image. “What is particularly exciting is using electronic means that are completely anachronistic in relation to the film—which was made over 100 years ago—with the insightful help of computer music director Dionysios Papanikolaou,” says Boneh.
“After recording more than seven hours of improvisation on the modular synthesis rack at IRCAM, I was overwhelmed by the expressiveness of this instrument. This discovery, and the catalogue of sounds I subsequently built up, had a profound influence on my instrumental writing. Conversely, certain instrumental passages led me to use electronics as a sound mirror for the ensemble.”
From a more practical point of view, the main role assigned to the electronics is to underline the humor of the film, notably through anachronistic sounds or exaggerated sound effects: ‘For example,’ says the composer, “The synthesized sounds I use to accompany the characters’ gestures often don't quite correspond to the movement. With the RAVE synthesizer, which is based on deep learning models, we have also produced a whole series of grotesque sounds that contrast comically with the gentle, refined scenes they accompany. We also use computer music to extend the textures of the instrumental ensemble: in extremely rhythmic passages, the electronics accentuate certain aspects of the instrumental textures to make them sound more real than life, by blurring the nature of the sounds, whether computer or acoustic.”
Photo 1: Oren Boneh © Juan Francisco Gonzalez
Photo 2: Oren Boneh and the computer music director Dionysios Papanikolaou
Biography
