A Movie A Week: "THX-1138"

Last year, I began a weekly section entitled “A Movie a Week”. Generally culled from my always-expanding DVD collection, I took a glimpse at a past movie- whether it was an old favorite (“Face/Off”) or new discovery (“What the Bleep Do We Know!?”)- and wrote about it, much in the vein of Roger Ebert’s Great Movies series or Quint’s own “A Movie a Week” series at Aint It Cool News.

This week, in preparation for this weekend at Dragon*Con (which I will be blogging about again this year), I decided to watch George Lucas’s ambitious first film “THX-1138.” If you just know him from the “Star Wars” films, you haven’t seen anything yet. Remember, if there’s one thing to expect from this year, be sure of this- you won’t be able to expect much of anything. I hope you enjoy!

Brian Skutle
http://www.sonic-cinema.com

To read Brian’s latest blog for his short film series “Baron Wasteland,” click here.

“THX-1138”- A+
It’s really easy to shit on George Lucas nowadays. See the “Star Wars” prequel trilogy, and his tinkering with the original trilogy. But back in the ‘70s, he was one of the boldest and most exciting filmmakers around.

All you have to do is look at his first feature, based on his acclaimed student film. It’s not an easy film to get into the first time you see it (especially if all you’ve seen are the “Star Wars” films), but the more you watch, the most provocative and ambitious you find it…and Lucas.

The sound sets the tone for the film as a whole. If you ever doubt the importance of music and sound design to a film, the work of composer Lalo Schifrin and editor/sound designer Walter Murch (who also wrote the screenplay with Lucas) should put those doubts to rest. The film’s dystopian future- with tightly regulated medication and human contact, and Orwellian security watching everything- is enhanced by the work of these two masters as we see the opening of THX-1138’s (Robert Duvall) eyes to the cracks in the sterile world he lives in.

If the film’s sound conveys this world’s depth, the film’s look conveys pure simplicity. But how much Lucas accomplishes with so little visually is one of his film’s greatest strengths. We get the sense of the film’s dark, fascist underbelly through the white rooms (which seem to go on for longer than they appear), the confessional booths where an automated message acts as a priest and adviser to the mindless inhabitants. And robot guards are peacekeepers, but capable of brutality. Sex is tightly regulated (and manual stimulation isn’t exactly manual)- when THX and his partner are caught in the act, they are separated, with their erratic behavior used as evidence of a chemical imbalance from “drug violations.”

This is science fiction at its best- less fantasy adventure and more cultural and social allegory. Of course Lucas includes elements of action and suspense, but the film is primarily the work of a filmmaker whose interests go beyond the serialized adventures of Buck Rogers (which opens the film, and paved the way for “Star Wars”) and into a brilliant and exciting (intellectually and emotionally) work worthy of comparison to Philip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov.

When he finished the big-screen adventures of “Star Wars,” he said he was going to focus on returning to films like “THX-1138.” That hasn’t happened yet. But hopefully he won’t wait too long. Watching this film again, I was excited by the possibilities Lucas was capable of with the advancements he’s helped drive forward in cinematic technology.

Previous “Movie a Week” Reviews
See Brian’s list of 2009 “Movies a Week” here.
“Ikiru” (1952)
“Life is Beautiful” (1998)
“Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” (2008)
“The Year of Living Dangerously” (1983)
“The Lion in Winter” (1968)
“This is Spinal Tap” (1984)
“GoodFellas” (1990)
“8 1/2” (1963)
“Edward Scissorhands” (1990)
“F for Fake” (1972)
“Lolita” (1997)
“Bullet in the Head” (1990)
“Clash of the Titans” (1981)
“Facing the Giants” (2006)
“Therese and Isabelle” (1968)
“Dirty Thoughts” (2003)
“A Nightmare on Elm Street” (1984)
“X-Men” (2000)
“Black Hawk Down” (2001)
“Star Wars: Episode V- The Empire Strikes Back” (1980)
“Armageddon” (1998)
“Aguirre, the Wrath of God” (1972)
“Apocalypse Now” (1979)
“Toy Story” & “Toy Story 2” (1995 & 1999)
“Everest” (1998)
“Unbreakable” (2000)
“Breathless” (1960)
“Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds” (1989)
“Leon the Professional” (1994)
“Ever After: A Cinderella Story” (1998)
“2010: The Year We Make Contact” (1984)
“The General” (1927)
“Rocky IV” (1985)
“Millennium Actress” (2003)
“THX-1138” (1971)

Musical Happenings: B-Day Edition

Ten years ago, I was spending my birthday working on cleaning out my grandfather’s house. He’d passed away on July 29 from Cancer- his death had a profound effect on me, and it took a long time to heal from it.

Music helped me in that process. When I returned to Georgia State that Fall for my last year of college, I had some free time in my schedule to take Orchestration and study Composition (areas of interest I’d had no chances to study before) under Dr. Nick Demos. The pieces I worked on that year helped get my emotions out, and take risks in a creative path that I’m grateful to still be following.

That Fall, I spent the semester working on a chamber piece entitled “Dawn of Man.” It was intended to be the first piece for an album entitled “Beyond the Infinite,” inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” as well as an electronic piece of the same name I’d written in 1999. The introductory measures for the piece- written for flute, cello and marimba- were intended to be my music for the beginning of the sequence of the same name, and the piece still includes among my most complicated rhythmic writing.

Starting during the holiday break, I began work on an ambitious piece for viola and electronics entitled “Sonic Contemplation.” Intended originally for a viola comp competition, the deadline came and went without it being yet finished, but the desire to continue the piece made it my composition “project” for that semester.

“Sonic Contemplation” was full of bold ideas musically (including rhythms that even now make me go “WTF?”) and an emotional center that drove me. This was my way of dealing with my grandfather’s death, by attempting to say musically what I wasn’t ready to discuss in words. Sadly, graduation came and went and the piece was no closer to being finished. In 2002, I decided to start anew on the piece, this time for trombone and electronics, but the time wasn’t right for me to start writing again, even after I’d written two trombone quartets prior to it.

In 2006, during a time of great emotional distress and uncertainty, I began “Sonic Contemplation” again, again for trombone and electronics. Roughly a month later, I’d finished it at last. The time that’d passed allowed me to be honest with others and myself about the motivations behind the piece, the past couple year’s of music had made me a more focused composer structurally, and the emotions I was struggling with were similar enough to those I’d experienced in 2000 that they would fuel and inspire my art.

Ten years later, much has changed since I was 23 and working on organizing my grandfather’s things for a trip down to Georgia, and for the most part, these two pieces have come full circle. The longer version of “Dawn of Man” is still unrecorded (I’m not that proficient on keyboard to record it MIDI), but “Beyond the Infinite: A Musical Odyssey” is finally ready for release without it.

Officially my fourth album, “Beyond the Infinite” has remained true to my original intention as being an “alternative soundtrack” to Kubrick’s film. To prepare, I watched the film, marked times which featured music and for how long, and treated it like a film score, but one inspired (in ways surprising and fitting) by the music forever wedded to the film.

In addition to the release of the album (and its’ superb artwork by my friend Carrie, who also did the artwork for “Sonic Visions of a New Old West”) on CDBaby and other online vendors like iTunes later this year (tight finances are keeping it from official release for now at least), I’ve also taken an original approach in marketing the album, and making it available. Placing the tracks in context of the parts of the film they were written for, I recorded my own audio commentary- heard when the music isn’t on- discussing the film itself, as well as my methods in composing the album itself. It’s a pretty compelling listen if I do say so myself, and is available for free (along w/ an introduction with sync instructions) on my Commentaries page at Sonic Cinema here.

Still on a high from completing “Beyond the Infinite,” I’d been wanting to mark the decade since my grandfather’s death somehow. It was time to finally record “Sonic Contemplation.” And true, I’m not my first choice to perform the trombone part (and still not- the performance here is MIDI-performed; I will perform live for the album version, however), but it seems quite fitting under the circumstances. I quietly posted it online on the 29th, and it’s available to hear on Sonic Cinema’s Music page and here.

Well, that is all for me right now. I will keep you posted on when “Beyond the Infinite: A Musical Odyssey” is available for sale online, and I hope you’re as excited to hear it as I am to finally release it.

Thanks for listening,

Brian Skutle
www.sonic-cinema.com
www.reverbnation.com/brianskutle
www.myspace.com/brianskutle
www.myspace.com/cinemanouveau
www.youtube.com/bskutle
Sonic Cinema Shop
“Creative Beginnings” at CDBaby
“Dark Experiments” at CDBaby
“Sonic Visions of a New Old West” at CDBaby