美国国家公共电台 NPR After 'Green Room' and 'Blue Ruin,' The Brothers Blair Keep Film Music In The Family

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The Netflix film "I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore" mixes the gruesome and the goofy. How do you score a movie like that? For help, the directors turned to two of his oldest associates, his brothers. Tim Greiving has the story.

TIM GREIVING, BYLINE¹: "I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore" is Macon Blair's debut² as a director. He's best known as an actor, having starred in "Blue Ruin" and last year's surprise cult³ hit "Green Room." For his turn behind the camera, Blair wanted to mash⁴ up the genres⁶ he loved as a kid.

MACON BLAIR: Trying to have a crime story co-exist with kind of a slapstick goofy comedy and have that co-exist with a kind of platonic⁷ romantic friendship-type story.

GREIVING: The film's protagonist⁸ is pushed over the edge after her house is broken into and her laptop and grandmother's silver are stolen. She enlists⁹ her oddball neighbor, played by Elijah Wood, to help her investigate.

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MELANIE LYNSKEY: (As Ruth) OK, we don't want any trouble. My computer was stolen, and this says that it's in there. I just want it back. There's no question. So can you get it?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) I can get these nuts (laughter).

LYNSKEY: (As Ruth) You can get these nuts?

ELIJAH WOOD: (As Tony) All right, tough guy, you had your chance.

LYNSKEY: (As Ruth) Oh, geez.

M. BLAIR: It makes perfect sense in my head to jump from something that's very absurd and broad and then within that same beat have it shift into something that's horrific and hard to look at.

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LYNSKEY: (As Ruth) Are you OK?

GREIVING: The director said after he screened rough cuts, it was clear those jumps were jarring for some people in the audience.

M. BLAIR: So we did go back and tried to sort of smooth the edges as best we could, and the music, the score in particular, was a huge part of that.

GREIVING: So he turned to the most reliable and cheapest composers he knew - his brothers, Brooke and Will.

M. BLAIR: We forced a family discount on them (laughter).

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GREIVING: Brooke and Will have played in rock bands, but they also soaked up the film music of John Williams and John Carpenter. They shifted into full-time¹⁰ film work when they got the chance to score "Blue Ruin" and "Green Room" and Will Blair says they were jazzed about working with their brother, in part because his movie is such a mash-up.

WILL BLAIR: Macon's ideas were very eclectic, just all over the place, without one genre⁵ or without one era of time or group of instruments.

GREIVING: Kind of like the mixtapes Macon made when they were kids.

W. BLAIR: He just had a variety of different things he wanted to try, and he sort of described these as members of this unusual orchestra that he was putting together. So he was very into the idea of a theremin to be used, not in sort of science fiction-y (ph) sort of way that we're used to hearing but in a spookier, almost horror movie sort of way to help establish the bad guys' theme.

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W. BLAIR: And he was very excited about a saxophone to play more of, like, a Motown, R&B role to help with Ruth and her theme.

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GREIVING: A lot of the score was improvised¹¹. Will and Brooke play all of the keyboards, organ, guitars and drums, as well as some other more unique instruments their brother specified¹².

W. BLAIR: He wanted human bodies, so there is some thigh¹³ smacking¹⁴. There's heavy breathing. He wanted gang vocals¹⁵.

GREIVING: Will demonstrates the brief sound they created.

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UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: Ha.

W. BLAIR: There's groups of up to - I don't know - 15-plus friends of ours and children of our friends, all different ages, sort of screaming at different points that we had to make sense of and fit into the score.

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GREIVING: Will Blair says this cobbled-together approach fit the film's story of a vigilante figuring it out as she goes.

W. BLAIR: The arc of the movie itself is kind of improvised. Ruth is this amateur DIY detective not quite sure how to go about this mission that she finds herself in. And Macon sort of encouraged this jangly, off-the-cuff approach to the score.

BROOKE BLAIR: That's kind of what he wanted the whole time, was like, let's just go in and have fun.

GREIVING: That's Brooke, the middle of the three Blair boys.

B. BLAIR: You know, we may not get this opportunity again, the three of us to work on a film like this. So the idea was just to kind of keep it, like, the three of us jamming in a basement or something like we used to when we were kids.

GREIVING: For a lot of brothers, building something together in a confined space on a deadline would be a recipe for nuclear disaster. But Brooke says they don't have that problem - mostly.

B. BLAIR: We're really good at making up at this point (laughter). It's an art form at this point.

GREIVING: Mom and Dad are in the movie, too. And even though Mom doesn't love all the violence and bad language, she's very proud her boys are still playing together. For NPR News, I'm Tim Greiving in Los Angeles.

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1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 debut   

n.首次演出，初次露面

参考例句：

• That same year he made his Broadway debut, playing a suave radio journalist.在那同一年里，他初次在百老汇登台，扮演一个温文而雅的电台记者。
• The actress made her debut in the new comedy.这位演员在那出新喜剧中首次登台演出。

3 cult   

n.异教，邪教；时尚，狂热的崇拜

参考例句：

• Her books aren't bestsellers,but they have a certain cult following.她的书算不上畅销书，但有一定的崇拜者。
• The cult of sun worship is probably the most primitive one.太阳崇拜仪式或许是最为原始的一种。

4 mash   

n.麦芽浆，糊状物，土豆泥；v.把…捣成糊状，挑逗，调情

参考例句：

• He beat the potato into a mash before eating it.他把马铃薯捣烂后再吃。
• Whiskey,originating in Scotland,is distilled from a mash of grains.威士忌源于苏格兰，是从一种大麦芽提纯出来的。

5 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

6 genres   

（文学、艺术等的）类型，体裁，风格( genre的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Novel and short story are different genres. 长篇小说和短篇小说是不同的类别。
• But confusions over the two genres have a long history. 但是类型的混淆，古已有之。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译

7 platonic   

adj.精神的；柏拉图（哲学）的

参考例句：

• Their friendship is based on platonic love.他们的友情是基于柏拉图式的爱情。
• Can Platonic love really exist in real life?柏拉图式的爱情，在现实世界里到底可能吗？

8 protagonist   

n.(思想观念的)倡导者；主角，主人公

参考例句：

• The protagonist reforms in the end and avoids his proper punishment.戏剧主角最后改过自新并避免了他应受的惩罚。
• He is the model for the protagonist in the play.剧本中的主人公就是以他为模特儿创作的！

9 enlists   

v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的第三人称单数 )；获得（帮助或支持）

参考例句：

• This method enlists the orchestration by creating its activation subscription. 此方法通过创建业务流程的激活订阅来登记业务流程。 来自互联网
• Party spirit enlists a man's virtue in the cause of his vice. 党派心使人的美德也为罪恶效劳。 来自互联网

10 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

11 improvised   

a.即席而作的,即兴的

参考例句：

• He improvised a song about the football team's victory. 他即席创作了一首足球队胜利之歌。
• We improvised a tent out of two blankets and some long poles. 我们用两条毛毯和几根长竿搭成一个临时帐蓬。

12 specified   

adj.特定的

参考例句：

• The architect specified oak for the wood trim. 那位建筑师指定用橡木做木饰条。
• It is generated by some specified means. 这是由某些未加说明的方法产生的。

13 thigh   

n.大腿；股骨

参考例句：

• He is suffering from a strained thigh muscle.他的大腿肌肉拉伤了，疼得很。
• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。

14 smacking   

活泼的，发出响声的，精力充沛的

参考例句：

• He gave both of the children a good smacking. 他把两个孩子都狠揍了一顿。
• She inclined her cheek,and John gave it a smacking kiss. 她把头低下，约翰在她的脸上响亮的一吻。

15 vocals   

（乐曲中的）歌唱部份，声乐部份( vocal的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Also look out for soaring vocals on The Right Man. 另外，也可留意一下《意中人》中的那高亢的唱腔。
• Lazy bass line, lazier drums, lush violins, great piano and incomparable vocals. 懒惰的低音线，较懒惰的鼓，饮小提琴，棒的钢琴和无比的声音。