1 Elephant
Alan Clarke's BBC film made in 1989 about the troubles in NI. The title refers to the idea that executions and mutilations were going on while people were having their tea with the vicar in the living room. 'More tea vicar?' and nobody mentioning the large elephant in front of them. The film largely consists of people grimly walking in the 1970s looking streets, pulling out guns and killing people; sometimes in front of their family; sometimes as they are closing up shop; sometimes as they are walking home; sometimes they bring the victim into a car park and he submits meekly to his punishment. Mostly they don't talk. But oh, do they walk, down dark and glistening streets their blocks of wood for feet ring out. An otherwise silent soundtrack (bar the guns and one scene of playing football in the muddy grey fields) gives the foley artist the creative space to really go to town and create a concrete symphony of clattering on the cobbles.
2 The boxer
Jim Sheridan's jailbird come back to do good film was despised by republicans at the time. It was also despised by any lover of good sound design. Going jogging across the cobblestones the foley artist just can't resist turning his trainers into clogs: imagine Rocky sounding like a delivery in a lumber yard by a tip truck. On the other hand it is about the only thing that isn't forgettable about the film
3 Blow-up Antonioni's classic study of just how much noise a man can make with chelsea boots and parquet floors: lots. And lots. All through the bloody movie. Mind you David Hemmings was wearing chelsea boots and walking on parquet floors throughout, but that was a mistake they made, not something to be celebrated by getting a few blocks of wood together in an echo chamber and hammering the bollix off them.
I'm mean and spiteful to everyone called Foley. Always have been. They've been mean to me.
2 comments:
Yuor wrong about Blow Up, it was about teh only understated thing about the film: the Chelsea boot parquet floor is an extremely noisy combination, exceeded only by the noise cowboy boots make. On any floor.
I really meant that having that combination in a film was a mistake. Obviously the foley artist was going to rub his hands in glee when he saw the rushes...
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