Cinesthesia and Quadrophenia

Vivian Sobchack believes that there exists between the cinema and the spectator a powerful relationship that goes beyond the limits of the mind. She argues that the film image can produce a bodily effect on the spectator and not only that, but the cinema represents a crossing over of the senses – in effect, a kind of synaesthesia that she calls 'cinesthesia.'
To me, this article is fascinating because I'm incredibly interested in the relationship between the viewer and the text, and the ways in which this relationship is played out. The idea of the cinema as producing cinesthesia has informed me before when researching the concept of 'seeing' music in music videos. I find that sometimes, I am affected by a song more when it is used in a film.


For example, the moment I realised I loved The Smiths was while watching Episode three of Blackpool. To sum up Blackpool, it is a dickensian study of a man using murder, intrigue, the 'family entertainment' business, sex, and setting it in a Northern England resort town. Oh, and did I mention it is all accompanied by pop music?

Well, in episode three, DI Peter Carlisle decides to try and get more dirt on his enemy Ripley Holden by scaring his son Danny into giving up information on his dad. The local police know Danny has been dealing drugs and set up a trap for him. A handsome young man solicits him for drugs and just as he's about to deliver the goods, the young man reveals his badge and Carlisle and back-up head toward him. Do they walk toward their catch? No. They dance toward him, and sing along, to The Boy With The Thorn In His Side.
The sight of David Tennant singing and dancing to Morrissey moved me and I decided to stop thinking of the Smiths as 'emo music for snobs and intellectuals' and give them a listen. My only regret is that Blackpool wasn't made sooner.


This seems a trivial reason for stumbling across your favourite band (and to be honest, I had loved How Soon Is Now for ages and been known to burst into tears upon hearing Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I want for years, but I never really associated these songs with The Smiths – again, with scenes from movies; The Craft and Ferris Bueller's Day Off – and covers were featured in both of those films!), but when a film is able to combine audio and video perfectly to express an emotion or an idea, it affects the spectator and they take both of those elements with them. The binding of sound to image remains etched on your brain, and you forever connect those emotions to the sound and the image both separately and together.
This is also how I came to love Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. Jeff Buckley's version had always moved me to tears, but Cohen's left me cold. I think it was because Buckley's version is so blatantly designed to produce an emotional response. My friend Amanda commented that the strings on Buckley's guitar as he plays the song are designed to literally pull at the heartstrings, and my friend Victoria agrees, arguing that the changes Buckley made to the composition provoke an emotional response to the song. And they always did for me. If it were a film, it would probably be called a tear-jerker (read Linda Williams for another great analysis of what she calls 'body genres'). It's a powerful song. But whether I desensitised myself after repeat listens, or if The OC ruined it, I stopped having the same response.

The song is most often used with images of love lost, which is beautiful, but when I analysed the lyrics, to me it's about feeling abandoned by God. The biblically-themed verses make that seem quite obvious when you really think about it, but I guess because Buckley didn't use a lot of these verses , people think of it differently. It's only when you pair the song with images of hopelessness and desperation, or with images of death and grief that this connection becomes quite strong.


John Cale's version has been used both as an accompaniment to heartbreak and lost love, but it's also been used as an accompaniment to grief. An episode from the first series of Scrubs, which dealt with Turk, JD and Eliot all losing their patients, featured Cale's version and it was haunting.
So, how did I finally experience the song in its original form, by the fucking amazing Leonard Cohen? Er, while watching Watchmen. Yep. A comic book movie.


The film, and I'm assuming the graphic novels do too really explores the completely unheroic side of life as a hero, or as someone placed in a position of authority. For some, it is too much. A licence to indulge in whatever sin and corruption they like. For others, it is a tiresome burden that you must eventually dissociate yourself from. For others, it is a youthful adventure that stops being fun. Some have pure intentions but lose hope, and for others, logic takes the place of compassion.

Set in alternate 1985, President Richard Nixon rules a dilapidated, grey New York. The Cold War has escalated to the point of nuclear war again feeling like an inevitability. And superheroes are now outlaws, vigilantes with nothing more than a desire for blood and chaos. The band of superheroes who invoked this ban, the Watchmen, have all gone their separate ways. At the film's beginning, one is murdered. The others must come back together to discover who murdered one of their own and maybe stop the impending doom.


Now, the ways in which this story unfolds is powerful, dark stuff, different to every other comic book film. A lot of comic book movie fans, whom I call idiots, hated this film. I loved it. I don't know if it captured the essence of the graphic novels, but for me it totally subverted the cliché-laden superhero narrative.


There is a montage in which the surviving Watchmen are at a loss as to what they should do and the situation seems entirely without hope. One member is dead, another imprisoned, the other has escaped to another planet, tired of the human need to always assign blame to others for their plight. Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen is absolutely the perfect sound for these images. And it just entirely sums up the emotional pull of this sequence of the film.
Now I'm a great champion of this song and as lovely as Buckley's version is, it just can't touch the subtlety and intelligence of Cohen's or even Cale's, for that matter. But enough of that, because I feel as though I've been arguing about this for ages. And it isn't the point that I'm trying to make.


The point is that I've found that the inspiration for many of my ideas, or for sequences in my scripts, come directly from music. The sound perfectly expresses an emotion I want to evoke, or the images just spring from the music I'm listening to. With that in mind, I'd like to note down the ideas that have been strengthened by music and the music that has inspired moments for my ideas.


Any Way You Want It – Journey
The film it inspired: MacCormack and Jones
The idea: The song was the perfect soundtrack to a moment in which MacCormack and Jones, two dishpigs in a restaurant, high-five their way to a successful crime-fighting team. I wrote a version of the script for a media production project and for very obvious reasons (we didn't have any money to buy the rights and we weren't sure how to contatct the right people about it), we couldn't use the song in the film. However, the song's rousing vocals, guitar licks and complete cheesiness set the tone for the entire project. We even used it in our pitch. I fully intend on making this film as it was always intended, and you can bet your bottom dollar that this song will accompany a high-five. Even if it's the only thing I spend money on.


Les Temps de L'Amour – Francoise Hardy
The idea: I don't have a film in mind. This song represents a song inspiring an image. It's not attached to an idea I'm already working on. Whenever I listen to this song, I get this lovely, 60s-style black and white image. It's an ECU of a young woman, the wind whipping her hair around her face. She appears to blink back tears, but before we witness any change in her expression, we fade to black and the song continues over the end credits.


Now clearly, it's some sort of romantic take on the final image of The 400 Blows, by Francois Truffaut, which isn't a musical thing at all. However, it is the song that inspires this take on that haunting image. Now, I just need to craft an entire work around one final image.
Often, I'm reading a book and I think about how I would make it. Some music has inspired me along the way.


Brave New World
Fashion – David Bowie
The sequence: the organised social activity. I always think 'turn to the left, turn to the right,' and 'listen to me, don't listen to me, talk to me, don't talk to me...' and the kind of ritualised dance that the people take part in.


The Picture of Dorian Gray
Newborn – Muse
The sequence: the ominous undertones of the song seem to perfectly encapsulate the darkness that informs Dorian Gray's transformation from naïve young man to student of hedonism. His decision to let the portrait bear the burden of his sins rather than as a moral compass represents a dark rebirth, a new journey into the depths of true sin.

This may be an unwanted interpretation of the original story, but I've always wanted to do a version in which Dorian is a woman. People will argue that this robs the story of it's study of homosexuality and the social taboo surrounding it, but I think what lies at the heart of Wilde's story is not simply the exploration of his own sexuality (don't do what Basil laments – perceive art as autobiography), but the idea of art as a reflection of the person consuming it; the spectator. And on the issue of sexuality, a third interpretation of the story on film would provide yet an another interesting portrayal of gender relations in the story. The Hollywood film was seen as inferior, completely removing the intelligent study of gender relations, turning it instead into a man making a horrible choice and seeing the chance for redemption within the love of a woman (donna reed). I know there is another version in the works starring the guy out of Prince Caspian. I can only assume that this version will be more faithful to the novel.

In changing the gender of the protagonist, it will instantly change the gender relations within the story. People may suggest that it is a cliché that a woman is obssessed with her own youthful image, or another way of denying a homosexual voice within the narrative (not necessarily, of course – Sybil's gender doesn't have to change. I guess people would say that audiences are more receptive to two women together, but there have been a lot of films lately adressing homosexual men and relationships), but really, but I guess it's a dramatic comment on Simone De Beauvoir's writings on the subject of the Gaze. She argued that women are so used to be subjected to the gaze of others that they begin to internalise it, so that they are constantly subjecting themselves to the Gaze (think about how long you spend looking at yourself in the mirror, turning yourself into parts and not a whole). There's a great example of this in Mad Men, in which the women deal with so much objectification from men that they exercise it over each other.

But enough of my grand ambitions.


A lot of the times, I have an idea but can't quite work it out until I hear music that inspires me. I've been working on this time-travel meets Vertigo kind of idea for a while, and three particular bands have really inspired me and moved the story forward in my mind; The Smiths, Midnight Juggernauts and Klaxons.


a lonely young man is drawn into a plot spanning decades by a beautiful, enigmatic and charismatic young woman from the future. It's a film noir science-fiction film. Yeah, because that totally hasn't been done before! Cough. To me, it's an homage to two films; Vertigo and La Jetee. I know, why am I bothering to do a sci-fi version of Vertigo when La Jetee and Twelve Monkeys are both such wonderful explorations of the film? To me, it's that idea of moments in time converging on one another, and the film noir trap of the vulnerable man being disempowered by a devious woman . In Vertigo, the woman is a victim too, and her destruction is the way in which the man attempts to claim his own power back, but it's useless. The damage has been done. I like the idea of creating a sense of anachronism, of being out of time. Things that seem to have a timeless appeal can become a symbol of a character's stasis. The music is a big part of this.


Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now – The Smiths
The idea: Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now is the perfect way to establish my protagonist, and the image I have is of him walking through a grey, depressing industrial estate on his way to a party. And the kind of party? A costume party, and he is dressed as, you guessed it – Morrissey. His time-travelling femme fatale will be Marie Antoinette, a figure blamed for the downfall of the French economy, punished for someone else's poor financial decisions (supporting the British in their fight against the Americans), and while she'll represent three seemingly random periods of time (a woman from the future living in a time she considers the past, dressed as a figure from the 17th century), it will make so much sense, given the situation she's about to tangle my protagonist up in.


Across The Galaxy – Midnight Juggernauts
The idea: The idea, as mentioned before, is to use completely different kinds of music to represent the present and the future, but while that music will seem perfect on the surface (given that the two different kinds of music will distinctly portray the past and the future), but they will be anachronistic in that the present music will already be from the past, and the music from the future will be from the present. But not even that, because the music that I would like to use for the segments in the future are already old – by a couple of years at that. There should be this disjuncture between what the music is supposed to represent and what it really is. Across The Galaxy by Midnight Juggernauts inspired the actual time-travelling within the film, though now I'm not sure I actually want to show any travelling at all. I've been toying with the idea that the whole idea of the future is a con, but I don't know. The cover of the album it comes from, Dystopia, features a painting of the Northern Lights and this, combined with the light sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey and 2046 (and by association I guess the warp-speed effect in Star Wars) provided the idea for the way in which these symbols of the future are so firmly grounded in the past.


Isle Of Her – Klaxons
The idea: the Klaxons' fusing of synthesisers and guitars, while in no way original, is done in a way as to create these eerie, ominous tunes. This song, about a doomed mythic journey, inspired the dark deeds my protagonist is forced to participate in with my femme fatale and her devious lover. I guess, just as I think Midnight Juggernauts (which some could argue are a pale imitation of klaxons, but they're a bit mean) does, is create a sense of elements colliding and create a dystopic vision of the future, as the title of the Juggernauts album suggests, I guess. And yes, I'm well aware I'm indulging in the modern sci-fi cliché of the ruined future.


Two Receivers – Klaxons
The idea: I see the protagonist and the femme fatale coming together whenever I listen to this song, and inspired by the video for Put Yourself In My Place by Kylie Minogue, they're enjoying conjugal bliss in zero gravity. Don't know how it all works in space, but I'm sure astronauts would be able to fill me in...


Like A Drug – Kylie Minogue
The idea: musical inspiration can strike at any time, and even if the idea has already been crafted and formed, music can often provide a concretisation of ideas that seem unformed. I was listening to this song as I was writing the previous paragraph and thought; this song could bring together the elements of romance within this idea of time colliding. I always planned to return to the costume party, and I think that Like A Drug could replace a song used earlier at the party to represent the binding of the future and the present. Hmmmm.


I don't think I could ever write without music and I'm currently working on an idea that goes entirely hand-in-hand with music.


The Beautiful and The Damned
Adding the second 'The' is not the only way I want to interpret F. Scott Fitzgerald's incendiary analysis of self-destruction and the debauchery of the idle rich. If these people are represented by the new aristocracy in Fitzgerald's work, rock and pop stars seem perfect for the modern age. Of course, the aristocracy in America and Britain are now the children of rock stars, so maybe that's something to add to it? I was thinking that Anthony, the protagonist, would desire to be a famous rock star, but the desire for fame and money without working hard would be the bigger pull than the actual music. As I'm writing this, I feel a change in the whole narrative coming. Son of a rock star, Anthony wants to be a rock star but really he just wants to spend his father's money. Gloria, his perceived love interest, sees Anthony as her meal ticket. Her talent is wasted by her new status in the modern day upper echelons of society. Their perceived musical prowess provides the soundtrack for their adventures, and their playing out of the rock star clichés seems informed by their knowledge of pop music. As their youth and naivete give way to their inflated egos, the music will change with them.


Poor Boy – Nick Drake
The scene: Anthony sits busking at a train station, playing this song. I love this song, because I think it's a very cheeky song from Drake. The saxophone and the piano seem to exude this self-awareness of the image Drake creates of a lonely young man. To me, it's not really a song about loneliness and the need for love, but a man's plea to a woman to take pity on him. It's that line, “he's a mess, but he'll say yes/If you just dress in white,” that does it for me. And I think this is the perfect description of the image Anthony is trying to project; the attractive, lonely, struggling musician who just needs love. He's playing with stereotypical ideas of the struggling musician. Gloria happens to go past, stopping when she recognises the song. She begins to sing the backing vocals, revealing not her love of the song and their shared musical knowledge, but their shared knowledge of popular culture.


Gloria – Patti Smith
The scene: In essence, I want music to be the narrator of the film. It drives the narrative and provides the emotional and visual cues to propel the story along. This is the moment in which Anthony finally wins the heart of Gloria. Unfortunately, their reckless passion will ruin them and ultimately fade, but this will be a genuinely beautiful moment. This song is absolutely perfect because, for one, it's about a girl named Gloria. What girl wouldn't want a boy to serenade them with a song about them (I fell madly in a love with a guy in my class who, on hearing my name, began to sing Long, Tall Sally. Aaaah)? But more importantly, it's not really a song about love at all but about lust. The song is about the glorification of sin, really. It's about a guy who seduces a girl for fun. The confusion of lust for love will be Anthony and Gloria's downfall, and this is only the beginning.


Sawdust Man – Ben Kweller
The scene: The moment in which Anthony and Gloria's only real taste of fame isn't really inspired by this song but by Russell Brand. My Booky Wook is as much the literary inspiration for this film as Fitzgerald's novel is. He recounts in the book a moment in his drug phase in which he singlehandedly ruined a television production (not a one-off event, obviously). The idea was to travel around the UK in a van and interview people on the fringes of society. As they were about to set off on their first interview, Brand decided that rather than get in the van and do his job, he would instead make camp on top of the bus and refuse to budge, despite the pleas of the producer, director and his friend and collaborator Matt Morgan. It was his drive toward self-destruction, his need to test the limits of normal behaviour (he often asks himself, what would happen if I just keep doing this?) and of course, his drug addiction, that leads to this childish urge to refuse to do what is asked of him. And the line from the Ben Kweller song, 'I'm on top of the Greyhound Station, won't you please come home?' seemed to cement this scene in the narrative. After a fight with Gloria that results in her threat that she quit the band, and a night of drugs and debauchery, Anthony climbs to the top of the tour bus and refuses to budge until Gloria returns to the band, howling this line of the song at the top of his lungs.