For Your Consideration – Best Sound Mixing – Gabriel J. Serrano and Leslie Shatz
Film: Rampart
Director: Oren Moverman
Screenplay: James Ellroy and Oren Moverman
Realistic Nominations: Best Actor
Joey was absolutely right when he described Oren Moverman’s Rampart as somewhat disjointed back in October, but the film nevertheless maintains an impressive forward momentum by infusing each scene with rough, jarring energy. There’s a sense that Moverman – being far more a virtuoso than his modest but better-written The Messenger – is doing everything to throw us off balance and put us in “Date Rape” Dave Brown’s crumbling psyche. His best asset evoking such an atmosphere is his use of sound.
Part of what I enjoyed about Rampart was how first-person its point of view was. Far from the solemn omniscience of The Messenger, we are right there with Dave’s brand of “vigilante justice” slowly breaking down in a world that doesn’t celebrate it as it has in the past (and hell, in some sections still does). As his sense of power and control erode, so seems the movie goes with him, as if Moverman is lacerating the very skin off of his own movie.
Sound re-recording mixers Serrano and Shatz contribute greatly to this by their entropic soundscape, bringing out a credible, highly unsettling sprawl of paranoia and turbulence. Nearly every second we spend outdoors just sizzles in the beating sun, and we hear the entire city cook under the heat of both the sun and IA. As the surface cracks so do its little corners even down to the police radio (which, if you pay close attention, becomes less intelligible on his patrols as the movie goes on).
The sound reaches David Lynchian levels of assaulting surrealism during Rampart’s infamous nightclub scene, where seemingly everything – both visual and audial – cranks up and bears down on Brown’s senses as his debauchery takes a physical toll on him. This kind of decaying, abrasive feel is classic Ellroy, and we get to truly hear the worlds he evokes like never before in this film with Oscar-worthy sound.
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Tags: Best Sound Mixing, Circuit Considerations, Oren Moverman, Rampart
1 Comment(s)
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A very under the radar choice, but I can get behind this one…