Musicals have been popular since they were able to add sound to film. The Broadway Melody was originally released on February 1st 1929 and became the first all-singing all-dancing musical in Hollywood, going on to win Best Picture at the 2nd Academy Awards. The Golden Age of Cinema was built upon classics such as The Wizard of Oz, Singin’ in the Rain and a bunch of others that make up my Mum’s favourite films. From here, they’ve made A Star Is Born four times (with the most recent starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper nominated for Best Picture in 2018) as well as inspiring many more such as La La Land, Team America: World Police, and The Blues Brothers. In a similar vein, musicals have also paved a way for biographical films of music stars, with Rocketman and Bohemian Rhapsody coming out in the same year as A Star is Born 4.0. But it goes deeper than that, musicals have made filmmakers think about what music really means to them, and what it means to people everywhere. This is where Sound of Metal comes in.
An Amazon Prime Video production, Sound of Metal is the directorial debut of Darius Marder starring Riz Ahmed and Olivia Cooke as Ruben and Lou, a couple forged together through music and addiction. Whilst touring their band Blackgammon around the US, Ruben begins to lose his hearing. The doctor recommends Cochlear implants but this would set them back $80,000, another thrilling indictment of the US healthcare system. As his psyche begins to unravel with his passion, his job and his sobriety in jeopardy, Lou contacts her sponsor in search of an alternative solution.
The main theme surrounding Sound of Metal is acceptance. It’s accepting who you are right now, and being able to react to the change positively, life giving you lemons so making lemonade with them. As the movie portrays, being deaf is not a weakness or something to hide away, it is something to embrace. Most of the cast members are a part of deaf community, with Riz learning American Sign Language as well as drumming for the role. The movie was also made for subtitles to be on throughout, and was shown with them at film festivals. These important pieces really make for an inclusionary production, with the sound design taking things to the next level. Winning both the Best Sound and Best Editing awards, Sound of Metal gives the audience an experience of what it is like to be hard of hearing. They’re able to seamlessly move between characters with differing hearing capabilities, and encompass the viewer into an important and wonderful community.
The other significant discussion for me was how addiction & mental health is handled in the film.. They discuss feelings on bad days, comment on clouded thought processes, and there’s a fidgety restlessness when not having a task at hand. It’s subtle, well-executed and a poignant display of how something as important as addiction and anxiety can be shown without being the primary focus of the picture. There’s no gratuitously dingy buildings with needles for flooring, or peer pressure after ending up in a stereotypical rough bar in sight. It is real, and comes with a quiet powerfulness that elevates the characters and story remarkably.
Being the first film of nine that I have watched for this season, it has gotten off to a great start. A unique exploration into the absence of sound, something that I would like to incorporate into my projects. Overall, a great cast & crew, who have put all of themselves into this project, and it will surely go down as one of the more successful directorial debuts ever from Darius Marder.