INTERCONTINETAL
Knives Out – or how to make your story less interesting with your music choice
16 FEBRUARY 2020
Written by: Hristiyana Ivanova
Rian Johnson’s “Knives Out” is a country-house mystery that revolves around the death of Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) on his 85th birthday celebration party. The famous crime author is found with his throat cut en famille and Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) comes to solve the case. Once the investigation has started, the movie starts playing with the POV puzzle, creating more complications for the viewer. Interestingly, the movie tries to assimilate part of Agatha Kristy’s and Arthur Conan Doyle’s masterpieces and turn it into a blockbuster hit and it arguably succeeds. The twists are amusing and although that they could be far less striking, they still work as a big puzzle box. The main setting is a dark mansion with creaking stairs and secret tunnels that hide between the corners. The claustrophobic maze that the mise-en-scene creates points to the curious dead animals, laughing masks, jumbles of books and the bizarre objects. Although Johnson’s movie leaves a desire to continue the mystery of whodunnit, it leaves enough space for personal criticism. The questionable accent of the main protagonist, the choice of mixing “the old school” mysterious mansion and not having a single technology gadget to help solving this case are for sure some of the questions you would like to ask Johnson but are not part of the wave criticism that the movie received.
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The music, composed by Nathan Johnson, however, is something that you wish you haven’t noticed that much. Nathan Johnson did write some very inspiring pieces and if listened on their own they create a magical atmosphere, but they stream far from the standard expectations for the genre, creating multiple layers for the director to work on. The introduction to the unfortunate accident of Harlan Thrombey’s death is vaguely done by using a rather dark soundtrack that works with the set of the scene. But then the audience is left questioning whether they are going to watch a thriller or some horror haunted house story.
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For instance, we can hear Roxy Music's More Than This while Joni (Toni Collete) dances to at the party, irritating her sister-in-law, Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis). Later, while Marta (Ana de Armas) is explaining to Ransom (Chris Evans) what happened to his grandfather, we can hear Larry Norman's Righteous Rocker #1 playing in the background of the roadside diner. But as we progress, we see that Johnson did not only experiment with the genre of his movie but played with the music as well. The classical opera from La Traviata - "E strano! - 'Ah, fors'è lui'” plays during Blanc’s conversation with Great Nana (K Callan) Harlan’s mother. The classic from Follies - “Losing My Mind” plays while Blanc is waiting for Marta’s return. Credits run on "Sweet Virginia" by The Rolling Stones and the list goes on.
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The sound is constantly changing unlineary. The multilayer of emotions that the narrative is based on, jumps from genre to genre in its music choices. Some of the tracks will probably be more suitable for Alice in the Wonderland or even Midsummer Night's Dream rather than a thriller mystery. Or even a classical teen movie from 80s but not a mix of both.
Knives Out did raise big expectations not only for the genre fans but for the general audiences as well. And even though that it created a huge black hole mix of music genres, it worked well on proving Johnson’s main point that the will reading was the exception that proved the rule.