The Sweet Spot of Music and Film

To most, breaking into just one creative field would be more than satisfactory. Not in the case of John Carney, a renowned movie director who continues to bring his love of music into his films. He won an Academy Award for his debut film, Once, which has since gone on to become a Tony Award winning musical. It’s safe to say he’s pretty good at what he does. His three most well known musicals, Once, Begin Again, and most recently Sing Street, all incorporate music in some unique way. Each film uses its own genre to portray music differently for each story being told.

            Born in Ireland in the 1970’s, John Carney attributes most of his inspiration and love of music to his childhood years growing up in Dublin’s transformative 1980’s. His band as young adult became a major influence on his later work in film. It was his inability to set aside one love for the other that inspired him to combine them, however not in the usual way we have all seen and heard a thousand times over. Instead of creating yet another movie musical, with choreographed numbers and set pieces, he interwove the two, making music in way another lead character.

 “The breakthrough I had in Once, I remember writing that down and thinking, what does a modern musical look like? And it doesn’t look like a musical, in fact you shouldn’t even know it’s a musical. That was a big breakthrough for me because it was almost like making a musical was to make an anti-musical, but it’s still musical with eight or nine songs which are sung – but kids are no longer going to accept people breaking into song unless it’s a comedy or tongue-in-cheek.”

With this “anti-musical,” John Carney has created a style entirely his own, one where music and filmmaking has become one and the same.

            After getting his start in music, John Carney was then faced with decision of choosing one or the other. When he choose to continue both, it was made clear that the two would never be long separated in his mind. The concept of making something wholly new is clearly very special and inspiring to him. As such, his movies all depict the process of writing music and creating a new sound. All of his characters share his desire to create their own sound. Bob actually used this clip first day of class as an example of creative process. Carney includes scenes with this theme in all his works. One in particular hits extremely close to his own creative process when writing music, depicting a young character playing the skeleton of a song, rough lyrics and all, with his friend helping him work through and then adding in the actual chords (unfortunately the scene isn't on YouTube yet).

With this we are offered nearly a direct glimpse into Carney’s own mind and creative process. He directs with a very laid back style, allowing the actors to use their own experience and whims, even to the point where they are not even really acting. His song writing process works much in the same way. He and occasionally someone else, as mentioned above, bounce around ideas included lyrics and chords until something sounds right. His natural and carefree approach to writing reminded me of an article in the extra readings, “Improvisation in Time: The Art of Jazz”. The artist interviewed calls his process “organic” and talks about it being inspired by what interests him at the time. John Carney’s writing process is the same, it is inspired by his favorite artists, and his creations are free to grow and become something completely different.

            While I definitely did not go looking for this comparison, as I read and watched interviews with John Carney, it became harder and harder for me to ignore the parallels that kept popping up between him and my Gardner creative, Pablo Picasso. For starters, their creative processes are very similar. Picasso reworked a single idea over and over in his notebooks, while Carney can come to set or a writing session, and leaving with it completely transformed simply because inspiration struck. Picasso could not have created Cubism without the aid of his close friend Braque, where they each drew inspiration from the other to create something new, similar to Carney and Clark’s writing process.

            In combining the industries of filmmaking and music, John Carney found a way to continue to create within his passions. His films are some of my favorites, and even to someone with as close to negative musical talent as you can get, his love for music and the process of creating it make me fall nearly as in love each time.