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Soundlist
Robert from Rubber (Quentin Dupieux 2010)
For this assignment, we had to create a compilation of sounds that describes the personality of a character from literature or film and then explain why these sounds reflected the character's personality. Robert is a tire who comes to life in Dupieux's film Rubber. This movie is almost a satire of popular horror films and of the viewer culture that Hollywood has created. I chose to do my soundlist on Robert because he's not well known and therefore I hoped I wouldn't be very influenced by other's opinions. However, I quickly found out that picking such a character would work against me.
In order to fully understand Robert, the plot of the movie is essential. The movie starts with a police officer, Chad, in the dessert saying that nothing makes sense in movies and that its all irrational. Chad then gets into the trunk f the car and another officer drives the car away. A group of people are led to the spot and are given binoculars. A man with glasses tells them that they have a show to watch in real life and real time. They look through the binoculars and see the story of Robert. Robert is a tire and comes to life. In his life, he discovers that he can roll and through his rolling, he can crush things. He starts off by crushing inanimate objects, like water bottles. Then he crushes a scorpion and other smaller things. Finally, he finds a glass bottle, but no matter how hard he tries, he can't crush it. This is when he discovers his psychic powers. In his seeming frustration, Robert makes the bottle explode. With his newfound power, Robert starts to kill different things, like birds, and then tried to kill a woman driving by in a car. He stops the car but doesn't succeed in killing her, however, because a man drives over him. Robert later finds the man at a gas station and kills him. Robert continues on his way and finds the motel that the woman is staying at. She left her door open, so Robert goes in and watches her shower. Robert leaves and goes into a different room. A boy watches this and realizes that Robert is an animate tire and he runs away. Robert showers, but a maid comes in and throw him out into the dust, so Robert re-enters the room and kills her. Chad and the police show up and start interviewing the motel owner and the son. All this while, the audience is still watching, taking time to sleep when Robert does as well. They start to get hungry but have no way to get food, so the man with glasses brings them a turkey. All of them attack the food, except for a veteran in a wheel chair. The next morning, it is revealed that the turkey was poisoned and everyone dies. Back at the crime scene, Chad calls off the search and says everything is bogus and fake, and makes one of his officers shoot him to prove it. The man with glasses appears and tells Chad that one of the viewers survived so the show must go on. Chad is frustrated but consents and then continues to interview the motel owner, whose head is them blown up by Robert because the owner doesn't believe that Robert is alive and had earlier thrown him out of the pool. The man with the glasses tries to poison the last spectator again, but instead he eats the food and dies. When the police come across Robert, he kills one of the officers and escapes. The scene cuts to a few days later after a killing spree, and Robert is in a house watching NASCAR, having killed the occupants. The man with the wheelchair gets frustrated that the 'chase and capture,' or action scene, of the movie is taking so long and goes to the police van outside the house to tell the police to hurry. They make a mannequin resembling the woman and put dynamite on her in hopes that Robert will blow her up and detonate the TNT and kill himself. Robert does blow up her head, but the TNT doesn't detonate. Chad then takes a rifle and shoots Robert into pieces, which he puts on the wheelchair man's lap. A tricycle rolls out of the house and 'stares' at the man, but the man claims that he isn't a part of the movie and he can't die in this situation. The tricycle takes no heed of this and kills him. The movie ends with the tricycle rolling towards Hollywood with a large pack of other tires.
Robert first enters the scene when he becomes animate and begins to experiment with his newfound life and motion. He rolls over a water bottle, enjoying the sound and feeling of it being crushed beneath him. His fascination eventually evolves into a killing spree in a local town as his desire to destroy increases. This bloodlust is developed in If You Want Blood through the progression of the lyrics "If you want blood, you got it, blood on the streets, blood on the rocks, blood in the gutter, every last drop, you want blood, you got it, yes you have" and the various locations of the blood presented. This mirrors Robert's varying array of objects he destroys, from a scorpion to a prostitute to an average family of four. Ironically, the perception of being animate includes one of sentient behavior and sophistication to some extent, and as Robert comes alive he arrives at the level of animals, yet still has none of the characteristics of an animal other than basic motor skills. With the quote "its animal, living in a human zoo," the song highlights Robert's primitive actions, murder, which are considered to be 'animal' in nature for a human. The strong drum beats at the beginning of the song surprise the listener, just as Robert’s cruelty does. There are two beats before the loud drum melody joins the rest of the song, which signify Robert’s initial slow killing which then accumulate into a massacre. Even the voice of the singer reflects Robert’s personality: it is harsh and crass, evoking an image of Robert’s cruelty to other life forms. After the introduction, the music is almost chaotic, but controlled, as is Robert’s killing. While many die and it is implied that many more will die, his killings are limited to the desert town and its motel. Not necessarily relating to Robert himself, the song uses many different layers of instruments and beats to keep the listener engaged, as does the movie. It also follows different narratives: that of Robert, the police, the spectators, and the viewers of the movie itself. However, the song is very repetitive, which can be applied to Robert’s flat and unchanging character. Throughout the movie, Robert never really changes except to gain power in the initial stages of the movie, just as the introduction of the song suddenly collides with the strong beat and repeats itself from then on. Once Robert has gained his full destroying potential, he stays there and becomes a stagnant character. We see no redemption of a character gone astray, or any indication of a change in behavior: he kills until he is killed.
Icarus by Bastille
The slow crescendo at the beginning of this song speeds up to a quick beat within about forty-five seconds, just as Robert's destructive tendencies slowly form but accelerate once he has realized his full potential. "Look who's digging their own grave" reflects Robert's carelessness in killing and his disregard for human lives and his own, for as he kills more humans, the police become more involved and desperate to kill Robert. Through his actions, he condemns himself to death. Robert also disregards the warning shots and the sheriff's attempts to kill him and continues to kill more people who displease him: "your hands protect the flames, from the wild winds around you." This continuation of Robert's essence and desires also comes into play when all the other tires in the area come to life and roll towards Hollywood, presumably to kill more humans. The ephemeral nature of Robert's life parallels with the lyrics "Icarus is flying too close to the sun, and Icarus's life, it has only just begun" for just as Icarus's new life as a free being had just begun, so too did Robert's, but through their own actions, both cut their lives short. While this song initially has more of a calm sense, like the coming to life of Robert, around 1:30, the artists layered the lyrics so that repeats of the words can be faintly heard in the background. This creates an underlying feeling of tension and confusion, which resonates with Robert’s confusion and frustration when he initially cannot destroy the glass bottle. This feeling is short-lived, however, for Robert soon discovers that he can make the bottle explode, and the background words only last for a few seconds.
Cat Sniffing (Turn volume up high)
Much like a cat sniffs newfound objects to discover what they are, Robert experiments with his crushing ability and his psychokinetic powers, showing his curiosity of his limits. He explores these powers in progression, also exploring his environment in the desert and later in the motel. Robert goes on to put his powers to use, much like a cat will toy with its prey before going in for the kill, which in Robert's case, is the woman who he is unable to kill close to the beginning of his life. Robert also learns as would any other sentient being. He watches the woman shower and then does it himself, and presumably learned how to turn on a television and change its channels. He seems to retain some human emotions, but only the negative ones, those of frustration and anger.
Happy Scream by ELDOM
The mash up of alternative and dubstep styles in this song creates an almost surreal or supernatural vibe, which goes along well with Robert's coming to life. He is, in essence, supernatural and the odd sound of the music with talking shows the clash of Robert's new life and the life that the human characters are familiar with. The main beat of the song sounds almost like a tire bouncing on a floor. While bouncing is not his main mode of transportation, Robert vibrates when activating his psychokinetic abilities and his energy level and killing rate, once at its peak, remains constant until his death. With so many different things going on in this song, it is hard to keep track of everything and to know what is going on. The same can be said for Robert, because it is never clear what his motivations or goals are, we only see his actions.
Maniacal Laughs
The juxtaposition of the evil laughs and the peppy music again shows the absurdity of Robert's character and highlights the satisfaction that he gets out of committing an atrocious act. He never speaks so his thoughts can only be guessed at, but Robert appears to have an intimate knowledge of human functions and life without fully observing humans in their daily actions, yet lacks the knowledge of the value of life and human laws. The beginning of music, other than being happy, also has the feel of a old western movie filled with cowboys and robbers, of good versus bad. While Rubber may have a confusing and complex plot, the characters are simple. Robert is undoubtedly the ‘bad guy’ and the police are the ‘good guys.’ The Western movie soundtrack evokes this image of the duality of good and bad where only one can be good and if there is good, there must be a bad, as Robert clearly is.
Jaws Theme Song
Last but not least is the theme song from Jaws. Originally associated with the foreboding figure of a giant shark, this song has become more of a joke used in instances to playfully tease someone about an upcoming event. Robert, and the movie Rubber, both characterize this ironic essence of something that should be fear-invoking but is so absurd that it cannot possibly be taken seriously. As the Huffington Post claims, "Quentin Dupieux succeeds in creating an entertaining, sometimes even tense horror film with the very same footage he mocks." Robert still exhibits some of the characteristics of Jaws though, such as stalking his prey. This is seen through the famous duuunnnn dunnnn of the song, each ‘dun’ gaining speed as a predator closes in on his prey and prepares to go in for the kill. Robert, like Jaws, ruthlessly murders people, which can be imagined with the eerie introduction and sinister introduction. This song has multiple climaxes, or times when the music crescendos and accumulates to what feels like a tipping point, which aligns with the many times when Robert reaches a ‘tipping point:’ when he first crushes something, when he first explodes something, and when he is finally shot.
Reflection:
Because this character was so obscure and, well, flat, it was hard to find more material after the first few sounds. It felt like I was stretching my connection and relating them to the movie as well as to Robert. As such, I received feedback saying that I should push my analysis further. I also needed to discuss more of the sonic elements, not just the lyrics in the songs or the overall feel of the sounds. While I initially picked Robert as my character so that I could do something new and different, I quickly realized that because he could not talk and had no facial expressions or hand motions that usually help characterize a human and give them more of a personality, I didn't have a whole lot to work with. I had to use abstract concepts of what a tire is and the idea of pointless death to stretch out connections. If I had time to completely re-do this, I would probably pick a different character, one that has more substance and more of a personality.
For my revisions, I decided that first of all, a summary of the movie would be a good idea. Reading back on what I wrote, it was all a bit cryptic and the movie plot didn't make much sense. By giving a summary (though long it might be), I could cut out some of the summary where I was supposed to have analysis, and it would make the viewer less confused.
I also tried to focus more on the sonic elements than weren't words or lyrics. While these are powerful and can carry a message in their own right, the other sounds are just as important and can give new insights to the character and the audios themselves. I kept most of my original work, but added quite a bit of content to address more of the sonic elements and make a more thorough analysis.
Revising my soundlist showed me that a lot of the times we focus on words instead of sounds, and push the sounds to the background. Perhaps this is due to the amount of essays we have written, but for such a project the audio is really the main focus. In order to do this, I had to address that background audio and apply, in a sense, 'literary analysis' to it, where I still had to draw conclusions from what I heard. At one point, I even listened to the karaoke version of "Icarus" to really try to glean more from just the audio.
All in all, I wish I had picked a different character that has more nuances in their personality, but I'm glad I could still make it work to an extent, and I realized just how much attention needs to be paid to all aspects of the audio, not just the lyrics.
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