\u201cI felt like it was so far-fetched I didn\u2019t really have anything to lose,\u201d she told Interview<\/em> magazine<\/a> about her work on the film. Collaborating closely with Glazer, Levi drew on her lifetime of musical and composition experience when writing the score. Because she was classically trained on viola from a young age, the instrument played a prominent role in Under the Skin,<\/em> and the qualities that made it the butt of jokes in orchestras allowed it to shine in the film. \u201cA viola is not solid, the sound it produces is like a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy of something, because you get an airiness, and creepiness, and there\u2019s a struggle in that,\u201d she told Indiewire<\/a>. In other parts of the score, midi strings play alongside live string quartets, underscoring the unease of Under the Skin<\/em>\u2019s alien protagonist as she navigates life on earth in a human-shaped disguise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Scores can emphasize the importance of different moments in film, and they can pull different scenes together using melodic or instrumental themes. Under the Skin<\/em> goes one further. The high-pitched buzz of the strings and the near-subliminal bass\u2014sometimes mixed into the diegetic sound\u2014vibrated in my eye sockets and nasal passages when I watched the film. Levi\u2019s score gives listeners a palpable feeling of discomfort that complements the uncanny mood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Discordant strings would become a leitmotif in her later scores. Before we even see the title character of Jackie<\/em> (2016), a string quartet plays a descending note from a major chord, emphasizing the feeling of Camelot-lost that Jackie Kennedy experienced in the film. In scenes set on the Kennedy compound, the minor-key, reverb-light string parts sound like the chilly wind of a late New England autumn. Other scenes that cut between Jackie\u2019s idyllic life in the White House and the aftermath of JFK\u2019s assassination lead with a melodic motif only to introduce discordant elements\u2014like a slightly out-of-tune-sounding violin, a bar held a beat or two too long, or a wobbling glissando\u2014that complicate the First Lady\u2019s bucolic reflections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Both Under the Skin<\/em> and Jackie<\/em> immerse viewers in their protagonist\u2019s perspective, which Levi followed as she composed their scores. When composing the Under the Skin<\/em> score, Levi took Glazer\u2019s direction to focus on The Female\u2019s experience; her work on Jackie<\/em> followed that precedent. “I had read the script, and it was quite dynamic and it showed her sass,” Levi told NPR\u2019s All Things Considered<\/a> in 2016. “All I could really do … is concentrate on her, because that’s all I had to go with.” The way the score plays with Jackie\u2019s subjectivity further emphasizes the theme that drives Jackie,<\/em> of her lived experience against the historical record of her husband\u2019s administration and his violent death. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2017, Levi became the fourth female composer\u2014and the first in 20 years\u2014to get an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score. She followed up Jackie<\/em> with Marjorie Prime<\/em>, Michael Almeyreda\u2019s adaptation of Jordan Harrison\u2019s Off-Broadway play. Marjorie Prime <\/em>explores memory and subjectivity through a matryoshka-like narrative that begins with the titular matriarch receiving an AI version of her late husband to help her with her memory as she succumbs to dementia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Thematically, Marjorie<\/em> seems like a transitional film for Levi. Like her next project, Monos<\/em>, it\u2019s an ensemble piece with no true protagonist, and her score sets the mood instead of following one character\u2019s experience. A repeated minor-key string motif cradles a series of wordless flashbacks that show the family in happier times, the bittersweet tone calling back to Levi\u2019s work on Jackie<\/em>. Shorter violin riffs sweeten some of the sourer scenes among the family, allowing the audience to see how the family cares about one another under the tension that drives the earlier parts of the film. Though Marjorie Prime<\/em> is a return to form for Almeyreda, whose directorial vision has gone from quirky and understated to solipsistic in recent decades, Levi\u2019s more distinctive work was before and after this film. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Levi\u2019s score for Monos<\/em>, a little-seen feature about child soldiers in the Colombian jungle, drew on her experience with her rock band the Shapes, in which she made her own instruments and looped samples of vacuum cleaners on her three-minute pop songs. Many of the themes incorporate different whistles, which she made just by blowing into glass bottles. \u201cI hope you can see the instruments like they\u2019re all found,\u201d Levi told Indiewire<\/a> in 2019. \u201cLike one day someone went to this remote mountain and found all the elements that make up the film, all the objects.\u201d Even the synth lines have a surprising harmony with the natural surroundings, as low-volume synth bass rises from the diegetic noise in a visceral, disturbing way and higher-pitched synth lines amplify and distort the sounds of native insects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Monos<\/em> marked a departure of sorts from Levi\u2019s previous filmography. While the audience\u2019s sympathies are with a kidnapped engineer and with the lone female soldier in the squadron, the film follows the squadron overall as they grapple with the demands of The Organization. Levi\u2019s score helps draw out the personalities of individual characters and emphasize the unruly environment of the jungle. \u201cThe music is just another element of the condition they are in,\u201d Levi said to Indiewire. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of like these extra sort of onlookers, almost like a fairytale type of thing. Then there\u2019s adrenaline in there, and that somehow comes together to tell the story.\u201d Some of the \u201cadrenaline\u201d comes through with Levi\u2019s trademark use of contrasts. In one scene, where the female soldier recalls her loss of virginity while patrolling the jungle, a sharp descending whistle cuts through a synth line, pulling viewers between the two contrasting moods and undercutting any eroticism in her memory with a feeling of dread. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Steve McQueen\u2019s Small Axe<\/em> anthology is slated to premiere on Amazon on 20 November. The three episodes Levi scored, \u201cMangrove\u201d, \u201cLovers Rock\u201d, and \u201cRed, White, and Blue\u201d, closed the 2020 New York Film Festival. Her work on this miniseries has already drawn acclaim; The Wrap describes the score<\/a> as \u201csubtly haunting\u201d, a mood well within Levi\u2019s wheelhouse. Though A24 has delayed the release of the Sundance hit Zola<\/em>, based on the harrowing true story about two sex workers\u2019 ill-fated road trip to Florida, reviews indicate that Levi\u2019s score could be another left turn for the peripatetic composer; The Playlist described her work<\/a> as \u201cunusually gentle (and) marked with fairytale-ish glissandos\u201d. Mica Levi is just getting started, and cineastes should be excited about what she\u2019ll do next. The Micachu and the Shapes frontwoman has become one of the most innovative and interesting composers in film. A look at what makes her work so special:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":607,"featured_media":15339,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1381],"tags":[162],"class_list":["post-15337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/607"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22667,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15337\/revisions\/22667"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/jackie-1024x682.jpg\")
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