I̸ ̸s̸t̸a̷r̶t̵e̷d̵ ̴w̵a̷t̶c̸h̶i̴n̸g̵ ̴t̵h̴e̶ ̸P̶y̴t̴h̸o̶n̴ ̵d̶o̵c̷u̵m̷e̴n̴t̷a̸r̶y̴,̶ ̸[̶r̷e̶c̶e̴n̷t̵l̷y̷ ̷a̶v̵a̸i̷l̸a̷b̷l̴e̷ ̸o̷n̸ ̵Y̴o̷u̶T̴u̴b̶e̸]̴(̵h̸t̵t̷p̴s̸:̴/̸/̴w̸w̴w̶.̵y̶o̶u̵t̵u̴b̶e̸.̴c̷o̷m̷/̵w̵a̴t̷c̴h̵?̷v̴=̵G̵f̶H̶4̵Q̷L̸4̸V̸q̴J̵0̴)̷,̴ ̴b̴u̵t̷ ̴I̴ ̸c̷o̸u̸l̶d̴n̸’̴t̷ ̷g̷e̷t̵ ̴i̸n̸t̶o̵ ̷i̷t̸ ̴b̵e̶c̷a̷u̴s̷e̷ ̵t̴h̴e̶r̵e̴ ̸w̷a̶s̵ ̶s̵o̵m̶e̶t̷h̵i̸n̴g̵ ̵i̶n̵ ̴t̵h̸e̵ ̴b̶a̶c̵k̵g̵r̵o̸u̷n̶d̷ ̶c̷a̷u̶s̷i̴n̵g̴ ̷a̶ ̷c̸o̴n̷s̸t̷a̸n̵t̸ ̴d̷i̷s̸t̷r̴a̵c̴t̶i̶o̵n̷.̴
Oh wait, sorry - let me try that again.
I started watching the Python documentary, recently available on YouTube, but I couldn’t get into it because there was something in the background causing a constant distraction.
Music. It was music.
It’s a shame as I’m interested in watching the documentary, but an artistic decision has made it difficult for me to do so. If you can’t relate then imagine if I had written this entire blog post with Zalgo text, like the opening paragraph. That’s what the experience feels like to me.
Because I really love music. So if I hear it, I listen to it. This is really hard for me to switch off as music commands my attention. It’s one of the reasons I never have music on while doing something else. If two things are fighting for my attention, one of them being music, the music always wins. Always.
I find it a contradiction to edit together a bunch of interviews and then add background music. The interviewee’s words are the music, they should stand alone and not require background noise. Doing otherwise is to treat the audience as if they are not intelligent enough to understand the nuances of the interview.
Oh minor key, me sad now… Fuck off, please.
It’s likely I’m feeling particularly attuned to this as we watched a couple of films over the weekend. The first, “Highest 2 Lowest”, being a sub-par film reduced to mediocrity by feeling like one long iPhone advertisement, featuring copious unnecessary background music in moments of character dialogue. I pointed this out to my wife about 10mins into the film, and then she couldn’t ignore it.
Contrast this with Les triplettes de Belleville, a largely dialogue free film, which I hadn’t seen since its release twenty years ago. A film which knows when to hold back on the music and when it is necessary. One that also plays with the musical themes - Glenn Gould’s piano playing, repeated in an improvisation using a bicycle wheel, then interpreted on jazz piano a little while later.
Backgrounds are important, but they can be massively distracting.
Skipping through the timeline of the documentary it seems that it is at least 80% talking heads, in other words something that’s not visually compelling, so I’ll likely just read the transcript. The problem in doing that is also the loss of nuance.
Nuance is important, so that’s unfortunate, but the artistic decision to stomp all over the interviews with background music already destroyed any of it that existed in this documentary and replaced it with something entirely different.
I’ll talk about this a bit in the next blog post.