commercial stations, movie channels, pay per view - they're all pulling hunger games out of the mothballs because of the final installment of the trilogy is out in theatres. personally, i have hunger games about memorised. i could use a refresher of catching fire and mockingjay part 1. why'nt they show those? you'll see that sort of thing a lot, really. for a while, it was harry potter chamber of secrets. they wore the fuck out of that reel of celluloid.
so anyway, there we were, partaking of a wee morsel of katniss and whatnot when all of the sudden, i am noticing the soundtrack. it's everywhere and vibrant and filling in the silent gaps and empty spaces which i would have mere seconds before sworn on my mothers ashes were silent and empty. it was truly an odd experience and i made him stop the movie so i could ask him what the hell??
at first i thought TBS had added the music but fairly quickly realised that that was not practicable. although it meant calling into question my powers of perception, it made much more sense, in an objective sense, to admit that i'd simply never noticed the music before.
back when the movie was new and i was i the theatre watching it, i was all entranced by books-come-to-life setting and plot and characters. when all that was new and held my attention, i didn't notice the music. why? well, obvs, i was busy noticing all that other stuff. durr. okay, really, why would i notice the setting and not the music? the plot and not the music? the characters and not the music? the costumes, the make up, the props.. and not the music?
why didn't i notice the music? here's my theory: there's no music in the books.
i'd read the books and i was looking for how they had interpreted all those things i'd read. did they get district 12 right? katniss and gale's interactions? pru's dress? the reaping bowl? haymitch's eccentricities? the train, the capitol, the parade, that scene where katniss (spoiler alert!) shoots an apple out of a pig's mouth, the costumes, the arena, the cornucopia, the tributes, the interactions and the challenges and the makeup and the blood... did they get it right? did they get it all right?
it was a case of having-read-the-book induced compulsive quality assurance. i was so busy with this QA responsibility - which the universe had cleverly chosen me to fulfill - that i had no time or mental capacity for anything that wasn't in the book.
that makes sense, right?
alternately, when in the theatre, the music presented itself as integral. or maybe, the movie presented the music as integral? either way, the music was integral. could have been a result of the movie theatre itself, the acoustics and sound system. or, opposite-wise, the whole effect is the result of our inadequate home sound system elevating the winkles and tinkles of the music out of proportion, making them more prominent, calling inappropriate attention to them. what the hell, home sound system? stop interfering with soundtrack integration!
probably it was some of this, some of that. some of the equipment in use, some of having seen the movie multiple times. having recovered from the shock of noticing an integral feature which i'd completely overlooked to this point, i am left wondering only one thing...
what else haven't i noticed in hunger games, and [drum roll] in life??
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