Music plays an important role in our lives. Music can be used as a tool for relaxation, enlightenment or deconstruction; I have never encountered anyone who does not appreciate some kind of music.
In motion pictures, the proper and effective use of music is to heighten emotions, from tearjerker dramas to spine-tingling thrillers. From the historical (yet racist) first sound picture, “The Jazz Singer,” to more recently, the aura surrounding rock superstars in “Almost Famous,” filmmakers have tried to capture the genius behind the music.
While I have an appreciation for most genres of music, I say with all honesty (and some trepidation) that I hate country. Maybe it’s the twang or the incessant theme of loss; I am not a fan.
It is with great admiration and surprise that I have fallen for the film “Crazy Heart,” which chronicles the turbulent track of fallen-from-grace country star, “Bad” Blake (Jeff Bridges). A penniless drunkard, the washed up Blake plays in less than ideal venues.
During a stint in Santa Fe, Blake encounters journalist Jean (an excellent Maggie Gyllenhaal), his one last shot at redemption.
Though we’ve seen this story before (most recently and effectively in last year’s “The Wrestler”), “Crazy Heart” not only looks into the dark chasm of the human soul, but how music can speak when we cannot.
Writer/director Scott Cooper elicits a complementary verisimilitude between the desolation of the landscape and the performance of Bridges. As Blake, Bridges fully encompasses the character to the point of complete immersion. Bridges has always been a relatable, naturalistic actor, but in this role, he becomes a jaded, poignant and yet somehow likeable man on the way down.
In addition, you would never guess that Bridges wasn’t actually a professional country musician. Both he and Colin Farrell (as his megastar protégé) do an impeccable job of singing. Maybe this has to do with the influence of producer/music supervisor T Bone Burnett, the country/bluegrass impresario behind such music-oriented films as “O, Brother Where Art Thou?” and “Cold Mountain.”
“Crazy Heart” is a movie to seek out not only because it is the performance of Bridges’ well-traversed career, but because of its humanistic insight. The power of a fully American music genre is on display here and how it simultaneously encapsulates both misery and salvation. Needless to say, I bought the soundtrack.
Ari Silber is a Loyola MBA student.Before graduate school, he worked for nine years in the Los Angeles film industry, focusing on marketing, publicity and distribution. He can be reached at [email protected]
