Pixar: Soul

I give it a "B-". Visually it is beautiful but the story was IMO convoluted and what's worse, I just was not very entertained by it. The 1:35 minutes dragged for me. I liked the short that followed it much better.

Not a bad movie, a B- in my book is still better than average, and I'm glad I saw it. But I will never see it again.

 

It did. It's of course more atmospheric and mechanical than the jazz used in the score, so at first listen it pays off the cerebral elements of the film. Of course there is plenty of minimalist and avant garde jazz that I believe could have paid it off better and stayed truer to the movie's protagonist. Reznor/Ross worked perfectly for The Social Network (which also could have been called Soul-less) but for this movie that seemed perfect for all types of jazz, I wish they'd gone the other way. When I got The Social Network on blu-ray, it came with a free download for the Reznor/Ross score, so I downloaded it to iTunes and would commute to work in San Francisco and listen to it on BART and walking around the city. It was pretty great. Of course, I have about 5000 jazz tunes on my iPhone that are even more great.

 

Jazz needs all the help it can get these days.

 

Right? So this film was a perfect vehicle to get deeper into it, both in the screenplay and the score. I liked how the memory revealed Joe as a kid did not like jazz until his dad took him to see a live performance that ignited something in him. Would have liked to see more memories that showed things like jazz exploration, different styles, solo vs group interplay, something about the way other music was marketed more effectively than jazz. I mean they had Herbie and other jazz royalty as consultants, so why was it necessary to use Reznor/Ross at all?

 

I'm guessing contrast between the two 'Worlds.' It might have been cool to hear what someone like Herbie or Wayne or even Jan Hammer would've done with the other side of things...

 

Watched the film last night and it really hit close to home with me with Joe's journey as a person. That sort of ambition to achieve what you've always wanted and when you look back on it suddenly it looks like you haven't accomplished anything. Really enjoyed all of it and it left me thinking how great it would have been to see it in a theater instead of at home on Disney+ when I could just keep pausing it when things started to get intense for whatever reason.
I've always been a little skeptical about the whole representation thing but I get it, I especially got it when I went to see Moana. I haven't always had that great of a connection to the Samoan side of my family so when you see it portrayed in a movie, a GOOD movie there is something about the whole experience that feels really good.
I was sort of expecting the whole thing about the teacher to lead to him going all-in on teaching so I'm glad they left that open. I'm sure he could continue to do the Jazz gigs and continue as a Music teacher only with a lot more dedication than he put into it before but I'm getting into stuff that would happen after the movie so it's speculation. The movie puts a lot into saying "Hey he's actually a great teacher, but he doesn't know it because he's so focused on this other goal" but I guess the message isn't that he should be one thing or the other but rather that he shouldn't let this one goal in life take him away from the bigger experience.
I was thinking about how the student came to his house for the lesson and maybe she may have quit if he had actually been in his own body, so focused on his own gig that he doesn't give her the attention she needs to find that passion for her-self.
There is a lot to think about with this movie, interestingly this is the first Pixar movie I've watched since Inside Out. I skipped Toy Story 4 for some reason and Outward still hasn't made me think "I've gotta watch that one" since it feels more like a film from a different studio, Dreamworks Animation. It's good to see that Pixar hasn't lost their touch now that Lasseter is out.

 

Watch the short Inside Pixar series also on Disney+ for more insight into this. Also go back and watch the credits if you haven't already and read the extensive lists of individuals and organizations involved in the representation side of things. I don't know if Pixar is leading the way here or if other companies are doing it. Seems they're really doing it well.

 

Off-topic, I don't think anyone took WHIPLASH to be an example of how music education does or should work . . .

 

I never met one of these kind and nurturing music teachers as shown in "Soul" or "Mr. Holland's Opus". It seems like every music teacher I had in school were disgruntled and cruel.

I hated elementary school. It was nothing but a 5-year nightmare filled with physical torture and mental abuse. I guess middle school kinda sucked as well; it brought with it pimple-faced bullies, strange bathroom smells, and an unshakeable sensation of upcoming doom. But elementary school was far worse, because elementary school was a world filled with giant monsters.

And the music monsters were the worst monsters of all.

Mother always felt that extracurricular school activities were a must, so I was forced to join the school chorus in 2nd grade. We'd take the late bus home on those days, maybe 2 or 3 times a week, if I remember correctly. The music teacher’s name was Mr. Harry. He was a young man, probably still in his 20’s. He replaced my previous music teacher, a crazy white haired maniac with a large, washtub stomach jutting out from beneath his ill-fitting gray sweater. That sadistic old man was truly a monster.

The white-haired monster would go red-faced with anger and throw his sheet music to the floor like a child having a tantrum. He’d growl like a savage animal and pull his own hair out of his head. But the real horror was on those special occasions when he felt that a more severe punishment was to be handed out.

A misbehaving student would be asked to stand up. He'd leave his piano and walk over in a slow, deliberate manner. Then, there would be some sort of loud noise and a flash of light. Not a real flash, mind you, but that's what I see in my mind when I revisit the event now. The sound probably isn’t real either, but it always accompanies the bright light that fills my field of vision like a thunderclap. It’s like both my eyes and ears are being blocked from this memory, perhaps out of mercy.

The student would then find themselves down on the floor. It was a terrifying thing to see. I remember when the Polish kid (Veit, a blonde fellow in a red jogging suit who spoke very poor English) got thrashed by the monster, shakily getting up and staggering back to his little wooden chair in tears.

One day, foolishly, it was I who misbehaved in class. I knew what horror befell children who misbehaved in music class but I was too stupid to stay out of harm’s way. FLASH! There I was, down on the cold tile floor. The monster strolled back the way he came, not even giving me a second look. I refused to cry. Tears were welling in my eyes, but I would not let them start to roll. The monster roared from behind his piano, shuffling through assorted pieces of sheet music. "Now I've lost my place!” he shrieked. Chuckles came from the oblivious children. They obviously couldn't recognize the embodiment of pure evil when they saw it. I managed to muster a phony little laugh as well, attempting to appear unfazed by the monster's punishment. Moments later, we were all singing traditional songs of joy and freedom again, my voice choked with grief.

Mr. Harry, the white-haired monster’s young replacement, did not, as far as I can remember, physically harm his students. He would, however, easily lose his temper, raising his voice regularly and frightening the shell-shocked children who foolishly volunteered to join his choir of tears.

To be a small child and to be exposed to the violent, upside-down world of man is no easy thing. Of course, we had already witnessed such evil in our own troubled homes, what with our crazy, beer-drunk fathers ranting and raving on a daily basis. But Mr. Harry was a stranger. He was a teacher. He was not a person like you or I. He was something else. He was something that could punish us in unforeseen ways, damning us to the principal’s office for all eternity. We were right to be afraid. He was a monster too.

After months of afterschool rehearsal, the day finally came for the chorus to give a public performance. We found ourselves standing on some sort of rickety wooden platform in the school auditorium, the bright lights above our heads slowly cooking our tiny brains. We looked out into a sea of parents and grandparents and teachers and custodians and seated in front of them all at the piano was the monster; his eyes full of disgust and betrayal and shame and disappointment but mostly red-hot fiery rage. He was not getting the results he desired. Someone was flat, someone was sharp, someone was singing the wrong words, and someone else was waving to his mommy in the audience. Months and months of preparation and this was the result? His face went a dark red, his nostrils flared, and his eyes became pools of blackened hate that could no longer pass as human.

Music is supposed to be fun. The elementary school chorus was meant to be a meshing of young, innocent voices, riddled with imperfections of sound but bursting with an unsoiled purity that brings tears to the eyes of soft-hearted adults. Such enchantment is lost forever once the monsters of the academic world sink their fangs into a child's pink flesh. It took only a year or two of institutionalization to douse the flame of individuality and innocence.

My love of music is rooted in this deep and unsettling fear. I can still close my eyes and see the wooden chairs, the dusty chalk board, the torn orange carpet, the combined smell of construction paper and paste. I can see the little children seated in a semi-circle with their big, sad eyes, filled with terror, brimming with tears. And most of all, I can see the monster behind the piano, leading the way into a bleak world of godless discord.

In middle school I played saxophone in the school band, and that wasnt much better. But I've rattled on enough already.

We watched the film. I liked the animation and the jazz sequences but found the whole thing a little too cerebral and weird. My 7 year old agreed.

 

With a couple of humorous exceptions, I had amazing music teachers all the way through college. My oldest son is now 21 and in college to become a music teacher himself. Most kids have rock stars or sports heroes as their phone backgrounds, my son has a picture with his high school orchestra director.

That said I guarantee that every music student will have a bad or even terrifying memory of at least one teacher. I was lucky in that mine was for a week or so.

 

Jean Shepherd, is that you?

 

When Don grabbed another mentor's name tag to avoid getting caught and that man's life was shown to 22, it was held up as an example of a life well lived and worthy of bragging about. When 22 realized it wasn't him and forced a playback of his life as a struggling Jazz musician who was somewhat forced into teaching to make a living, it came across as having a lot less importance, of being a failure. I couldn't help but feel that this one scene degraded those Jazz musicians who can't make it to the big stage, who teach or just do whatever to get by. It bummed me out to be truthful.

In a way, my life is a lot like the scientist who's name tag was grabbed but even that didn't make me feel any better about it.

As much as I enjoyed the musical aspects of it, in particular using the Village Vanguard as the "Half Note" (and why not call it the Village Vanguand?), I don't see myself watching it again.

BTW, when the alto saxophonist was playing on stage, I thought to myself, "That sounds like Kenny Garrett". When I found out it was Tia Fuller, whom I've seen live several times, I got a chuckle when I read a story where she was once told that she played a lot like Kenny Garrett.

 

My fear is that this will be A LOT like Inside Out, another Pete Doctor directed Pixar film that I thought was VERY mediocre.

I'll check this out eventually if it hits DVD and I can get it for FREE from my local public library.

 

I think it is. Neither film did much for me.

 

Whiplash was a sports movie pretending to be about music. It was offensive to me because I know so many talented and dedicated music teachers, none of whom ever abused a student into becoming great.

 

I *LOVED* the jazz and life in NYC and black culture elements of the film, and intensely *disliked* the whole death/afterlife retread practically copy/pasted and self-plagiarized from the Coco script.

The vision of existence after death was much more grounded and organically well-integrated into the Coco storyline and that film’s gorgeous Day of the Dead visual and spiritual exploration. Here the infantilism of the little blue Tele-Tubbies blobs representing a truly dumbed-down secular notion of the human soul just sucked, big time, in my opinion, and bolting this empty-headed blob-world conception onto a brilliant and rich animated tableau of jazz and Manhattan was sort of a jarring cinematic crime.

 

Two of my music teachers were quite nice. Unfortunately they were pedophiles. One's doing time now. I should pitch this to Pixar.

 

Just watched this and loved it. Kind of surprised by the negative/ambivalent reactions, but I thought it was great.

 

If I'm comparing it to Coco, I'm going to prefer Soul. Both great films but the backstory of Coco felt a lot manipulative to me with the setup of Ernesto as the bad guy. Also, being that I'm originally a New Yorker and jazz is my favorite genre, Soul hit a little closer to home. It also felt more real in the sense that career ambitions are spiritually unfulfilling.

 

I would love to see more of that NYC/Jazz World set in the future. Maybe Pixar could team up with someone on the music side of things...Don Was at Blue Note, Wynton at JALC...someone like that, to make a series of shorts that focus on music.

 

I can't wait to see it. Where many films being released today are tired sequels and reboots of prior material I think the Pixar movies really stand out as some of the most creative and innovative things being released these days. And visually they look amazing as well.

 

Several “it was great to see jazz!” posts here, but I don’t think this movie was really “about” jazz per se.

If anything, it was clearly implied that the protagonist was too obsessed with jazz, to the exclusion of any other interest or human connection in his life, much like the “lost souls” that the New Age pirate character explained. At the end of the movie, getting to play with the saxophonist was not everything he dreamed it would be, and he seemed to be vowing to live his life more fully than just being monomaniacally focused on jazz. As a music fanatic/record collector myself, that message hit home to me.

I think it’s still great to see jazz portrayed on the big screen, and it’s possible to read the movie that way, as some sort of advocacy for or celebration of jazz, but I do think that reading kind of misses the deeper point of the film. He could just as easily been an obsessive stamp collector or rock climber, and the overall gist of the story would have been the same.

 

In my experience there's a HUGE difference between playing Jazz and enjoying Jazz. My father-in-law is a Jazz musician and he claims that he doesn't love it, it's a dedication to becoming a better person. He's also told several stories which I've recounted here about name Jazz guys tearing apart the poor ticket buyer who dared say he 'enjoyed a performance.' The quote was, 'just what I wanted, the opinion of a tourist.'

If a single person goes out and buys a Jazz album because of this movie, it's a win.

 

Blah blah blah, jazz snobs, blah blah blah. I agree that there’s a real difference between playing any form of music and passively consuming it. The greatest experiences I’ve ever had with music came while using my very limited talents to make it with other human beings, but this movie isn’t simply a commercial for jazz, although given the audience here, of course that what it’s going to be taken for, and that’s fine. If it does cause one person to go out and buy a jazz album or pick up a trombone, good for it.

 

As a trombone player you have no idea how happy I was to see it featured like that.

I also feel like most of the general public has an idea of what they THINK Jazz is, but this movie presented what I would call straight ahead public friendly Jazz without getting too complicated.