Pixar: Soul

I agree that jazz may have been incidental to the broader message of the film. But that's an opportunity missed because what is amazing about jazz is ultimately same thing that is enjoyable about life. Playing jazz or listening to jazz, with the emphasis on improvisation vs other forms of music and art, uniquely parallels living. That's why it was cool that 22 used the word jazzing; it's a synonym for enjoyment of living. I just would have liked the film to go more into that.

The message was not anti-obsession so much as a pro-enjoyment of life. Lost souls got that way not by obsession but by being unable to enjoy life anymore. Ultimately Joe had built up his career ambition of gigging to the point where, once he had the opportunity, it no longer lived up to the romanticization and spiritual fulfillment that he had built it into. But the fact is that Pixar didn't build this message into a movie about rock climbing, gardening, or immunology. Pixar chose jazz, and they chose to not pay it off fully.

 

I wish it had been more about music and less about the afterlife mumbo-jumbo.

 

Must not dumb down jazz for dumb general public who don’t push themselves daily to achieve free improv nirvana if you don’t make mistakes you’re not really trying jazz is life oh my.

 

saw it earlier tonight- liked it very much...

 

This is a wonderful movie in every way, very emotional and very affecting. Also some of the most beautiful visual images I've ever seen, everything from extremely abstract to a near-perfect replica of contemporary NYC. Stunning color, and one of the best 4K Dolby Vision releases of the year.

 

I worked Jazz retail in NYC for 3 years...I saw what the people liked. Can't tell you how many times I tried to push Coltrane's Ballads on unsuspecting Kenny G fans. It almost never worked.

 

Not what this movie is about.

 

No, but in reply to a relevant comment...

 

This movie isn’t about “I like John Coltrane more than Kenny G.” It isn’t really about jazz. Jazz is the protagonist’s “spark,” to use the terms of the movie, but the movie makes it pretty clear that he has become fixated on his spark to the exclusion of other, even more important things in his life, including, but not limited to, interaction with other human beings.

You can now resume your discussion of jazz education and why Coltrane’s playing-it-straight ballad album for the squares is better than Kenny G.

 

My comment related to the type of Jazz depicted in the film as something 'palatable' yet 'genuine' that 'regular' folks could enjoy. Nothing philosophical about it.

 

That’s not what this movie is about, but carry on.

 

Unfortunately for the jazz police, it is about the afterlife mumbo-jumbo.

 

We watched Soul last night and thoroughly enjoyed it. I agree that the ending was a little clumsy and I thing Inside Out was better.

 

saw it yesterday - i was actually in 'critic' mode, expecting to pull it apart a little, but the story and characters totally won me over.

a well done pic.

smitquest

 

that was some good trombone playing.

 

It's significant that it's a former pupil who gets him the gig. I don't think that there's any question that he's good at teaching pupils who have aptitude, but of course this is a vice in many teachers. The point about his succeeding with 22 is that {they} don't have any aptitude for living, or at least don't think that they do, so they're a nightmare student.

I can remember when I didn't know much about Jazz it occurred to me to wonder why they didn't rehearse a piece after jamming it and play it without the mistakes. Or cut down the noodling and just play the meaningful musical episodes. As with life in general it's quite difficult to appreciate that everything's about the process.

I thought Soul was pretty good and it had my wife in floods of tears before the title card. I think that it may actually be one of those films where you love it when you watch it and later struggle to articulate exactly why: it's certainly a highlight of Disney+’s lacklustre library.

 

This is one Pixar movie where I find the premise so unappealing I will not even give it a chance (I made the same choice with the Pixar Cars movies).

 

You make this film seem like Emoji Movie. And there is nothing wrong with an afterlife premise.

 

Back to form.... for me it really felt like an old-school high quality Pixar movie again.

I really liked it despite the lack of a lot of Jazz music.

 

As with most of the preview clips from Pixar films, they don't end up making the films seem very appealing to me. Thankfully, usually the full films end up much better than the preview clips. At this point, I've seen them all except The Good Dinosaur, and Onward (which I'm still totally unmotivated to bother with). Overall, I didn't really care for Inside Out, or Coco much, and was expecting Soul to be more of the same like those two.

I'm firmly in the "back to form" camp on Soul. I loved it, and think it's among the best they have done. It has inspired me to watch it three times so far as well--because it doesn't have long boring sections that drag, like so many other Pixar films do. Coco, Inside Out, WALL-E, Toy Story 3 & 4, Finding Dory, etc I had no interest to bother ever watching them again after the first viewing. I'd be happy to watch Soul again for the 4th time right now.

 

Just a reminder, the movie is called Soul not Jazz.

 

To wit, some record producers did pay for a practice session before recording, e.g., Alfred Lion, so that the tunes could be more firmed up, and some bandleaders had different priorities than others. And the virtuoso skills of many jazz players far exceed the skills of many rock players who really do noodle if they ever stray from the strict rhythm.

I've watched it again last night. Seeing it with my kid, who doesn't particularly like jazz and still loves the movie, is an interesting experience. It's enlightening to talk about our reasons for liking the movie. There are many elements to appreciate and then there is the overall message to enjoy life not as a means to an end but as the whole spark of everything.

Yes, and I find the soul in all kinds of jazz music. Ironically, though, the jazz takes a back seat to the more mechanical and stripped-down Reznor score, which is quite soul-less. It works well in the scenes with Terry, the eternal accountant, for example. But I will forever wish they had taken better advantage of the jazz theme by using some avant garde jazz or minimalist jazz when they thought the more straight-ahead jazz wasn't appropriate. It would have been far more compelling than the Reznor score, which is more appropriate in films like Social Network.

 

I never saw the actual Half Note jazz club, so I don't know what it looked like from the exterior (or interior for that matter). I assumed the Half Note in this movie was a tribute to the actual Half Note, not Village Vanguard. I get that VV is a basement club like in the film though.

But I've got at least two albums in my collection that were recorded at the Half Note, and are indispensable to me - Wes Montgomery's Smokin' at the Half Note, and Coltrane's Live at the Half Note - One Down One Up.

 

Glad so many enjoyed it, please humor my dissenting voice, I thought it was very weak. I like the Pixar movies, especially the thoughtful and relatively profound Inside Out (same director as Soul), so I was eager for a meaningful film that also touched on jazz, improv, and so on. The movie looked technically great, for sure. But the plot was a mess to me, stitched together by a series of silly coincidences, switching gears on what it was supposed to be about or mean, every ten minutes. Felt very lazy to me as a story for that reason, like they had an interesting first half of a story, and then tossed the rest together. Oh well.

 

Total rubbish. First five minutes were okay, like an animated Treme.
After that, awful. But then I hate afterlife movies. Even a Matter of life and Death. Dantes And this was like that played by jelly babies. It didnt deserve a cinema release. Pixars last good movie was Up.