Dis/joint: Unification of Sound, Music, Narrative, and Animation in Liz and the Blue Bird
- Dis/jointUnification of Sound, Music, Narrative, and Animation in Liz and the Blue Bird
The film Liz and the Blue Bird (2018, Rizu to aoi tori),1 a sequel to the television anime Sound! Euphonium (2015, Hibike! yūfoniamu) and Sound! Euphonium 2 (2016, Hibike! yūfoniamu 2), focuses on the musical and interpersonal relationship of Mizore and Nozomi, two very close friends who play in their school band. Director Yamada Naoko frames the evolution of their relationship, which can be read as romantic, through the central concept of "dis/joint," which explicitly frames the narrative through intertitles in the film. The relationship begins in a state of "disjoint," or disconnection, with mismatched expectations for each other, unresolved feelings from the past, and a failure to listen to each other. The disjoint grows as the reticent Mizore takes steps to come out of her shell, and Nozomi reacts out of jealousy and fear of separation. This is resolved in the denouement to a state of "joint," or connectedness. This relationship is communicated through a number of techniques that intimately connect sound (music/sound design) and animation; these specific artistic choices link back to the relationship. As a central concept, "dis/joint" thus orients the artistic disciplines in the film, such as animation, music, and sound design, toward a common purpose and facilitates an understanding of the complex dynamics of human relationships.
Scholarly work on film music and film sound has previously emphasized connections between sound, visuals, and narrative. Marcelo Pilewski categorizes multiple functions of interplay between visuals and music, including action (music synchronized to character movement), expectation (music that anticipates and then reacts to an event), and diegesis (music that characters can hear). Of one function, Pilewski notes that "we perceive the image in terms of the music, and the music in terms of the image."2 In other words, the music and image exist in a state that blurs distinctions between the two. Theorist Michel Chion has extensively written on relationships between sound and image in film; terms in his work such as "audiovisual contract" emphasize the [End Page 26] fact that the sound cannot be separated from the image in film, and that these relationships are not "natural" but constructed.3
Meanwhile, a portion of the scholarship on anime film music has focused on the "image album," or a prototype soundtrack released before some anime films are completed.4 This comes from what has been termed the "gekiban approach" to anime music, where musical cues are composed early in the production and then selected in the editing process.5 Because the music in image albums is not composed to fit the film itself, this practice could impede the creation of a unified sound-image. Studies that center on Hisaishi's music for the films of Miyazaki Hayao examine methods, such as the use of orchestration, in which composers work around these constraints and rework the music in order to complement the visuals.6 In addition, some anime film composers (including Hisaishi himself) have, to varying degrees, started to rely less on the gekiban model and adopt a more American style of film scoring, where music is written to the image.7 Although many anime film scores begin with image albums, the soundtrack of Liz and the Blue Bird was more closely coordinated with the production of the animation. This coordination was facilitated through the theme of dis/joint.
Dis/joint, the central theme of Liz and the Blue Bird, is expressed through a multiplicity of forms that blur the boundaries between music, sound, and animation. Interviews have revealed that in the process of creating the film, Yamada and her collaborators (including composers Matsuda Akito and Ushio Kensuke) intentionally devised strategies that transcended artistic boundaries in order to create a unified film.8 These strategies, from coordinating precise, mathematical timings to using the technique of decalcomania to create both animation and music, demonstrate a commitment to intense, experimental artistic collaboration. With this film, Yamada does not merely craft a film about music, but uses the integration of sound and music with the visuals to embody the film's theme of dis/joint.
