Montage and Memories: "Soul" Discussion

Disclaimer: This entry discusses Disney Pixar's Soul, and may contain spoilers. 

Chapter 1 touched on the idea of a montage, which according to this book, is "the splicing together of individual shots" (30). This reminded me of a montage in a film that, for me, carried a lot of emotional impact. 

Disney Pixar's 2020 film, Soul, explores the existential crisis that is: "What is my purpose?" This film gives perspective on this question in the sense that everyone struggles with it, whether you're very young or old. 

This idea of "purpose", or "spark", is best captured in a montage towards the end of the film. I've included a clip of the scene as well as the screenplay for reference. (In the screenplay, this scene starts on the middle of page 113, starting with "INT. JOE’S APARTMENT. NIGHT.") 

In this scene, Joe reflects on the memories that are attached to small everyday objects, such as a piece of a bagel, a spool of thread, a piece of candy, and, most importantly, a "helicopter" seed. He studies these objects and ponders the beauty of, as he puts it, "regular old living".

In film, montage is effective in the way that it teaches viewers about past experiences of a character. It's useful especially if the stitched scenes wouldn't otherwise fit in the plot of the film chronologically. This example from Soul begins with clips from earlier in the film, allowing the audience to recall them alongside the character, but then also weaves in new scenes from Joe's childhood and we are able to unlock a side of him we haven't seen yet. 

The use of montage here is very effective because without the context of Joe's memories, those little objects would seem meaningless. And, with this context, we are able to follow Joe's thought process in creating a beautiful piano piece that he composes during the scene. 

In addition, this scene very well represents this quote from our textbook: "To imitate the world is a mechanical process; to transform the world so that it becomes a thing of beauty is the purpose of art" (20). This montage scene literally takes normal everyday things, like catching a helicopter seed, and turns magnifies it under a lens that is quite beautiful. 

Comments

  1. Shane "The Critic" RollinsSeptember 22, 2022 at 11:38 AM

    Hey there,

    I really liked this move when I watched it! I think that the director made it pretty obvious what the ending was going to be, although I still though it was creative. I usually like animated Disney movies, so of course this one did not disappoint me. My favorite part was the pizza scene at the the beginning.

    Best,
    Shane Rollins

    ReplyDelete

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