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THere’s a throwaway line in 2012’s The Avengers, after a character dies, where his partner is mentioned. “There was a photographer, I think,” remembers Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark. It’s a place of passage between punch-and-talk. Because even when a mighty hero hits the cello, you know the instrument carries more than just music.
Earlier this month, the cart fell about Pedro Pascal’s upcoming drama Behemoth!, in which he plays a famous man who returns to Hollywood to sign movies. Realist songwriter and filmmaker Hildur Guðnadóttir says the instrument is “having a moment right now.”
It’s true. And this love of film started to find its footing almost 70 years ago, when Audrey Hepburn he played a young magician in Love in the Afternoon. In the decades since then, the weapon has become a symbol of a different kind of person: civilized, powerful, loving, passionate. Think Alan Rickman in True, Madly, Deeply – or the singer in the 1996 Czech drama Kolya, which won an Academy Award for best foreign language film. Even Woody Allen played with the stereotype; in Annie Hall, Carol Kane’s left-handed genius played the cello in a defunct space.
But why, of all the musicians’ choices, did the cello become the most popular instrument? Guðnadóttir says: “It’s the tone, but maybe because the cello comes very close to the tone of the human voice. “It has the ability to play notes, too, like human speech. Click on the keyboard and it’s straightforward, sure. The cello – like our voice – can play with this accent to express it.”
Put an actor in a play playing the cello, then, and he can have a conversation without words. Guðnadóttir says that the only instrument with a human timbre and “fluidity of intonation” is the bass clarinet. But you can’t see the protagonist reaching for one – or the history made by the legendary bass clarinettist. In fact, the cello has cornered the market on tragic orchestral stories – perhaps most notably in the Emily Watson-starring Hilary and Jackie.
“That film, the story of Jacqueline du Pré, who is a musician, is the cello film that has stuck with me the most,” says Guðnadóttir. And it’s not just cellist biopics that make it to the screen. In 2009, The Soloist, Jamie Foxx he sang as the singer Nathaniel Ayers, but the story was changed again, exchanging his main instrument – the double bass – for the cello.
You can see why. Not only does the cello have a subtle human register, it’s also very expressive. The cellist’s bow strokes are crisp and clear, and the player’s face is often hidden – making it a great companion.
Maybe that’s why musicians tend to be so passionate about musical theater. Guðnadóttir also scored Cate Blanchett’s tour-de-force Tár, where the singer is the protagonist of the drama. Singer Christopher Walken, who is battling Parkinson’s, is the first in 2012’s A Late Quartet, and Dermot Mulroney (the real-life actor who played in several Mission: Impossible movies) who likes to star in the Prime Video Series Mozart in the Jungle.
But the characters in the cellist are not limited to musical drama. Short cello music has been recorded in almost every genre: from Chloë Grace Moretz in the sci-fi romance If I Stay, to Maryam d’Abo in the 007 adventure The Living Daylights, to cellist favorites in sitcoms from Frasier to New Girl. And there is a very dark side of the cello, even played by Michelle Pfeiffer in the spiritual thriller What Lies Down, Uma Thurman in the neo-noir Jennifer 8 or Jenna Ortega in the Netflix series Wednesday.
“There is a gothic connection to the cello,” says Guðnadóttir, who won an Oscar for scoring the Joker, a song that features the famous instrument, with its “choked” neck. “When it’s played badly — because we want it to be this beautiful instrument — it’s not fun.”
Director Richard Shepard took the dark side one step further in 2018 with The Perfection, a horror film set inside a notorious music school. When choosing an instrument for his two leaders to play, he wanted something sinister and physical.
“I remember growing up on the Upper West Side of New York City, near Lincoln Center,” he says, “and seeing young people driving on the subway, carrying these huge bags. It just blew me away. How big it is. How much effort it takes not just to play it, but just to move it.
The filmmakers behind Allison Williams’ horror film were determined to make the cello as convincing as it was scary. Shepard said: “It was a lot of hard work, but I’m proud that the entire film was filmed by just two musicians instead of actors.”
The cello is an instrument that actors can’t pass up – it’s harder to fake than hiding your hands behind the piano or making a vocal sound. Ortega trained on Wednesday and was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Emmy. Watson coached Hilary and Jackie and won an Oscar. Pascal recently told Vanity Fair that taking up the cello is “the hardest, hardest, hardest thing I’ve ever learned to do.” If he wants to win an award, there are fewer bets than a serious and predictable singer.
And that feeling extends beyond the veil. David Cohen, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, said that “some people feel that musicians sympathize with musicians – kind, thoughtful and a little bit powerful.” suite” …
Cohen adds that the cello’s tuning often creates notes written around it. “It can sound good, lonely, hopeful or quietly powerful – often in the same words,” she says. “It’s the Meryl Streep of the choir.” And, because it has the depth to express sadness without being swayed, the cello is a great choice for film music.”
Catherine Warner is a music therapist who has seen the cello play its prominent role in the film. But he also points to the tool’s role in some of the film’s most memorable dialogues. In The Witches of Eastwick, the devil Jack Nicholson seduces the singer Susan Sarandon during a duet, which Warner says “seemed to represent the awakening of Sarandon’s nature, and her discovery of true emotional expression – she struggled to bring this into her performance”.
In Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Paul Bettany plays cello under Russell Crowe’s virtuosic violin. Warner says this “represents a close collaboration in which the soloist can feel free to express his ideas”. Cello, then, is the real foundation: the “straight man” who does everything relevant to the story.
Warner goes back to what he wrote in another article: “Metaphorically, the cello can evoke the idea of an instrument becoming like a person.” And this comes close to explaining Hollywood’s fascination with the instrument. More than any other member of the orchestra, introducing the cello is like throwing another player into the scene. Guðnadóttir also said that “there is something similar about its size being very close to the human body – not to mention the shape of the cello which looks like a torso.”
Combine its similarity to the human body and its similarity to our voice, and it’s no wonder cinema loves the instrument. He is a solo actor. It can be hugged, stroked, comforted or twisted. Now we just have to wait for the inevitable Oscar category: the best bow tie ahead. Either that, or Pascal is in danger of having his cello in front of him.
