On the nature of daylight 和 Max Richter
我听过的Johann Johannssan写的电影配乐有两部：一部是The theory of everything，另一部是Arrival。而巧合的是，这两部电影的soundtrack里我最爱的那一首都不是Johann创作的。在The theory of everything里用了一首Arrival of the birds，那是最后一幕霍金对着前妻微笑，而时光开始突然倒流到他们最初认识的那一刻；而在Arrival里用了一首On the nature of daylight，女主对女儿的叙述伴随着那首曲子缓缓展开与结束，弦乐出现的时候都格外哀伤。 On the nature of daylight这首曲子出自2004年Max Richter创作的The blue notebooks。除了Arrival，《奇幻人生》、《断线》、《禁闭岛》等电影里都用过这首曲子。我听The blue notebooks的时候很感慨整张专辑本身的悲凉气氛：音乐里有打字机的声音，有Tilda Swinton朗诵的卡夫卡片段，有火车的声音。人们似乎不知道自己要去向哪里，有些人内心的声音不知道说与谁倾听。Max Richter创作这张音乐的背景是反对伊拉克战争，On the nature of daylight用在Arrival上显得格外合适：电影本身的部分主题在示意反战，而这首曲子本身又格外适合当诵读文本的背景音乐。 或者你可以打开这首On the nature of daylight，然后自己朗读一下Ted Chiang的以下片段（摘自Story of Your Life的第一段），大概你也能感受到女主人公那种接受宿命的心情： “Your father is about to ask me the question. This is the most important moment in our lives, and I want to pay attention, note every detail. Your dad and I have just come back from an evening out, dinner and a show; it's after midnight. We came out onto the patio to look at the full moon; then I told your dad I wanted to dance, so he humors me and now we're slow dancing, a pair of thirty somethings swaying back and forth in the moonlight like kids. I don't feel the night chill at all. And then your dad says, "Do you want to make a baby?" Right now your dad and I have been married for about two years, living on Ellis Avenue; when we move out you'll still be too young to remember the house, but we'll show you pictures of it, tell you stories about it. I'd love to tell you the story of this evening, the night you're conceived, but the right time to do that would be when you're ready to have children of your own, and we'll never get that chance.”
Max Richter也是一个极简主义作曲家，擅长把钢琴、弦乐、电子、甚至文学等元素都融入在自己想要表达的声音中。他的第二张专辑The blue notebook里朗读了卡夫卡，而第三张专辑Song from before里朗读了村上春树。他也在做音乐实验，并且影响了很多人。曾经喜欢很久的冰岛音乐家Ólafur Arnalds在访谈中说过自己格外喜欢Max Richter改编的Vivaldi四季（仔细听Spring那章的新排进去的和弦，和on the nature of daylight的低音和弦几乎是一样的），而Max Richter年轻时接受音乐训练的时候弹了很多极简主义代表人物Philip Glass的作品。 Johann Johannssan则也是一个冰岛人，他给The theory of everything写的那首“A model of the universe”和“On the nature of daylight”非常神似。耳朵不会骗人，喜欢的人物总会有些共同特质，发现他们的联系时那种惊喜总是溢于言表。
顺便补上Ólafur Arnalds专辑“...And They Have Escaped The Weight Of Darknessdd”的封面，真怀疑Arrival外星人的语言是被这张专辑启发的。
