Parasite: Bong Joon-ho and his composer pushed to get a key song exactly right

Each aspect of Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite is completely calibrated, from the performances to the units to the music. Probably the most unimaginable a part of the rating is a monitor that runs greater than seven minutes lengthy: “The Belt of Religion,” which performs alongside a key sequence within the movie. (By the way, it was additionally Parasite’s Oscar-night music.)

Because the Kim household, who’re struggling to make ends meet, slowly infiltrate the wealthy Park family, they weaponize what the Park matriarch calls “the belt of religion” — the Kims suggest one another for jobs with the Parks, who belief their suggestions, reasonably than playing on hiring by way of a service or open interview. The monitor accompanies the Kim household’s coup de grace in benefiting from that so-called belt.

“It’s model 7 or 9 that you’re listening to,” composer Jung Jae-il instructed Polygon by way of e mail. Regardless of what number of feelings the monitor was meant to include — and the way many individuals and conditions it was juggling — Jung stated director Bong needed the rating to specific only one texture with concentrated sounds. “Music could possibly be the railway,” Jung defined, “and the drama, actors, and conditions could possibly be the chain of trains.”

The problem in following that mandate was in avoiding simply following the tales enjoying out on display. As an alternative, Jung was tasked with carrying them alongside easily, “like a bullet practice.” Jung says he had thought one in all his earlier variations of the music was excellent, but it surely didn’t meet Bong’s satisfaction. “I drank a lot that night time with despair,” he says. “The following morning, I crawled to the piano and began improvising meaningless phrases, and that led me to the ultimate model you might be listening to.” (In an earlier interview with Polygon, director Bong recalled that the wrestle to get “The Belt of Religion” excellent made him worry that Jung would by no means work with him once more.)

For the general sound of the movie, Bong instructed Jung he needed to seek out the best “sound texture” that might run all through the movie, and talked about strings as a key aspect. “He stated he listened to Handel and Vivaldi, who’s the image of Baroque [music], whereas he was writing the script,” Jung stated.

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However the reliance on strings created its personal difficulties. “Strings are particularly tough to specific with computer systems,” Jung says, explaining that his composing course of concerned first sitting down with Bong to debate the place the music was meant to go, then composing on the pc and letting Bong pay attention. If Bong preferred what he was listening to, the following step was orchestrating and recording the music. If he didn’t, Jung would re-write.

Different items of Parasite’s rating have been more easy, similar to “Zappaguri.” That monitor, which performs like a compressed model of “The Belt of Religion,” comes throughout a sequence the place the Kims wrestle to fulfill a good deadline, with every member of the family juggling a separate annoying process. “The strategy was completely completely different from ‘The Belt of Religion,’” Jung says. “I needed it to operate within the fashion of a Tom & Jerry piece,” emphasizing every beat of the motion reasonably than flowing by way of like “The Belt of Religion.” That course of was a lot smoother: “Mr. Bong preferred it the primary time.”

Parasite is streaming on Hulu now.

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