The film, Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga (a movie I will include in the title of this article for those free internet clicks), follows the story of an unpopular and struggling band, Fire Saga, on their journey to the Eurovision and to international success. Overall, it’s your average Will Ferrell-lead film, with both lead actors, Will Ferrell as Lars Erickssong and Rachel McAdams as Sigrit Ericksdóttir, delivering good performances, including their singing. It’s a celebration of all things Eurovison and if you want to read more about it, I highly recommend you check out this review.
There’s one key word in my summary that I want to address: Unpopular. The film repeatedly tells the audience, both through characters talking to each other and in how the band is represented visually, that Fire Saga is unsuccessful, untalented, and unpopular. There is an entire scene dedicated to side characters discussing how terrible Fire Saga is, continuously criticizing both them and their music (the joke being that the band was in the room all along).
But this narrative isn’t represented in the music. From the beginning of the film, we hear well produced and well sung music. There isn’t a part at the beginning of the film where their music is low quality and they slowly improve over the course of the film, it’s just always good. There’s no character growth happening here. The only way the audience can tell the music is bad is when the film tells us its bad. There is a clear disconnect between the audience’s opinion of the music and the film character’s opinions of it.
This is not a phenomenon exclusive to The Story of Fire Saga, however. A number of comedy films about singers or bands include this problem. The Lonely Island’s ‘Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping” focuses around a musician, Conner4Real, whose newest album tanks in the charts, but the music that we’re supposed to believe destroyed Conner’s career was incredibly well received, especially by fans of The Lonely Island, and maintains a high production value from start to finish.
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World focuses on a slacker bassist, Scott, who’s part of a struggling garage band, Sex-Bob-Omb. They enter a battle of the bands competition and are only able to get through a few of the rounds due to Scott defeating the other bands in battle (if you haven’t seen the film, please do. I am not giving it justice). However, once again, the music is incredibly well produced, written, and performed, with artists like Beck and Metric writing songs for it.
So why do these films pretend that their characters are unpopular, untalented, and unprofessional musicians when the music itself does not reflect that at all? Really, it comes down to money and ratings.
Songs are a way for films to make extra cash, allowing viewers to stream the music online or buy a copy of the soundtrack. This is an incredible incentive for filmmakers and production companies to produce the highest quality soundtracks they can, even if it goes against what the script says. Just look at Scott Pilgrim’s soundtrack, which featured 4th in The Guardians top 40 film soundtracks of all time, as well as multiple awards for its music. Popstar’s soundtrack hit #1 on the Billboard charts soon after its release and stayed on the charts for 71 weeks. With results like these, it’s no wonder these films make the music as great as it can possibly be.
There is a possibility that the film creators could try and create purposefully “bad” music, while also creating high quality music, then feature only the good music on their soundtrack. It would be pretty easy. I could probably whip up a terrible song right now just writing this piece. That said, creating purposefully bad music for your film is probably one of the fastest ways to make your audience get up and leave the cinema. Trying to walk the fine line between “bad enough that you know its bad” and “good enough so you don’t leave” is probably a difficult challenge in and of itself, making it easier for everyone to just create good music.
So is there anything a film creator can do to try to reflect the growth of its protagonists through the music they play? Well, to answer that, I’m going to have to tell you about Sing Street.
Sing Street is a 2016 musical/comedy/romance film set in Dublin in the 1980s. It centers around a young boy named Conor and his goal of creating a successful band. The film is a beautiful romanticisation of 80s Dublin and is a film I implore you to watch. The film clearly establishes that Conor is clueless about music, with him only starting a band to impress a girl. He relies on the talent of his friend Eamon and the music knowledge of his older brother, Brendan. What the audience sees is an unpopular and untalented protagonist, but one that is full to the brim with potential.
The film conveys to us the band and Conor’s musical progression through the film by giving the music itself character. In the beginning, the band is unconfident in their playstyle, not used to performing together. The music is low production quality, as you would expect of a group of teenagers in a sitting room. But as the film progresses and our characters develop their style and confidence, we see them playing high production value music as a cohesive whole. The music is an integral part to our protagonists’ journey.
In the films discussed above, the music feels separate to the characters’ journeys. It tells the audiences that the protagonists’ goals are not held back by their musical ability — they’re excellent at playing — but rather other factors, a lot of which are wholly unconnected to music. Sing Street shows us that music can be an integral part of our character, reflecting their journey and feature as an important theme in the film.
So will we see more comedic films following in the footsteps of Sing Street? The optimist in me hopes so, but the pessimist knows that it won’t be that case. It’s far too enticing to hire a few writers and producers to make an amazing soundtrack that stands alone as an album. Not that I’m complaining, of course. I still regularly listen to the Scott Pilgrim soundtrack. It’s a bop.
