This
scene from Good Will Hunting will test your ability to determine an
appropriate entrance for the cue and to create an emotional context
that plays what you feel is the most appropriate interpretative anchor
without diminishing the very strong acting of Robin Williams and Matt
Damon. Be particularly aware of the underlying tempo as it may not be
immediately apparent. If you dont hit the cuts (which you probably
shouldnt) what are the other elements in the scene that will determine
the emotional shifts in your music. Focus on the underlying narrative
that is not spoken and try to highlight that narrative in a concise
musical statement.
Though Will Hunting (Matt Damon) has genius-level intelligence (such as
a talent for memorizing facts and an intuitive ability to prove
sophisticated mathematical theorems), he works as a janitor at MIT and
lives alone in a sparsely furnished apartment in an impoverished South
Boston neighborhood. An abused foster child, he subconsciously blames
himself for his unhappy upbringing and turns this self-loathing into a
form of self-sabotage in both his professional and emotional lives.
Hence, he is unable to maintain either a steady job or a steady
romantic relationship.
The first week of classes, Will solves a difficult graduate-level math
problem that Professor Gerald Lambeau (Stellan Skarsgård), a Fields
Medalist and combinatorialist, left on a chalkboard as a challenge to
his students, hoping someone might solve it by the semester's end.
Everyone wonders who solved it, and Lambeau puts another problem on the
board -- one that took him and his colleagues two years to prove. Will
is discovered in the act of solving it, and Lambeau initially believes
that Will is vandalizing the board and chases him away. When Will turns
out to have solved it correctly, Lambeau tries to track Will down.
Meanwhile, Will attacks a youth who had bullied him years before in
kindergarten, and he now faces imprisonment after attacking a police
officer who was responding to the fight. Realizing Will might have the
potential to be a great mathematician, such as the genius Évariste
Galois, Lambeau goes to Will's trial and intervenes on his behalf,
offering him a choice: either Will can go to jail, or he can be
released into Lambeau's personal supervision, where he must study
mathematics and see a psychotherapist. Will chooses the latter even
though he seems to believe that he does not need therapy.
Five psychologists fail to connect with Will. Out of sheer desperation,
Lambeau finally calls on Sean Maguire (Robin Williams), an estranged
old friend and MIT classmate of his. Sean differs from his five
predecessors in that he is from Will's neighborhood and pushes back at
Will and is eventually able to get through to him and his hostile,
sarcastic defense mechanisms. At one point, Will analyzes a watercolor
painting that Sean had done himself and concludes that it reflects
Sean's suppressed feelings and guilt over the premature death of his
wife. Sean becomes offended and hostile and grabs Will by the throat,
threatening to sink his chances for reform, at which point Will ends
the appointment and walks out; Lambeau walks in believing that Will has
ruined his chances with yet another therapist. However, Sean sees Will
as a challenge and tells Lambeau to bring him back each week.
In a later session, Will is particularly struck when Sean tells him how
he gave up his ticket to see the Red Sox in the 1975 World Series
(missing Carlton "Pudge" Fisk's famous home run in Game 6) in order to
meet and spend time with a stranger in a bar, who would later become
his wife. Will is encouraged to try to establish a relationship with
Skylar (Minnie Driver), a young woman he met at a bar near Harvard.
This doctor-patient relationship, however, is far from one-sided. Will
challenges Sean in the same way that Sean is encouraging Will to take a
good, hard, objective look at himself and his life. Sean's own
pathology is that he is unable and unwilling to even consider another
romantic relationship in the aftermath of his beloved wife's premature
death from cancer several years before, possibly the primary reason why
Sean agrees to take Will on as a client.
Meanwhile, Lambeau pushes Will so hard to excel that Will eventually
refuses to go to the job interviews that Lambeau has arranged for him
for positions that might prove challenging, even to his immense
talents. Lambeau and Sean also squabble about Will's future. Will's
accidental witnessing of this furious quarrel somehow acts as a
catalyst for his decision to enter a deeper level of trust and sharing
with Sean. He has apparently realized from this event that the
situation is a little more complex than Will vs. The World. He now sees
that these mentors are every bit as human, fallible, and conflicted as
he is.
Skylar asks Will to move to California with her, where she will begin
medical school at Stanford. Will panics at the thought. Skylar then
expresses support about his past, which is received as patronization
and triggers a tantrum in which Will storms out of the dorm while in a
state of undress. He shrugs off the work he's doing for Lambeau as "a
joke," even though Lambeau is incapable of solving some of the theorems
and admittedly envies Will. Lambeau begs Will not to throw it all away,
but Will walks out on him anyway.
Sean points out that Will is so adept at anticipating future failure in
his personal and romantic relationships, that he either allows them to
fizzle out or deliberately bails in order to avoid the risk of future
emotional pain. When Will then provides a whimsical reply to Sean's
very serious query of what he wants to do with his life, Sean simply
shows him the door. When Will further tells his best friend Chuckie
(Ben Affleck) that he wants to be a laborer for the rest of his life,
Chuckie becomes brutally honest with Will: He believes it's an "insult"
for Will to waste his potential as a laborer, and that his recurring
wish is to knock on Will's door in the morning when he picks him up for
work and find that he just isn't there, that he has left without saying
goodbye. Chuckie's honesty hits home with Will more than anyone else's,
even Sean, a trained professional.
Will goes to another therapy session, where he and Sean share that they
were both victims of child abuse. At first, Will is defensive and
resentful at Sean's repeated reassurances that "It's not your fault,"
but he eventually breaks down in tearful acknowledgment. Finally, after
much self-reflection, Will decides to cease being a victim of his own
inner demons and to take charge of his life. When his buddies present
him with a rebuilt Chevy Nova for his 21st birthday, he decides to go
to California and reunite with Skylar, setting aside his lucrative
corporate and government job offers.
Will leaves a brief note for Sean explaining what he's doing, using one
of Sean's own quips, "I had to go see about a girl." Sean also leaves
to travel the world, though not before reconciling with Lambeau. The
movie ends as Chuckie poignantly discovers, in fulfillment of his own
long-standing wish, that Will has left for a better life. Will is then
shown starting his life-affirming drive to California for a new
beginning with Skylar and a leap into an unpredictable future.
How and where will you exit?
Film Score Theory Analysis
Rick Beato
has a great youtube channel that includes a very bare-to-bones approach
to music theory applications in modern film. In this video he
discusses Tritone, M2nd and m3rd Triad progressions. They are
presented cyclically as direct progressions to and from one
another. Consider alternate chordal positions (63, 64 etc.) and,
as he briefly mentions, dissonant suspensions within the triads of
these progressions
