‘Witch’ is terrifying
By JACOB RICH
Senior Arts Editor
A24 is quietly killing it. Do peo-
ple realize how many of the great-
est films of the
2010’s this New
York-based
distribution
company
has
financed? None
of their films
make an enor-
mous
amount
of money — the
few that have done huge numbers
include “Ex Machina,” my favor-
ite film of 2015, and the critically
acclaimed Amy Winehouse doc
“Amy” — but almost all of them are
innovative and excellent. You have
them to thank for “The Spectacu-
lar Now,” “Obvious Child,” “Under
the Skin,” “The End of the Tour”
and “Room.”
And now we have “The Witch,”
a tiny-budget period horror film
with a brand-new writer/director
attached (Robert Eggers). Stuck
somewhere between “The Shin-
ing” and “Evil Dead,” this is a bru-
tal, tension-filled exploration of
Christian guilt so uncomfortable
and disturbing that it made two
couples sitting in front of me get up
and exit the theater 10 minutes in. I
didn’t blame them for leaving. This
is a tremendous film that continues
A24’s streak of high quality releas-
es, but it’s not for everyone.
“The Witch” is as much about
a time and a place as it is about a
situation. The film takes us back to
primitive America, where surviv-
ing each winter was not a guaran-
tee. Today, we dull our fear of death
with science and comfort, but the
harsh wilderness of 17th century
New England lacked both of those
luxuries. Instead, the God-fearing
puritans relied on devout Christi-
anity to make sense of their harsh
existence. In their world, heaven
and hell are unquestionably real,
as are evils that lurk in the woods.
In an inversion of the classic
“don’t show the monster until the
end” Spielberg routine, we see the
witch right away. We’re talking
classic witch in the woods here
— this is a gross, wrinkly baby-
devouring witch. She’s not mis-
understood. She’s a fucking evil
witch, and she’s scary and ugly and
hangs with the devil. Her purpose?
To torture a family of excommu-
nicated Christians, struggling to
make ends meet on a thatched-roof
farm.
The heart of the film’s dread is a
youthful fear embodied in some of
the best performances by children
I’ve ever seen in a film. Newcom-
ers Anya Taylor-Joy and Harvey
Scrimshaw bring us back to that
primal emotional experience we
had after lying to our mothers or
stealing an extra cookie after din-
ner — that feeling, lingering for just
a few minutes, that our dishonesty
might make us burn in hell for-
ever. As the family descends into
religious hysteria, we see the terri-
fying implications of how the dog-
matic belief of the parents impacts
their children.
The power of these scenes
would not be as effective were it
not for Eggers’s strict adherence
to period social customs and man-
ners of speech. Even more impres-
sive is the actors’s delivery of said
speech, so believable that the dia-
logue maintains a strict separation
from our contemporary reality, but
so emotional that we can’t help but
empathize with the family’s horri-
fying plight.
While it does drag around its
midpoint, “The Witch” quickly
maintains pace as slow-burn sym-
phony of familial tension that ends
in an electrifying coda. Adhering
to the formalist school of Bergman
and Kubrick, Eggers and his edi-
tor (newcomer Louise Ford) have
shaped a thriller that is structur-
ally compelling and nuanced.
It’s wonderful to see so much
new, hungry talent getting the
platform they deserve. Films like
“The Witch” shouldn’t exist, finan-
cially speaking. They’re heavily
niche products that don’t make a
lot of money. But thanks to mid-
tier distributors like A24, cinema
can once again exist between the
blockbuster and the no-budget
indie. We need more movies like
“The Witch.”
A24
You played yourself.
FILM REVIEW
A-
The Witch
A24
Rave & Quality 16
‘Zootopia’ showcased
By VANESSA WONG
Daily Arts Writer
Move over, New York City; the
trendiest urban metropolis is now
none other than “Zootopia,” Dis-
ney’s latest animated brainchild.
An urban city created by ani-
mals for animals only, “Zootopia”
marks the largest animated world
the studio has created to date, with
double the number of digital mod-
els used in “Big Hero 6.” Matthias
Lechner, the film’s Art Director
of Environments spoke about the
world-building process on Thurs-
day, Feb. 18 on campus in a lecture
sponsored by the Michigan Ani-
mation Club.
Lechner emphasized that the
“city should be a character itself:”
it should feel imaginative, but still
be grounded in believability — this
is a modern city, after all. To begin
the design process, Lechner’s team
mentally walks through a typical
city experience from the eyes of an
animal.
The research started by looking
into organic architecture shapes,
particularly the work of Sagrada
Familia architect Antoni Gaudi.
The shapes of buildings and city
planning are informed by ani-
mal behavior and habitats. Zoo-
topia has a city center with outer
districts representing different
artificially-created climate zones:
Bunny Burrow, a hilly, rural coun-
tryside with kid cubbyholes in
houses for the constantly growing
bunny families; Sahara Square, a
slick desert canyon with an active
nightlife to match its nocturnal
lifestyle; Tundratown, an icy locale
with Russian-inspired architec-
ture; Little Rodentia, a model town
scaled to the size of a mouse and
the Rainforest District, a towering
tropical borough. Because animals
love nature, buildings are organi-
cally integrated into the backdrop.
Lechner believes that “a model
is successful if ‘life’ is felt, but the
audience doesn’t really know why.”
He stressed the importance of cre-
ating a backstory for every single
detail about the city and how it
came to be.
To recreate the feel of a city’s
ever-progressing history, build-
ings showcase different eras of
architecture while sprinklers arti-
ficially create the rainforest dis-
tricts’ constant showers. The city
infrastructure contains tall metal
pipes disguised as plant roots,
and a plethora of car options fit
every animal shape and size. The
team also created a subway map
connecting the different districts,
and contemporary products, bill-
boards and advertisements target-
ing specific animal needs peek out
behind — details seemingly minor,
but essential enough in building a
fully fleshed out world that signage
design merited its own job title.
Even the flags in Little Rodentia
are stiffer because they require
smaller pieces of cloth. This metic-
ulous attention to detail is what
makes the world of Zootopia burst
with vibrancy.
Lechner chuckled when a stu-
dent asked about “Easter Eggs”
— hidden references to other Dis-
ney animated pictures — scattered
throughout the movie, saying that
as a parent of a young child, he feels
confident that “Zootopia” contains
a wealth of little background sto-
ries to withstand repeat viewings.
One such instance to watch out for
is a calendar featuring “Big Hero
6” ’s San Fransokyo in the police
chief’s office.
However, it’s important to note
that environment design is not
an isolated process. Designers
and screenwriters work closely
together at the beginning of the
filmmaking process, meeting in
collaborative meetings at least
every six weeks for critiques so
that the storyline and animation
can build off each other and grow
in the same direction. Though
Lechner estimated 80 percent
of designs didn’t make it to the
final movie, his team can tweak
elements to fit new storylines.
For example, a scene featuring
a Bunny Burrow house was cut,
but the house design was adapted
to become the train station in the
final version of the film.
For every shot, the art direc-
tor oversees sketch creation,
which the modeling department
digitally arranges. Next, the looks
department, supervised by the
production director, takes these
basic shapes and adds textures,
surface colors, and other artifi-
cially created details. The opti-
mization team uses a program to
bounce light off shapes to further
render color and detail. The pro-
cess for each scene takes about
a month and a half, though the
teams do work on multiple scenes
concurrently.
A delightfully bumbling tale
of talking, two-footed animals
needs an environment with the
zeal to match. With its large scale
and lovingly crafted details, “Zoo-
topia” delivers.
“Zootopia” will be released on
March 4, 2016.
Baroque quartet
By DAYTON HARE
Daily Arts Writer
Music making is, and always
has been, a communal activity.
Though we lack an abundance of
concrete docu-
mentation,
it
is likely that
the very earli-
est instances of
music making
involved com-
munities
of
people coming
together to sing
and play early
percussion
instruments.
Over
time
these
gatherings
developed in complexity and rit-
ualistic practices — both social
and spiritual — sprang up around
them, many of which still exist
in some form today. However,
in many tradition music mak-
ing also began to become more
grandiose, slowly becoming dis-
connected with its communal
roots. This is arguably the case
with the European tradition of
classical music, as is particularly
evident in the advent of large
symphonic orchestras and the
‘opera-as-spectacle’ culture that
has developed over the last sev-
eral centuries.
Despite all this, the social
nature of music making is still
very evident in specific areas,
notably that of chamber music.
It is often chamber musicians,
rather than large ensembles,
who can be found participating
in outreach events and com-
munity activities (a fact which,
granted, has as much to do with
organizational
challenges
as
ensemble ethos), but chamber
music’s social nature is perhaps
most obvious in the closeness of
the performers.
In the early history of cham-
ber music, often it was played by
a group of friends for personal
enjoyment, and in today’s profes-
sional world this is still the case
for many performers. Ensemble
Nevermind, the group of friends
who will be bringing their music
to Ann Arbor on Wednesday
evening, is no exception.
“I used to study the modern
flute for pedagogie, and Baroque
flute,” Anna Besson, who is the
flutist of Ensemble Nevermind,
said in an interview with The
Michigan Daily. “And Robin,
the gamba player, and Jean,
the harpsichord player, used to
study the viola da gamba and
harpsichord because it’s really
[the] early music department.”
Besson went on to explain the
origins of Ensemble Nevermind
in more detail, and how the play-
ers metas peers at conservatory.
“So we basically met at Con-
servatoire supérieur de Paris
… except Louis, we all used to
study there. We started to play
together in another ensemble,
with singers, and finally we just
found out that it worked very
well, the four of us,” Besson said.
“We used to get all together for
chamber music or for our exami-
nations, for example … we used
to share our friendship just to
participate [in] each examina-
tion. And so we decided, because
we were close friends, to go
ahead after our studies and start
something together.”
The four founders of Ensem-
ble Nevermind — Besson, Louis
Creac’h, Robin Pharo and Jean
Rondeau — brought the group
into
existence
about
three
years ago, creating a perfor-
mance group which special-
izes in chamber music from the
Baroque period (c. 1600-1750).
“For concerts, of course, it’s
a quartet, so we can play music
from, I would say, end of 17th
century … until, I would say the
end of [the] 18th century, because
after this period of course harp-
sichord and viola da gamba
disappear from orchestras and
music chambers, because of the
Revolution.”
In addition to their profes-
sional specialization in Baroque
and other early music, the
youthful friends of Ensemble
Nevermind enjoy playing other
genres together for recreation.
“For fun, we like to play a lot
of music, so we improvise a lot
when rehearsing,” Besson said.
“It can be like contemporary
music, or jazz music, or tradi-
tional music, it depends. It helps
… to relax also.”
Besson also spoke about the
ensemble’s upcoming perfor-
mance in Ann Arbor this week,
saying the program to be pre-
sented will largely be for quartet
“In Baroque music ensembles
you always have a trio, even
if there are four musicians,
because two of them are playing
basso continuo, so they play the
same part,” Besson said. “And
we’ve decided to really play
music for quartet, which means
that viola da gamba and harpsi-
chord have two separate parts.”
Besson also described some
of the specific pieces Ensemble
Nevermind will be performing,
detailing her history with them
and talking about the compos-
ers.
“When we decided to read
the “Paris Quartet,” by [Georg
Philipp] Telemann, which are
very [sic] written for quartet, it
was like really what we wanted
to do,” Besson said. “Because
we perform like a string quar-
tet, in fact — there is no leader,
it is ensemble, we just act like
if we’re a string quartet. With
a first violin, second violin, alto
— ah well, viola — and cello, it’s
really the same.”
Ensemble Nevermind’s CD of
Quentin and Guillemain, among
other composers, will be coming
out on the 22nd of March, the
first release of the group.
“[François]
Couperin
[is]
the last composer we will play,
because sometimes you have the
continuo with harpsichord and
viola da gamba, but sometimes
the gamba also plays a soloist
part,” Besson said. “So some-
times it’s a trio, sometimes it’s a
quartet, so this is very interest-
ing, it’s in between.”
Besson also explained some
of the philosophical reasons
behind what Ensemble Nev-
ermind does, and the goals of
the group in terms of societal
impact.
“Usually people always ask
‘Why ‘Nevermind?’ ’ And in a
way — yes we are French, but it
doesn’t matter, in the sense that
music belongs to everybody,”
Besson said. “It doesn’t belong to
people from 60 years-old, as we
usually see in the concert hall,
at least in France. And (the age
discrepancy) is a pity, because
we want to touch everybody, and
especially young people.”
Besson concluded on an opti-
mistic tone, conveying her hope
that through Ensemble Never-
mind’s music they might change
the way early music is perceived.
“So maybe, with the fact that
we have taken some funny pic-
tures, and some videos that
we’re not wearing black clothes
— we just want to change a bit
this vision of Baroque music
… music belongs to everybody.
There is not an age to listen to
Baroque or classical music.”
COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW
Ensemble
Nevermind
Wed., Feb.
24, 8 p.m.
Walgreen
Drama Center
Free
KANYE WEEK
Why I don’t love ’Ye
By KEN SELANDER
Daily Arts Writer
I have a very dirty secret that
will make most people with a
musical inclination gasp: I’ve never
listened to much Kanye. As terrible
as this might sound, let me reflect
on how I caught myself commit-
ting such an unspeakable hip-hop
sin.
You see, there’s a lot of music out
there in the world — a whole lot. If
you want to bring out some fancier
words you could say there’s a pleth-
ora, or perhaps a surplus. So much
that one doesn’t have time to listen
to all there is. I’ve never listened
to The College Dropout or 808s &
Heartbreak. And yes, of course
I’ve heard singles like “Heart-
less,” “Jesus Walks” and “The New
Workout Plan” at a party or in a
friend’s car. But there’s just so
much of Yeezy’s discography I
don’t know.
Are you angry with me? Or
just disappointed? That’s OK.
Let me bring the discussion to
a place you might find yourself,
too. When I browse around Spo-
tify or YouTube and find some
tune that will keep me feeling
good while I’m strolling around
campus, I don’t just listen to it a
few times and then put it on the
shelf. I abuse the song. I listen
until I know all of the words. I
press play until I dread the song,
until I can’t enjoy it for the next
six months because I’m so sick of
hearing it by the time I’m done
with it. I’m currently in the mid-
dle of this process with much of
the Arctic Monkeys discography
and Born Sinner by J. Cole.
Listening to a song this fre-
quently, or at least in relation to
all the other music available, is
taxing and time consuming. One
artist I simply haven’t focused
on is Kanye West, but I do have
some working knowledge of his
work because hearing his songs
is inevitable. While it seems he’s
advanced to a miraculous level
of media attention since some-
where around the time he inter-
rupted Taylor Swift at the VMAs,
his music has been on the radio far
before that. “Gold Digger,” “Flash-
ing Lights” and “N****s in Paris”
are prime examples of songs I’ve
heard despite the dense walls of
the rock I live under.
Being conscious of my gap in
popular music knowledge, I fig-
ured I’d give Yeezus a play when it
came out.
All the hype was there. I figured
it’d prove to be solid ammunition
for some future casual conversa-
tions. But man, it was harsh on
the ears. I had to cut my listening
short somewhere in the middle
of “Blood on the Leaves.” For all
I know, “Guilt Trip” “Send It Up”
and “Bound 2” may be rad tunes,
but I wasn’t feeling it. I know what
Kanye was doing, but he did too
much: Yeezus was too artificially
artsy for me to take any joy out of
it. Kanye was simply trying too
hard, but then again that’s Kanye
as I understand it.
Yeezus was not my jam. I said it.
I’ll start bracing myself for the shit
storm.
So as bizarre as it sounds, I’ve
barely listened to any Kanye and
I despise Yeezus. I’ll listen to The
Life of Pablo, though I fear it’ll be
akin to Yeezus, but appearances by
Kendrick and Chance the Rapper
sound appealing. Classic Kanye
records will definitely make their
way to my playlist in the coming
months when I get around to it, but
as a student there’s only so much
time to listen to music and I simply
haven’t prioritized Mr. West.
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, February 24, 2016 — 5A
FILM PREVIEW