Kathryn Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite” is filled with uneasy tension from start to finish as it follows the immediate threat of a nuclear missile heading straight for the United States. This driving tension and anxiety is largely due to the team of craftsmen, which included composer Volker Bertelmann, editor Kirk Baxter and sound designer Paul Ottosson, who worked closely behind the scenes on their respective crafts to bring it together.
Bigelow’s film, now streaming on Netflix, is divided into three chapters, telling the story from three different perspectives. It all begins in the White House Situation Room as Captain Olivia Walker (Rebecca Ferguson) works with Major Daniel Gonzalez (Anthony Ramos) and his team at a military base in Alaska. An incoming missile gives them 20 minutes to react and respond accordingly.
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Ottosson says reading the script was an anxious experience in itself. “Reading it, I was really tense and curious to see how it was all going to play out because the structure was different,” he says. Bertelmann knew that the score had to be developed with each chapter. “You have to have a few things in your pocket to raise the tension,” he says. “The opening presents the whole musical palette of what we can expect and what film it will be about. You hear those first sounds and know where we are. We’re not in a romance. We’re in a thriller that will be quite dark in some areas.” But it took a few attempts to mark those first moments to succeed. Bertelmann says he worked on crafting the score, taking a step back, then moving on to the second chapter.
In cutting these moments, Baxter used the score to track the temperature of his editing, especially at the start of the second chapter. Baxter says:[Bertelmann’s] the score peaks at the end of chapter one and you are reset. You get these clues that come in with little bits of audio. He adds that the idea was to make the audience wonder what will happen next. Is this the consequence of the missile impact? Instead, he says, “These sprays start, and then you go back into panic mode, and it stays there. It’s the score that quickly tells you you’re in.
Ottosson’s approach was to examine the sound of each chapter. “In chapters one and two, people are confident and educated to do something. But of course things go wrong, and I tried to make things more tumultuous because you can’t control the environment.” Chapter two resets everything to the start of the day to show more departments. In the third chapter, attention returns to the Oval Office. This time, it is Idris Elba, who was only heard via the black box, who reveals himself. When the day resets for the last time in the film, its sequence brings humanity into chaos.
Baxter says: “In the first chapter, we stayed with Rebecca and put Volker’s music at the center of our attention. » In the third chapter, which shifts to the President’s point of view, it was about the human experience and “one man’s decision. The silence and Volker’s music is really what makes this work so great. Having the chaos at the beginning gives you a great appreciation for the delicate human factor of chapter three.”
The decision not to reveal it sooner was always intentional. “I leaned into the black square and gave it a lot of screen time,” Baxter explains. “Especially in that second chapter, when he’s just sitting there and they’re waiting for answers. The shots hang, and it’s just silence. It’s like looking down a well. It builds the anticipation of wanting to meet him and get answers.”
The final chapter really delves into the president’s emotional state of mind. He is the last man to make the decision. “He also has to deal with human problems, and there are a lot of things that don’t work that make him so moving,” Baxter says. While much of the story was on the page and scripted by screenwriter Noah Oppenheim, some moments came together during editing. An example is in the third chapter where the president had a phone call with Russia. “It wasn’t written to air during all of this because we’d already been through it. On the page, you’d say, ‘We don’t need to hear this whole conversation again.’ But in the president’s trip, there’s a joy in reliving that on his face, and it heightens all the tension of, ‘I need a minute,’ and then you go to Africa.”
Suddenly, wide shots of his wife on safari with Ottosson’s elephant sounds appeared. He says, “It kind of puts this pressure on this scene, you know, and on all of humanity, to just want to have a connection between people. »
The craftsmen also had access to a military advisor, Dan Karbler, who was available at any time. Ottosson, who relied on Karbler’s advice, says: “It was about staying true to what could happen in these rooms and these situations. It was never about what a cool sound was, what they felt about how it sounded. It was ‘What would you feel in this situation and what would it sound like?'”
