The Mule
/A clear prestige contender for this year’s Oscars, “The Mule” finds Clint Eastwood on his first big screen foray since “Trouble With the Curve” (2012).
A fitting theme for an actor with a career as illustrious as Eastwood’s, perhaps, might be the Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” Opus 43, written in 1934. The second theme is played monophonically (a single note at a time, rather than with harmonies) on piano, reprised at three points throughout the trailer.
The trailer has Eastwood on monologue discussing how he was a “terrible father and terrible husband.” The first playing of the theme occurs around 0:42, meandering and pausing to allow for Eastwood’s monologue to come through, ending by 1:05. It appears again around 1:41, and at 1:51 we then hear a massive buzzing array of noise, as if Eastwood’s past sins and foibles have finally all come home to roost all at once. This soundscape is cut off at 2:08 as Eastwood’s exasperated sigh of contrition finally admits his ultimate culpability: “I’m sorry for what I’ve done.”
What’s probably most striking about this choice of musical theme is how much it contrasts with the themes expressed in “The Mule.” Being a drug mule is nothing if not to harbour a whole and complicit sense of guilt; this piano theme, by contrast, is innocent – almost infantile – in the simplicity of its melodic contour, comprising half a scale and mostly whole-bar and quarter notes in a major mode that wouldn’t feel out of place if used as a lullaby for a newborn. Instead, it is used to highlight just how dire and end-of-the-rope Eastwood’s situation is.
The effectiveness of this musical choice lies in the starkness of its delivery, allowing Eastwood’s unadulterated gruff voice to take its self-directed and -produced centre stage. The piano, awash in reverb and unfocused in its recording, amply reflects the man depicted in this trailer – full of regret and remorse, these feeling held back over time and only more sharply honed as a result.
– Curtis Perry
After forty-two years, Disney is dangling the promise of closure to this storied saga. While there is perhaps unsurprisingly nothing truly new on offer as the myriad narrative threads on this franchise begin to tie themselves neatly (for now, at least), the trailer does hold interest through a carefully executed aural procedure of anticipation, epic exposition, and a surprising—yet narratively satisfying—ending.