Sounds From The Sunken Place
Words by Liam Horgan
It’s been nearly 4 years since Jordan Peele broke the box office with his cultural smash hit, Get Out. Peele’s film was a timely critique on white-dominated liberal politics. For those who need a recap, Peele’s film centres on Chris (played by Daniel Kaluuya), who is visiting his white girlfriend’s parents in the countryside for the first time. At first, Chris interprets the family's overtly accommodating nature as nervous attempts to engage with their daughter's interracial relationship. As his visit progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to uncover that the Armitage family are using black bodies and souls as mindless slaves in an attempt to prolong their own lives.
Jordan Peele’s film is not only a timely allegory, criticism and satire but shows an attention to the aural qualities of film. The allegorical nature of the Get Out’s narrative, shows a closer examination of the film's score is needed. Like other genre films, the horror score can often be an afterthought. As influential as the scores for Psycho and Jaws were, they left a template for others to easily mimic. In contrast to those iconic scores, one aspect of Peele’s film which I feel is overlooked is its score, despite Get Out’s undeniable impactful cinematic legacy. Composed by Michael Abels (who would compose Peele’s follow up hit, Us), Get Out’s score at first seems typical of the horror genre, yet Peele and Abels show their understanding of how important music is to genre filmmaking. What makes Abels’ score so unique is his use of voices to enhance the musical compositions. In doing so, Abels entwines the score with the film’s narrative. By imbuing the score with qualities that reflect the theme and message behind the narrative, the music of Get Out becomes integral to unlocking the intentions of Peele’s film.
Art by Liam Horgan.
Peele treats music in Get Out, as a vital player in his narrative. Jordan Peele wanted the film’s focus to be on Chris and so every technical piece of the medium connects to him. This can be seen in Peele’s subjective camera work, for example. When Chris and Rose first arrive at the Armitage household, his first encounter outside with Rose’s parents is shown from a distance, with the camera slowly backing away from them, as if warning us of the impending danger. Similarly, Abels’ score links Chris to the very body of the film. As the protagonist, Chris becomes not only our focus visually but also aurally. In essence, the music of Get Out elicits a distinction between Chris and the Armitage family. Not only is he physically different, aurally Chris is made the sole target of the warnings issued by the voices we hear. In an interview with Billboard, Abels stated that Jordan Peele “wanted something sparse but that also recalled classic horror films. And he had another specific request: he wanted African-American voices in the score that would represent that African souls lost from slavery, lynchings and other social injustices. They served as Chris’s tie to his ancestors, while also warning Chris of the danger ahead”.
In the hypnosis sequence, when Missy (Catherine Keener) hypnotises Chris, we are introduced to the Sunken Place. The Sunken Place is a dark void of nothingness to which we see Chris confined by hypnosis at several points in the film. Peele himself has described it as representing a system which silences the voices of minorities.
The Sunken Place means we're marginalized. No matter how hard we scream, the system silences us.
— Jordan Peele (@JordanPeele) March 17, 2017
The Sunken Place acts as a physical prison, allegorical phenomena and political critique. Here is where the ghostly voices that haunt Get Out’s opening theme emanate from. The Sunken Place is social marginalization given physical form within Peele’s narrative, a place that personifies and vocalises the silence felt by marginalized African Americans. These voices are the first thing we hear during the film’s opening credits. Using an eight-person choir, singing in Swahili, Abels’ score is instantly recognisable with its whispered ghost-like voices acting as a warning to Chris, and in turn the audience, to essentially ‘get out’ of the narrative. A breakdown of the phrases chanted shows how the soundtrack quite literally acts as a deterrent to Chris.
The phrases spoken are as follows: ‘Brother, Sikiliza kwa wahenga’ which translates to ‘brother listen to the ancestors’; ‘Kimbia, unakimbia mbali’ translates to ‘run away, you must run away fast!’ and ‘Kuohoa mwenyewe’ to ‘save yourself’. The voices heard within the soundtrack represent Chris’ ancestors and the souls lost to racial injustices. The lost souls have become adrift, doomed to reside within the Sunken Place and act as purveyors of danger, nothing more. These lost black souls reach out from the Sunken Place to warn Chris of the dangerous nature of the Armitage clan, acting almost independently of the score, almost like that of another character. Chris’ inability to understand their voices is his undoing, leading to his entrapment in the sunken place alongside them. It is the specific use of these voices that transform the score into a liminal boundary between the physical world seen on screen and the meta-physical world of the Sunken Place.
The score is only one aspect of Get Out that makes the film so effective. But the attention to detail shown by both Jordan Peele and Michael Abels in said score pays off. There’s a lot to digest when watching Peele’s film and the score is one of the least obvious elements. However, by choosing to pay as much attention to the score as they do the other elements of film, Peele and Abels create a haunting atmosphere, which stays with the audience long after the final credits.
