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With reference to sound design and cinematography, what ideas and feeling does Stephen Frears wish to get across the audience in Rob’s fantasy sequence in ‘High Fidelity’?

The scene opens with Rob leaving his office at the back of his record store. As he leaves the office the camera follows him and we can hear the song playing over the speaker system in the store. The line in the song says “Have you ever watched a moon beam as it passes by your window frame?”. The song is very mellow and soft. It does not have much rhythm and it is very calming. The music is diegetic and appears to echo the atmosphere of the scene although an atmosphere has not really been set.

Rob stops and notices something at the other end of the store. As Rob stops so does the camera. The matching movements between the protagonist and the camera creates a bond between the character and the audience. As he moves, we move. This bond is important in the scene as Rob appears to do some seemingly questionable things but we must keep our sympathies with the character. Frears forces the bond upon the audience with the parallel movements and keeping the camera close to Rob at all times.

Rob clearly notices someone and does not appear pleased by who it is. The camera straight cuts to an establishing shot of Ian (Rob’s supposed nemesis) flicking through some records. Frears uses the establishing shot effectively as it creates a sense of distance between the audience and the new character. The long shot lasts for 4 seconds. There is a long gap on this shot to show that we should be wary of this man and not let him too close easily. Having the first shot of Ian as a long shot, Frears also reiterates the bond between Rob and the audience as Rob is very wary of Ian just as we should be.

Ian walks towards Rob and stops opposite him. This is like two opposing sides, one at one end the other at the other. They are squaring up to one another and the audience doesn’t know who has the power and the camera flits between them showing the reaction shots of the two characters every time in a medium shot. The shots tend to stay on Rob for a longer period of time than they do with Ian because the audience care more about Rob’s reaction than Ian’s. By cutting away from Ian every second or two and focusing on Rob for three to five seconds at a time we begin to disregard Ian’s reactions even more than we did anyway.

At one point during the characters conversation Ian’s pager goes off. The sound of the pager is particularly annoying as it continues to beep for what appears to be a long time even though it’s just a couple of seconds. Adding insult to Rob’s injury he checks the page and it’s from Laura, which Ian smugly tells Rob. We can see Rob is getting angry by the interruption to the conversation he didn’t want to have in the first place, coupled with Ian’s hippie-like phrasing and tone of voice, with everything he says and the general aura Ian emits. The camera cuts from a shot of Ian to a mid shot of Rob and then zooms in on his face making the shot a close up. We see Rob is shaking with rage and his eyes seethe with fury.

As Ian asks the question “Shall we leave it at that then?” (his tone of voice indicating that he has control of the situation) Rob’s anger erupts and he verbally abuses Ian to the point of him fleeing the store scared.

The music on the soundtrack is still ‘The Moonbeam Song’ by Harry Nilsson but now the atmosphere of the scene has changed it appears completely contrapuntal to the scene.

The audience are shocked by Rob’s outburst as normally he just lets things happen to him and doesn’t do anything about them. To make sure the audience are completely taken aback by Rob’s attack, the camera cuts to shot of all the foreground action. We see everything head on. We face the cash desk with Barry and Dick sat behind it enthralled by Rob’s eruption and we see Rob edging towards Ian (who is pretty much cowering in his boots) before he leaves the frame. As Rob edges towards Ian the camera edges slightly as well again echoing Rob’s movements to keep us on his side. Ian leaves the frame but the camera does not follow him, it stays on Rob who triumphantly takes a cigarette out of his pocket and lights it evidently pleased with himself.

Still shocked by the attack Frears leaves the audience no time to process what they had just witnessed as he uses a straight cut to jump back to Ian facing Rob again saying “shall we leave it at that then?”

It is now clear to the audience that Rob has just imagined that would be a great thing to be able to say to Ian and a great way to end the conversation, but it was just a fantasy.

Frears keeps the audience guessing this way throughout the rest of the scene. Rob’s fantasy was not induced in a typical Hollywood fashion which would have a character gazing up to the sky thoughtfully or have the screen stars to lose focus and dissolve into the flashback or fantasy. By not obviously introducing the fantasy the director keeps the audience confused and on tenterhooks to find out what will happen next. The audience has become comfortable with Rob as a character. We can predict how he will react. We know he doesn’t like confrontation and would rather just let things roll and then analyse them later. By showing us what’s inside Rob’s head (his fantasies) Frears is allowing the audience to learn more about Rob keeping us close to him.

After Ian has asked Rob his question for the second time it becomes obvious that this is a fantasy because the music changes from ‘The Moonbeam Song’ to a high tempo fast rock, guitar and drum piece called ‘Juice (know the ledge)’ by Eric Barber and William Griffin.

Rob tries to pounce on Ian appearing as if he is going to physically attack him this time. As Rob swoops forward Barry and Dick launch themselves over the counter and hold Rob back as the music changes. All Rob’s life is accompanied by a soundtrack.

It is the music change which tells the audience that this is also a fantasy as the music is non-diegetic but totally parallel to the scene. Rob screams at Ian swearing wildly and fighting at Barry and Dick to let him get to Ian. Ian realises this is his chance to leave and makes a run for the door as Rob still screams after him. This time the camera follows Ian out of the store and we watch as he runs to the exit and trembles trying to pry the door open. The camera cuts back to a close up of Rob and zooms in quickly to make the shot an extreme close up as he is still screaming for Ian to “Get ready motherfucker”.

Again a straight cut is used to cut back to ‘reality’ and ‘The Moonbeam Song’ is once again playing over the speakers. Ian poses his question again to Rob who this time does not react immediately. The camera cuts to a shot of the foreground again as Dick reaches for the phone and smashes it against an unsuspecting Ian’s mouth. As the phone smashes against Ian’s head you hear it ‘brrrring’ and then another song (this time ‘Doing It Anyway’ by ‘Apartment 26)’ takes over ‘The Moonbeam Song’ and plays over the top of the scene.

The music can only be described as messy and thrown together. It is fast paced and all the instruments playing are doing what they want. This can also be said for the framing of this scenario. The actors are all over the place in the frame, it is fast paced and total chaos is ensuing.

The edits have now become a lot quicker and in some instances there are three to four shots per second. All the actors are involved in beating Ian to a pulp and the audience cheers them on. The music helps build the atmosphere of violence in the scene and we begin to will them to beat Ian to within an inch of his life.

The characters drag Ian to the entrance of the store and throw him on the floor. They kick him and roll him around. If seen full on this could be considered as sickening violence but Frears only lets the audience see the attackers. He blocks our view of the victim by putting the camera behind one of the rows containing records. By the time the audience are allowed to see Ian’s bloody face it looks about as beaten as Wiley Coyote does after he walks into one of his own traps. It looks as silly as that too.

The comedy continues in anime style as Dick (the most harmless man on earth) grabs a radio from a window bay and brings it over to throw on Ian. As Dick hauls the radio out of its’ socket we hear the electric spark on the sound track. We know this is silly and not real and so we continue to will on the violence.

We see Dick, Rob and Barry in a low angle shot towering over Ian. Rob shouts “Do it Man!” and Dick crashes the radio down on Ian’s head.

The screen quickly fades to black and then Ian appears still in his stance and we know he is about to ask Rob the same question again. As we fade back in we can hear a tweeting sound on the sound track confirming the anime style of violence from the previous shot and we know it was only a joke, only Rob’s fantasy.

Ian once again asks Rob “shall we leave it at that then?” and this time Ian just walks out of the store maintaining his control over the situation as the camera zooms in on Rob to show he is still packed with anger and slowly the scene dissolves away on Rob’s face leaving the audience to ponder his thoughts.

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