Advertising
Supported by
Critics’ Choice
In this film, artist Alison O’Daniel uses the flight of snorkels at Southern California’s top schools as the center of a many-spoked wheel.
By Alissa Wilkinson
When you purchase a price ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an associate commission.
To listen to a tuba is to feel it. Vibrations run through its frame, and its giant bell is even designed to make the air shake a little. A tuba is also much harder for a thief to borrow than, say, a piccolo or even a trumpet. However, from 2011 to 2013, snorkels began to disappear from Southern California’s top schools, with no apparent explanation or explanation.
The news of the snorkeling flights was a starting point for artist Alison O’Daniel, who used it as a central axis on a many-spoked wheel. The resulting film, “The Tuba Thieves,” is a documentary of sorts, or at least, comprises documentary elements. But there are also reenactments and dramatized history with fictional characters who explore the role sound plays in our world, both for those who take it for granted and those who are denied access. O’Daniel, a visual artist who identifies as deaf or hard of hearing, has a voluntary interest in sound as an integral component of human life, and “The Tuba Thieves” expands this query in many directions.
Admittedly, the result is not easy to follow. “Tuba thieves” are rarely very interested in explaining themselves; Your connective tissue is an idea, an exploration, and is designed to be absorbed rather than understood. But for the patient audience, it’s incredibly enlightening. The movie has subtitles, so no matter how you watch it, check out the descriptive text on the screen. Sometimes, this text translates sign language; in fact, the name credits are indicated through one character, Nyke (Nyeisha Prince), and much of the film’s discussion is in ASL. Sometimes, the text describes sounds. And it’s rarely a little cheeky; “[ANIMALS GROWL],” reads a caption, then promptly replaced by “[GROWL MACHINES],” with photographs matching both.
Nyke, who is deaf, is one of the main recurring characters in the film. The scenes with his father (Warren Snipe) and his partner, whom the film simply calls Nature Boy (Russell Harvard), reveal his fears about becoming a father – what if the baby comes up with something and doesn’t hear it? – and the joy he feels for music. Another character in the film is Geovanny (Geovanny Marroquin), an elementary school drummer at Centennial High School, who has had tubas stolen; the robbery affects the functionality of the gang as well as Geovanny’s life. Nyke and Geovanny are in the actors’ lives, but obviously you can feel the fact: hearing sound is one thing, but listening is another.
Los Angeles and its sounds are at the center of “The Tuba Thieves. “All kinds of noises, welcome or not, enter the film: the crackling of fires, the roar of traffic and, above all, the repeated noise of planes above us. , a constant pool of pollutants for the other people who live near the airport. On the other hand, there is silence, represented through a recreation of the 1952 premiere in Woodstock, New York, of the famous film “4’33” by John Cage. in which a pianist simply sits in front of the piano and turns the pages silently for 4 minutes and 33 seconds, opening and ending the keyboard cover to sign the beginning and end of the 3 movements of the piece. Seemingly irritated by the sight, a man walks away and heads into the woods, only to be captured by the sounds of nature around him.
Read our full review.
Critics’ Choice | R | Suspense
Michael Keaton is quietly convincing as the embattled hitman in this pessimistic thriller.
Read our full review.
R | Comedy
In this romantic comedy starring Zach Braff and Vanessa Hudgens, a New Yorker travels to Quebec City with his French-Canadian girlfriend. Mischief ensued.
Read our full review.
PAGE-13 | Adventure
Mark Wahlberg stars in this drama directed by Simon Cellan Jones, about the true story of a Swedish adventure runner and his beloved hunted dog.
Read our full review.
PAGE-13 | Biography, Drama, History
A British runner has quietly saved many lives by getting children in Prague to escape the Nazis and into foster homes in England.
Read our full review.
Thank you for your patience as we determine access. If you’re in Reader mode, log out and log in to your Times account or subscribe to the full Times.
Thank you for your patience as we determine access.
Already a subscriber? Sign in.
Want all the Times? Subscribe.
Advertising