SXSWORLD

G enre can't exist without music. Imagine the shower scene in Psycho without Bernard Herrmann's violin screech; a Quentin Tarantino joint boasting just dialogue and no deep cuts; Guardians of the Galaxy minus James Gunn's playful ear for jukebox classics. All rely upon distinct sonic waves to attain the "cool factor" that defines the best fright flicks, action blowouts and space operas.  Nowhere was that more apparent at this year's SXSW Film Festival than in two world premieres: David Leitch's Charlize Theron-fronted beat 'em up spectacle, Atomic Blonde, and Baby Driver, Edgar Wright's delirious car chase movie. Both are stacked with musical flourishes that serve the narrative, add to character development, and rev viewers' blood.  Leitch, who describes himself as an "action movie director" (he previously co-directed Keanu Reeves in John Wick and is currently in pre-production on Deadpool 2), goes as far as to describe Atomic Blonde's eclectic '80s synth-pop soundtrack as the "total DNA of the movie." Wright, meanwhile, says the "music came first" in the conception of Baby Driver: "The entire idea of the movie was to make an action film set to music."  Apart from being so indebted to a varied selec- tion of tracks, both known and obscure, Atomic Blonde and Baby Driver share another similarity in that each centers on a hard-to-read hero trying to get the job done. In Atomic Blonde, Theron goes full-throttle as Lorraine Broughton, a ruth- less and mysterious undercover MI6 agent sent to Berlin during the Cold War to investigate the murder of a fellow agent and recover a missing list of double agents. Teen heartthrob Ansel Elgort (The Fault in Our Stars) channels Ryan Gosling in Drive as the Baby in Baby Driver, a quiet young getaway driver coerced into working for a crime boss.  Atomic Blonde is propelled by music, not solely in its many, bravura-staged action sequences, but in its quieter moments as well. Scenes that would otherwise be treated like throwaway sequences in other films, like one where Lorraine walks up to a bar, were entirely cut to the selected song. Prior to rolling camera, Leitch mapped out Kurt Johnstad's script with songs at specific places to "arch Lorraine's story." "It was all by design," he says.  "Capturing narrative pieces is actually pretty simple in terms of logistics," adds Leitch. "It's just getting the actors to trust and believe in the blocking … Luckily I had actors that knew what I was trying to do with that blocking. They under- stood that sometimes you just need to be on this mark whether it feels weird or not for this line and this moment."  And although the film was set in 1989, Leitch didn't feel confined by the period, borrowing lib- erally from the entire decade: songs range from Nena's 1983 war protest song "99 Luftballons" to George Michael's 1987 hit "Father Figure" to 1982's "Under Pressure," sung by David Bowie and Queen. Leitch says he chose tracks that "felt cool with the costumes" and "transported you back immediately." Most importantly, they had to "drive the narrative."  Wright, who previously directed Shaun of the Dead and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, took a wholly different—some would say more rad- ical—approach to Baby Driver. To craft his heist picture, he let his soundtrack lead him. "I wouldn't really write a scene unless I had the right song," he explains.  To serve his selections best, Wright made the playlist pivotal to the plot: Baby is just as obses- sive about his iPod playlist as he is about his cars, rarely taking out his earbuds for the entirety of the film and relying upon the jams to execute his getaways.  Those cuts include "Easy" by The Commodores, the propulsive "Nowhere to Run" (which also fea- tures prominently in the trailer) by '60s girl group Martha and the Vandellas, and "Bellbottom" from Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's album Orange, which Wright credits as the first flicker of inspi- ration for Baby Driver some 22 years ago. "The first drafts of the screenplay, which date back to 2011, had all the songs written in and most of them didn't change. I'd say 95 percent of them are still there," Wright says.  He dubs the end result a "musical in inverted commas." "Nobody ever sings out loud in it ... it doesn't break the fourth wall—it's all happening in the real world," says Wright. "But one of the review quotes from SXSW that made me laugh and proud was: 'Gone in Sixty Seconds directed by Busby Berkeley.' Another said, 'Heat remade as a jukebox musical.' They're not wrong!"  Narratively speaking, Atomic Blonde and Baby Driver don't break new ground. But like the best genre films, they sell relatively simple stories with singular style, benefitting massively from thrilling soundscapes that surprise and charge the adrenaline.  "I think that there's room to make interesting, creative films and not have to adhere to all these boxes," says Leitch. "Tarantino does it; he makes crazy bold choices and people respect him for it. I love genre films, but even action films can get stale.  "I'm a fan of arthouse cinema, and I'm a fan of commercial cinema, and I think the stuff we made sort of fits somewhere in between. It's not tentpole, but it has enough technical merit to run in the race with them, and it has enough soul and arthouse sensibility that you care about the characters." Baby Driver will be in theaters starting June 28. Atomic Blonde arrives on July 28. Scene from Baby Driver, photo by Wilson Webb Scene from Atomic Blonde Music Synchro LIFTS ACTION FILMS TO NEW HEIGHTS By niGel M. sMitH

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