Esteemed film-lover Betsy,

I enjoyed your review. I generally enjoy your reviews. This one struck a chord, sadly, a chord sounded all too often by most film reviewers, critics and pundits. To whit: when a film is really working, on whatever level, there is nary a mention of how 'sound' might have contributed to it's success. As a working sound designer, I'm hyper-sensitized to this lack of awareness. Sorry. And, generally, I'm ok when reviews for films that don't appear to rely on effective sound work (maybe all the Merchant Ivory oeuvre) credit the obvious candidates (Cinematographer, Production Design etc.) for outstanding achievement. 

While your review of Godzilla is good and somewhat qualified, you take exception when mentioning  "…the big action sequences" as standing out and you cite the DP and PD for their outstanding work. I'm going to go out on a limb and wonder "How much of these "big action sequences" contained ANY of the DP or PD's work? Most likely, they are gorgeous reconstructions of pandemonium, destruction and mayhem made of 1's and 0's. If I'm right about this, isn't it an even more amazing achievement that the work done by Eric Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn, in creating sounds for things that only exist in a computer, make these sequences feel as real, as threatening, as….monumental as they do?

I am sorry to be at the end of a long line of disgruntled filmmakers that don't get their due……and taking it out on you. It's such a sore spot when it is glaringly ignored on a film that is so reliant in it's success on those very attributes. It's bizarre to me that as sophisticated a filmmaking palette as you and your peers have for greatness, you choose to pick out the elements of a production that stand-out and, perhaps, draw attention to themselves. Great cinematography is the poster child for this observation. Yet when great sound is so critical, pivotal to the success of films like Godzilla, it is ignored as if those sounds were captured perfunctorily on the set…..when Godzilla was actually performing them for the DP and PD…….

I beg you to consider that films like this (and, in fact many Merchant Ivory-like films) live and die by the work of subtle and sometimes broadly effective sound work that makes you, the viewer, think and feel that "oh….yeah….that's exactly the way it should sound." Even when it's artifice.

Sincerely,

Mark Mangini