Movies like Gone Baby Gone are enjoyable to watch in part because of their filmed-in-Boston-ness. Well, that and, you know, a powerhouse cast, an award-winning script, and the surprisingly delightful beginning of an Affleck behind the camera. But spotting the seedy street you grew up on and the sandbox you used to play in is also part of the fun. With love for locality in mind, consider the loudest sound, a low-budget drama, filmed at haunts around the city such as the Middle East and Boston University Art Gallery. Receiving a preview screening at the Brattle on Thursday, the film is brought to you by an entirely New England-based crew, with music by Springfield-based Ran Blake, and direction by Jason Miller, one of the co-founders of the Massachusetts Independent Film Festival.
“Before filming began,” he says, “I screened Mike Nichols’ Carnal Knowledge for the cast with Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence as a double feature. Both films have certain aspects that I wanted to also capture in the loudest sound.” In addition to Scorcese and Nichols, Miller mentions Stanley Kubrick and Hal Ashby as legends he looked to in creating the tale of Michael and Alice, a twentysomething couple in Boston. Alternating between black & white and color, the film details three years of their relationship, one that begins perfectly and is tested and unravels because of betrayal, lies, and addiction.
“A lot of the inspiration in making this picture came from the great American films of the 1970s,” says Miller. “We wanted to deal truthfully with interpersonal relationships the way that films rarely do today.”
THE LOUDEST SOUND. THE BRATTLE, 40 BRATTLE ST., CAMBRIDGE. 7PM/$12. BRATTLEFILM.ORG
