Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1316380
68 I M PS E . O R G MARIE'S NOTEBOOK Early in the process, Jo learned that one of Madame Curie's notebooks is held as part of the Wellcome Collection in London. The notebook itself is still radioactive, so it is not held in the general collection (it is kept behind closed doors in a lead- lined box!). But, I found out that I could make an appointment to view it. It took a bit of time and research to organise, but it felt like a golden opportunity to capture something essential to Marie Curie's work and include it in our sound work for the film. Once my appointment was confirmed, I asked if it would be possible to bring some recording equipment along to capture the sounds of the notebook being handled and pages turning. While it might not be easy to discern these page turns in the film as being specific to one of Marie's actual notebooks, it felt like a beautiful, authentic detail to be able to include in the film; an actual personal belonging of hers that is radioactive to this day due to its presence in her lab while she made her discoveries as depicted in the film! It offered us this extra emotional connection with the real Marie Curie that we were able to use in the track. It was really exciting to get to do it. CAPTURING THE EMOTION AND SENSATION The film has a very unique visual style (Anthony Dod Mantle's cinematography is really beautiful) and it felt like we had a great licence to lean into this with our sound work. In the opening sequence, we are on a hospital gurney with Marie after she collapses in her later life. At points we see through her eyes, so we could also hear with her disorientated ears. To have this established in the film's opening, gave us something subjective that we could transition back to at different appropriate points in the story and have it feel of the established world of the film. There are sequences that allowed for a particular subjectivity visually that it felt like we could enhance with the sound. An example of this is Pierre's death where we are visually with him inside the horse and carriage accident that cost him his life. Marjane purposely held off on score here, which allowed us a lot of space for sound (also putting a big responsibility on sound). It was a huge, exciting challenge to mark this horrific sequence with heightened sound. After the tragic death of Pierre, there is a dream sequence which we refer to as the "Radium Dance." It's a horrific, grief-inspired, nightmare that Marie is having. It's a sequence about loss, horror, and pain. It was always incredibly skillfully cut together. Stéphane Roche did an amazing job of cutting something that was a very powerful mixture of incredible visuals and stylized editing that is entirely emotionally driven and a physical experience for the audience. This was one of the initial sequences that Marjane had asked us to look at. It was a really interesting place to start, as it contains flashes of visual elements from other parts of the film. This was exciting, as it felt like some of the sound elements for this sequence would have to relate strongly to sound elements we would use earlier in the film that would fit these flashes. It began my thinking about a lot of the sound design in the film as an echo. There's this concept of throwing a stone in the water and it sending ripples out that Pierre expresses to Marie. I felt like that was a really beautiful thing to keep coming back to with the sound work. If we could establish some sound design motifs, we could use them throughout the film as a sonic representation of this rippling through time. This sequence allowed us to begin experimenting with that. We started to look at some of these earlier scenes and figure out what they would sound like and then take elements from them to fragment, distort, and bend into these flashes in Marie's nightmare. We took elements from a previous scene in which she mourns at Pierre's coffin. It's a really upsetting scene because she is saying goodbye. Actress Rosamund Pike gives an incredible performance. She has this scream that's primal,