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33 Q3 2017 / CINEMONTAGE thing," Alexander says. "He would pick out things that he wanted a certain way, so we would take that in the mix and interpret it the way we felt was correct. He trusted us." In mixing one effect, however, the mixers were memorably overruled by Frankenheimer. During a tunnel chase, the hubcap of a police car careens off and rolls toward an inside wall. "We probably worked hours to make the thing sound the way it did," Alexander says, but when they showed the scene to the director, it did not have the desired impact. "The hubcap effect came up and he jumped up and threw a tizzy," Alexander recalls with a laugh. "He said, 'What the heck is that sound?' We said, 'Well, John, don't you like it? A hubcap comes off and hits the wall.' He said, 'Get it out of there! That was a mistake — it wasn't supposed to happen!'" The mixers acquiesced; the rolling hubcap remains, but it barely makes a peep in the final cut. Frankenheimer was also adamant about not overusing the score composed by Elia Cmiral, especially during chases. "This is real common in action movies," Alexander says. "John was such a car guy that he said, 'We're not playing any music there.'" On the whole, however, Cmiral's eerie, evocative score intensifies the film, the title of which refers to a class of Japanese samurai who accept assignments freely — a potent metaphor for the hired hands depicted in the film. "The ronin story is a deep, deep story," Alexander comments. "Elia did a phenomenal job with the music because it enhanced the feel of the movie. The music was perfect for Ronin." The subtleties of the film were also apparent during non-action dialogue scenes, which have a quiet, low-key quality as the mercenaries connive in a cavernous warehouse. "A lot of the dialogue was very low in volume," Alexander recalls. "To bring it up, the more you pushed the fader, the louder you play it. All the ambient noise comes up around it. We had to do a lot of noise reduction and dip filters to get this low dialogue." When Ronin was released in September 1998, the film was a hit with critics and audiences — its director's first in several years. The chases, in particular, were singled out for praise. "Whether screeching through the narrow, twisting streets of Nice's picturesque old district or cutting a furious swath through Paris at high speed [and against traffic, even in tunnels], these scenes are nothing short of sensational," wrote Janet Maslin in The New York Times. "Mr. Frankenheimer directs them in fast, efficient, no- frills fashion because no extra frills are needed." Alexander and Rogers mixed such scenes with a similar less-is-more approach. "There are a ton of tracks that you get and you listen to them individually," Alexander explains. "You put the puzzle together. There are certain things that you want to poke out, to make a statement that you have to work around the dialogue and the music. You want to feel it. You want to hear it. That's the key." For the opportunity it offered to work with a legendary filmmaker — and on a car film, no less — Ronin occupies a special place in the mixer's filmography. "Because of Frankenheimer," he reflects, "it meant a lot to me to be able to work on that." f Rick Alexander in the late 1980s.