Madame Web

This week sees the theatrical release of Madame Web, a Sony film based on Marvel Comics character Cassie Web, a Manhattan paramedic who can see the future. I love how this trailer uses music and sound reminiscent of the “glitch” genre of electronic music to reinforce the main character’s glitching between different realities, past and present.

Multiple realities and glitches in reality are concepts we have seen in sci-fi action films for years, for example: The Matrix, Inception, Doctor Strange, and Into the Spiderverse.

Like so many of the trailers we cover in our blog, the Madame Web trailer is built around a recognizable pop song. This one has upped the ante, licensing “bury a friend” – a Billie Eilish hit from her 2019 album “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” This same song is also used as the intro music for the opening credits of Season 4 of “True Detective”.

The Madame Web trailer opens with a five-second micro-teaser cut to the chorus hook of “bury a friend.” Then, from 0.05-0.30, during an attack scene in a diner, the sound design features whooshes, reversed audio clips and the sound of a spinning object at 0:15 (a common sonic device in fight scenes for trailers these days). As the attack intensifies and the camera angles spin, from 0:17-0:30 a low pass filter is applied to the sound, which reduces the volume of the high frequencies, simulating the way the world sounds when we are underwater.

This is a long trailer, over three minutes (exceeding the length limit of 2’30” established by the MPA) but early in the trailer the sound is already creatively hinting at an unstable and twisted reality. After a brief clip of Billie Eilish’s voice at 0:31, a groove enters with repeating rhythms that feel like a ticking clock glitching out. “Trailer triplets” at 0:38 help build an intensity which explodes sonically from 0:49-0:52 with dense layering of sound effects played in reverse, screams, metallic scraping, spinning sounds and rhythmic electronic percussion.

The glitch element really kicks in during the sequence on the subway from 1:06-1:25 in the trailer. Here, as lead character Cassie is glitching between different moments that she foresees in the near future, Billie Eilish’s vocals return (at 1:12), with the chorus hook “What do you want from me?” followed by some seriously trippy panning from 1:18-1:21 (check that out with headphones on). Panning refers to which speaker (left or right) a sound is heard in. Here as the camera seems to spin in a circular motion, the sound design follows as though circling around our heads.

Stereotypically sparse suspense trailer music comes in at 1:40, complete with “trailer triplets” at 1:50, accents on large drums, quick starts and stops, and reversed industrial sound effects that grow in volume before suddenly disappearing.

At 2:08 Billie Eilish’s chorus comes in once again, and from 2:08-2:21 we’re treated to a clever call and response between sung vocals and lines of dialogue. Building towards the trailer’s climax, there is also some severe panning again at 2:39-2:42 during a car chase sequence, followed by the obligatory turn phrase at 2:50.

Where this trailer could have easily opted for fairly traditional action music its creators chose instead to mirror the glitching realities through music and sound design which feel unstable and disorienting. Remixing in the chorus of an immensely popular song helps to root this film in pop culture sonically, to help offset its experimental and avant-garde sonic moments.

Madame Web arrives in theatres on Valentine’s Day.

— Jack Hui Litster