Wonka

Everyone knows Willy Wonka, but just how did he come to be the world’s foremost fictional, eccentric genius of cocoa confections? Some eighteen years after Tim Burton’s take )on the best-selling Roald Dahl tale, Timothée Chalamet stars in this bid at a prequel, promising that we may yet find out.

The trailer begins, unsurprisingly enough, with a go-to musical arrangement to elicit wonder: a semi-tone motif using the leading tone not unlike the Jurassic Park theme is surrounded by pitched percussion on the upper end and a low drone on the strings at the low end. This occurs as Chalamet delivers his first lines in character, introducing us to this new, younger version of the magic chocolatier. As we see and hear Wonka get to work, the harmony moves from a major tonic (home) chord to a minor subdominant chord. This is a standard chord progression for fantasy, furthering that feeling of wonderment, as the tune effortlessly floats between a major and minor key. Notice also how, as a voice off-screen lectures Wonka about a series of logical events, we hear a sequence of chords steadily rising upwards as if in response.

At 0:40 the trailer plays some with the diegetic line between the visuals and music as the police officer taps Wonka on the shoulder, changing the lighting and cutting the music. A moment later, the harmonic resolution at 0:43 is synched with the light bulb turning on—a bit of playfulness that reminds of cartoon soundtracks. A fuller orchestral arrangement hits at 0:54, still using more generic chord changes and melodic contours. At 1:20 however, this changes entirely; by 1:26 or so, it becomes clear that an epic version of “Pure Imagination”, the much-covered track from the original 1971 film original composed by Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley, is on tap. It works well: the soaring leaps in the melody do much to emphasize the various bits of magic in the montage that follows.

A repeat of the earlier rising chord sequences rounds things out—but not without a sneak peek at the prequel’s rendition of an Oompa Loompa, complete with a tease of the famous tune, effectively leading the trailer out. It’s a tone that certainly doesn’t fit with the rest of the trailer, and therefore wisely placed at the end to help deemphasize the sudden change.

While using epic trailer music versions of well-known songs is a well-established idea, it’s the execution that matters. Saving the melody from “Pure Imagination” for the relatively brief action montage, between more generic segments, helps leave the audioviewer wanting more—which is precisely the name of the game.

“Wonka” hits theatres December 15th.

— Curtis Perry