How to Score (in) a not so friendly contest
by Sarah McDevitt
In the short fictional film Crack Shot by director Alex Cohen, Justin Huang, a former junior squash champion, has retreated to teaching children at a private club. He is propositioned by Pierce Pruitt, a zealous father looking for a training partner to push his son, Tucker, to higher glories. Justin, who bears a scar on his right calf, is reluctant but eventually agrees. After intentionally losing the first match, father and son ridicule him for his lack of competitiveness. This ignites Justin’s previous fire, and self-destructive need to win.
Much of the potency of sound in this film comes from the game itself. The fast-paced popping of the balls combined with the heartbeats of the players and the shouts of frustration and satisfaction alike create what Rob Munday calls a “brutal loud dance” in his brief essay on the film. He notes the ramping up of intensity throughout the game. Claustrophobic shots from within the confines of the court combine with the music to render the growing ferocity of the match as it becomes a battle. The calf wound attests to Justin’s fraught relationship with the game. Researchers have found that sports often normalize injury and downplay the dangers of pain. Justin’s injury stems from impulses to self injury: using the racquet to hit his calf in outbursts of frustration.
When Justin notices Tucker’s calf injury, not unlike his own, there is a large shift in both his own play and the music. There is a quieting of the game soundtrack, emphasized by a short break in play sequence. With fewer layers in the mix a screeching violin quietly hovers over the top, highlighting that something is wrong as Justin begins to throw the game. This resolves with a low, dark chord and a transition back to silence. Pierce’s words now have underscoring. Slow, double bass glissandos mark a shift in his character from unsettling to threatening. Twice, Justin is stifled with silence as he faces one of the Pruitt’s; both times being indirectly asked to choose if the money is worth the physical and psychological pain. The choice opens the discussion of money in sport. Does society allow compensation to drive mutilation? Music stirs this wound such that the silence is a ripped off bandaid, heightening the sting.
Prodigies are often proxies of ambitious parents whose desires become drivers of their children’s determination. As a result, a match becomes a battle for the players — not only against their opponent, but also against themselves. Parents as the payers become players in the game. In Crack Shot, Pierce is shot with angles that place him above both Tucker and Justin. His looming stance shows the psychological effect he has, pushing both boys to unhealthy intensities. Justin’s hesitancy comes from an extreme drive to win that has led to self harm. It appears that Pierce’s pressures are doing the same to Tucker.
Exercise can be a socially acceptable form of self-harm. Self-harm, or non-suicidal self injury, is intentional injurious behaviors performed in an attempt to cope with an overwhelming emotional state. When children are aggressively pushed by parental figures, perceived failures can cause great psychological distress. This mental burden can find an outlet in sports via overexercise or disguised by in-game frustration, as seen in this scene.
The music expresses this self-destructive shift by changing what could be a simple action score to one of horror. The first moment of silence in the film occurs when we meet the father. The sudden quiet sets the tone for the thriller. The father, heavily associated with the unsettling silence, is set in stark contrast to the volume of the squash game. The absence of sound, other than dialogue, is only fully realized when the layers are added back in one-by-one with a sharp pulse following Pierce’s proposal. First, the cinching of Tucker’s shoes, then the sound of the forgotten children from Justin’s lesson, each interspersed with string pizzicato. This transitions to a ‘ticking’ from the strings, alternating high and low pizzicatos creating an anticipatory clock counting down the seconds to the time on the court as the low notes descend. A brief moment of silence shows Justin’s indecision as the camera cuts to his previous students, and is broken with a door creak worthy of a horror scene that closes with great finality into a downbeat of the oscillating string pattern once again.
Already, the intro scene shows the hesitations Justin has about playing at a high level once again. The ominous countdown paired with haunting sound effects emphasize the unease, and is made more potent by the breaks of silence. The next moment of silence comes after a gradual ramp in intensity during warm-ups. Once again, the abrupt emptiness is brought forth by Pierce. This stillness allows the viewer to realize how intense the music had become, something easily relegated to the subconscious while focusing on the game. It also heightens the discomfort in the ensuing conversation between Justin and Pierce. Justin attempts to keep the training session casual while Pierce insists on game-like formalities. The music brings the viewer into the game while the silence raises questions; when is violence and injury dismissed in the world of sports? The discrepancy between the expected genre of the film and the tone of the music breaks the fourth wall, drawing awareness to the severity and seriousness of the scene beyond the expected suspense of an action scene.
Through the discrepancy of film and music Crack Shot opens a hermeneutic window to reanalyze the ways in which society consumes and normalizes athletic violence and the role and morality of parental ambition in competitive domains of sports and beyond.