Mention home theater surround sound and spectacular effects spring to mind: spaceships zooming overhead, arrows whizzing by our ears, and explosions rattling the chairs we're sitting in. These may be great ways to show off your new surround sound system, but what if your taste in movies runs counter to big battles and apocalyptic scenarios?

As movie theater and home A/V systems continue to improve their sound reproduction, directors are relying more and more on the sound experience to involve the audience in the action on-screen. Even subtle sounds, properly positioned and presented, make a huge difference in our film-going experience.

These five films demonstrate various artful ways surround sound can help tell a story. All of them are worth enjoying for their cinematic merits, but on a 5.1 or larger surround sound system these DVDs work their audio magic to add extra dimensions to their stories, illustrating how much a surround sound system can enhance the home cinema experience.


Under the Tuscan Sun (Miramax, 2003) Dolby Digital 5.1
Frances (Diane Lane), a recently divorced writer in emotional freefall, goes on a tour of Tuscany. Falling in love with Tuscan countryside, she purchases a villa on a whim and slowly rebuilds her life while rebuilding the ancient house.

For Frances's decision to be believable to the audience, the film has to establish a strong sense of place, and to make that place as attractive as possible. The luminescent photography bathes Tuscany in the golden glow of the Italian sun, and almost every shot looks like a postcard. Appealing as the images are, it's the use of sound that subtly convinces us we aren't in America anymore, but someplace very different and magical.

Suggested chapters
Chapter 4 — "Buyer's Remorse." The chapter opens with Frances talking on a payphone as a storm moves in (her phone isn't connected yet). The spatter of the rain sounds completely natural, and you can hear the storm sweep in. Frances flees for shelter in the villa. Once inside, a different set of sounds help set the stage. Slight echoes tell us the villa's rooms are largely unfurnished, and the scuffle of dried leaves lets us know this house has been neglected for some time. The sounds show us how empty the villa is, and how daunting Frances' desire to fill it with life is.

Chapter 8 — "Getting Out." While shopping for furniture in Rome, Frances meets Marcello (Raoul Bova), a handsome stranger, and they end up spending the day together. In the city scenes, the background sounds firmly establish the setting. The traffic noises are thinner and higher pitched than they would be in an American city, appropriate for smaller European cars and scooters. Background conversation is Italian, with sounds from near background action oriented correctly.

Marcello gives Frances a tour of his village by the Mediterranean. The seaside scenes sound wide open, with waves gently crashing against the seawalls. As the characters move through the scene, we always know where they are in relation to the sea. At one point they find a kitten under a beach chair. Even though it's offscreen, we hear the mewing, and can place the kitten down and to the right of the characters — a subtle touch that adds verisimilitude to the action.

Catch Me If You Can (Dreamworks, 2002) Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 6.1 ES
Steven Spielberg's engaging Catch Me If You Can follows a by-the-book FBI agent (Tom Hanks) as he attempts to track down a talented young conman and forger, Frank Abagnale, Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio.) The film's charm partly rests on the deliciously retro 1960s setting — a world of big flashy cars, high-flying Pan Am jets, and the promise of a stylishly sleek, chrome-plated future.

As important as the costumes and props in recreating the 1960s feel is John Williams' frisky saxophone-colored film music. The jazzy score, reminiscent of the Henry Mancini works of the era, adds just the right tone to the film. Williams' score is complemented by some great 1960s standards, like "The Look of Love," "The Girl from Ipanema," and Sinatra's swaggering rendition of "Come Fly With Me." The sound editing keeps the music and the on-screen action and dialogue in perfect balance, each complementing the other while not overshadowing, and always setting just the right atmosphere.

Suggested chapters
Chapter 1 — "My name is Frank Abagnale, Jr." The delightful animated opening credits to the film are a visual and musical treat. The breezy musical motifs are perfectly placed across the front soundstage, with excellent separation of the instruments and a palpable sense of space. The music immediately draws the viewer into the film, perfectly setting the mood of the movie.

Chapter 17 — "New Recruiting Program."
Sinatra's classic recording of "Come Fly With Me" swells and carries the action forward as Frank slips past an FBI dragnet at Miami International Airport by surrounding himself with young stewardess trainees. It's a wonderful piece of jet-setting fun as the swinging beat of the music carries us past the sounds of the bustling airport and the wolf whistles of the police and FBI agents, and finally fades out under the roar of the jet Frank is escaping on.


Chicago (Miramax, 2002) Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1
In its transition from Broadway to the big screen, Chicago was reworked to reflect modern movie-going sensibilities. During the golden age of the Hollywood musical, audiences were perfectly comfortable with characters suddenly bursting into song, even in public places (where a crowd of strangers would obligingly join in chorus and execute tightly choreographed dance steps). Modern audiences needed a more "realistic" treatment, so the musical numbers either take place on a stage (such as a speakeasy floorshow), or they're treated as fantasy sequences, symbolically representing a character's point of view.

This shift from the real world to the imagined is communicated not only visually, but in the use of sound as well. Repeatedly the soundstage opens up as the characters? imaginations take flight, helping the audience understand that they?ve moved outside the confines of the real world.

Suggested chapters
Chapter 1 — "And all that jazz." By far the most famous number from the show, "And All That Jazz" uses the setting of a nightclub floorshow as its starting point. The viewpoint crosscuts from the musicians on stage to Velma Kelly's (Catherine Zeta-Jones) journey from taxi to stage. As she enters the theater, goes to her dressing room, rushes through the wings, and eventually appears on stage, the sound space changes to reflect the size of the room she's in.

Although the band's volume level isn't completely realistic (it's much louder outside the theater than it would be in real life), it still alters enough in volume and location to let us know exactly where we are in the speakeasy, and sense Velma's motion towards the stage.

Once on stage, the sound field opens up further, and the viewpoint now shifts between the two protagonists, Velma and Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger). As the camera cuts from Velma on stage to Roxie in the audience at the back of the room, the sound of the musical number changes perspective as well, and room noises become more obvious when the camera's on Roxie.

Chapter 5 — "Cell Block Tango." This musical number is a fantasy sequence that begins with Roxie in prison. Ambient noises echoing off walls place us in Roxie's cell. Some simple sounds of the prison at night (a dripping faucet, guards walking across metal grilles) become exaggerated, illustrating how much they're distracting Roxie. These sounds morph into a percussive tango beat, and the scene moves out of the cell.

The action shifts to a cavernous black stage, and as the musical number gets underway, the soundfield expands outward. The music is as crisp as the choreography, with no other sounds present. But that's the point — we're no longer in a Chicago jail cell, but somewhere in Roxie's thoughts. For the duration of the Tango, (with the exception of some real world flashbacks) we're in a large imaginary theater where anything's possible — even a singing felons floorshow.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (20th Century Fox, 2003) Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1
Master and Commander follows the adventures of Captain "Lucky Jack" Aubrey as he and his crew pursue a French privateer during the Napoleonic wars. As you might expect, there are several thrilling battle scenes in the movie that provide plenty of impressive demo material.

What is more subtle, but no less impressive, is the way the surround sound mix effectively replicates the sound and atmosphere of a very crowded 19th-century ship of war. Aubrey's ship, HMS Surprise, is crowded with nearly 200 men, living under the most spartan circumstances, encountering weather conditions that would challenge modern ships many times their size. This movie's drama lies in more than just exciting battle sequences, and the sound is mixed accordingly; life aboard ship is pictured with great care, and the sound effects complete the detailed portrayal of 19th-century naval life.

Suggested chapters
Chapter 1 — "HMS Surprise." This chapter introduces us to the world of the ship. As the night watch changes, we follow the camera through the bowels of the ship. Creaking timbers, snoring sailors, and lapping water surround us. The viewer is immersed in the environment where the story will play itself out.

Chapter 14 — "Rounding Cape Horn." The sonic action is intense in this chapter. As the Surprise rounds Cape Horn, she is rocked by a powerful gale. The hiss and shriek of wind and spray envelop the listener, while the dull thud of waves is heard beating against the hull. Through it all, the dialogue remains clear, thanks to a strong center channel mix. Small details important to the story, like the thrum of a line being played out and the click of an hourglass being turned, are given proper weight and emphasis.


Metropolis (Kino Video, 1927/2001) Dolby Digital 5.1
What's a silent film doing on this list? Sound, and especially music was always an important part of a movie's presentation in the silent era. Smaller movie houses used organists to support the action with music and simple sound effects; larger theaters had pit orchestras.

Fritz Lang's Metropolis, which premiered in 1927, is probably one of the most famous silent films that few people have actually watched. Lang's futuristic dystopia of workers laboring underground for the privileged few living in skyscrapers originally had a 153-minute running time. Shortly after release, Metropolis was drastically edited down, and the story (already somewhat unfocused in the original) became even more confused. Metropolis quickly disappeared from theaters. Nevertheless, Lang's powerful images — the expressionist city of the future, the Art Deco robot, the ranks of browbeaten workers trudging to the elevators — kept the movie alive for cinema aficionados.

Kino Video's meticulous restoration from all surviving sources brings the movie back to its former visual splendor (and most of its length) by digitally cleaning up every frame and running the film at the correct speed. Kino also recorded the original orchestral score of Gottfried Huppertz, written for the Berlin premiere. Huppertz combined the broad gestures of Richard Strauss with the brooding orchestral language of Mahler to create a score that is as massive, symbolic and dramatic as Metropolis itself. Kino's newly recorded 5.1 surround soundtrack gives this music the dramatic weight it needs to support (and sometimes give direction to) the action.

Suggested chapters
Chapter 1 — "Opening Credits and Prelude." The music sets the scene, as well as the sonic space, with decay and reverb consistent with that of an orchestra playing in a large theater. Heroic trumpets herald the dawn as it shines down on Metropolis, giving us our first view of this brave, new world. The music quickly moves to a bustling theme, thickly orchestrated. Playing under a montage of heavy machinery, we feel the constant motion of the industries that support the city.

Chapter 6 — "The Moloch Machine." Freder Frederson (Gustav Fröhlich), pampered son of Metropolis' ruler, witnesses an industrial accident. In his imagination, the multi-story machine becomes the god Moloch, swallowing human sacrifices in its fiery maw. The music punctuates the explosion of the machine, and sounds suitably barbaric as the sacrifices are being marched into the furnace. Freder's world has been turned upside down, and the symphonic fury that swirls around provides the context to make Fröhlich's pantomimes appear operatic and expressive, rather than (to modern eyes) ridiculously melodramatic.

As Freder's view of Moloch changes from machine, to pagan god, to a mixture of the two, so too does Huppertz's score change timbres and moods. Although the scoring varies, the underlying harmonies keep moving towards resolution at the end of the scene, tying all of these visual elements together as a single dramatic gesture.

In conclusion
A good surround soundtrack can add a lot to your enjoyment and understanding of a movie. If you already have a surround sound system, the next time you watch a DVD listen carefully — the amount of subtle sound information you hear might surprise you. If you don't have surround sound, you're missing a significant part of the film's story — no matter what your taste in movies!