Thanos Demands Your Silence

Spoiler territory ahead.

I think we can all agree at this point that Avengers: Infinity War is a pretty great film. It weaves complex characters together into a whirlwind of a movie while still being entertaining. I laughed to the point of tears, and then promptly cried tears of sorrow. It ended up being Marvel’s best. Not surprisingly, that puts its soundtrack towards the top of my list as well. The emotional strings at the end when Wanda is forced to kill the man/CPU thing she loves, Vision, is a particular highlight for me.

However, it’s the absence of a score in many places that sets Infinity War apart from most Marvel movies before it. Infinity War takes the amped-up music scores of the past and totally removes them from scenes that convey the same idea: Danger is coming, something intense is coming, look out everyone. And in this movie, it’s pretty clear that silence is the best tool to give these moments a bone-chilling effect.

I’ll be looking at four moments in particular that stood out to me, so let’s start with number one. It’s the first thing that happens in the film.

Who loves the MCU logo? Sure it can be a little lengthy, but there are bright colors, highlights from previous movies, and beautiful character art to open each Marvel film. It’s a trademark that has set the MCU and its extended universe apart from other franchises in the past. There’s also the loud and exciting music accompanying the logo. It never fails to get audiences pumped for what they’re about to see, and sometimes they even switch it up to fit the movie. This worked well for Spiderman: Homecoming when they played a revamped version of that traditional Spiderman theme.

So all this being said, the intro for Infinity War was sure to cause the same cheering from the audience natural to those big debut nights. I’ve been to almost every MCU movie opening night, and this has always been true. We were all sitting in the Boston AMC theatre, the first standard showing opening night. The lights dimmed, the previews were over, and then it played. The logo came on. And not a single person cheered.

Why? Because the first few moments are silent. The Russo Brothers came to play. It was tense, I mean my heart was in my throat tense. After only a few seconds, one low horn starts Thanos’ theme. It’s the one playing when he massacres Gamora’s people later on. It’s the same theme that plays when he comes face to face with the Avengers in Wakanda for the first time. This opening was pretty bold. It forces you to sit there and realize, “Wow, this is actually going to be as intense as advertised.”

While the introduction of Thanos’ ominous music technically means it’s not “silent”, I’m still going to mention one more thing that makes this so effective. The focus isn’t on the music. The focus is on Loki’s voice that comes on during the logo as well. Loki is considered the MCU’s best villain, besides of course Michael B. Jordan’s recent Killmonger. The sneaky and collected God of Mischief we know and love is always one step ahead of everyone else. But in this movie, he’s panicked and terrified from the get-go. The Asgardians are under attack. Women and children are on board, they need help immediately. While sitting in the audience, it also creates that sense of panic as well. It feels as though we’re on our own ship and we’ve heard the distress signal. Unfortunately, we can do nothing but watch, much like the Guardians of the Galaxy when they arrive on the scene.

What the Russo Brothers needed to do was establish the big bad, Thanos, and make sure we knew right away who we were dealing. He hijacked the movie, robbing us of the usual entertaining opening and forcing us to listen to a quiet and grim intro that makes us scared for our heroes.

The second moment does something similar. It establishes fear in the rest of our main characters and shows how powerful Thanos and his Black Order really are.

This is also toward the beginning. Tony, Bruce, Dr. Strange, and Wong are in the Sanctum discussing Thanos and the threat he poses. They’re all concerned and putting together the pieces of what Thanos is capable of. He was responsible for the attack on New York and he just beat the Hulk with ease moments before. It seems that nothing more needs to happen to convince the audience that our heroes are worried and so we should be too. Nope. Instead, we get Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian’s appearance.

Again, the moment relies on the audience being forced to sit and listen to the destruction and distress going on outside. Suddenly, the air is still, and there’s distant screaming. Cars crash, sirens blare, and we are treated to a shot of the Sanctum doors. The glass prevents us from getting a full picture, but we see people sprinting and screaming as they all run in one direction. In this scene, the camera does all the work while the music takes a break. We follow Tony Stark in one long shot as he weaves through clouds of dust, frantic people, and piled up cars until he sees what’s been causing this destruction. He is speechless and so are we, listening to the distant whirring of the Black Order’s spaceship get closer, closer…until finally, we see this giant alien machinery sitting in the streets of New York.

It’s frightening, and what makes is brilliant is the same thing that makes (and I can’t believe I’m saying this) that opening scene in ‘Batman v. Superman’ so enthralling as well. The camera stays with Tony, putting us next to him. When we see people sprinting and cars flying by, we have no idea what’s going on. We’re just like Tony, confused and a little scared. All the destruction coming from above is hitting us at our level. It feels like being dropped into that scene, making the danger of aliens in a flying donut-shaped thing seem frightening, not ridiculous.

Okay, let’s move on to the third one, because this one got me in a tizzy for personal reasons. I also think this one played on fan expectations outside the movie and not just an in-movie effect like the others. This scene is right before Thanos appears in Wakanda. The setup is: Tony has been stabbed on Titan by Thanos. To save him, Dr. Strange gives up the Time Stone. Thanos disappears to retrieve Vision’s Mind Stone, the last one he needs, in Wakanda. What happens is complete silence beside the rustle of leaves as Captain America looks around. He says, “Everyone on my position,” and that’s when Thanos appears. This is when the music comes back with a vengeance, but let’s talk about why I burst into tears at this moment.

I’m sure I speak for a lot, and I mean A LOT of people when I say that we walked in expecting one of two big characters to die: Cap or Tony. Who would it be? It had to be one, right? I have been terrified of losing Steve Rogers for quite some time, and I thought this was the movie where it would happen. I saw this movie with four other people, and we were pretty much half and half with who would die. When Tony was stabbed, the theatre G A S P E D. I’m sure we all thought, this is it. This is where Iron Man dies. And then…he didn’t. After almost killing Tony, the Mad Titan heads to Wakanda. My brain went, “It’s not Tony…so it has to be Cap.” When Vision tells us Thanos is here in Wakanda, there’s a two second shot of Cap with no music. He’s looking up at the leaves rustling on the trees and calls the team to his position.

The filmmakers knew a large portion of the audience expected Steve to die. From Chris Evans’ discussions about leaving the MCU to that shot in the trailer of him fighting Thanos with his bare hands, it seemed like Cap may have finally met his match. That moment of silence was poignant. It was to highlight that maybe our fear of losing one of the original Avengers was about to come true. The fact that Cap takes it all in stride and gives one of his usual lines of “C’mon team let’s do this,” right before the music comes in again solidified it. It was almost like he was getting a moment to say “I can do this all day” again as a way to honor him before his demise. The setup was perfect. Even though we didn’t lose Cap (thank you for saving my Stevie for one more movie), the last moment of silence in the film, yes you all know which I’m talking about, is another one that highlights the horror of characters dying.

Let’s just say it, these people are coming back. I know they are, but I still cried, and so did many others. The two guys I shared an Uber with to get home were crying. What made this so scary was that for the first few seconds, I don’t think we knew these were temporary deaths. In short, Thanos wins. He disappears off to his stupid porch with his stupid smile and happy peaceful music, but the rest of us are left empty and devoid of anything to say. I like to think of it as even composer Alan Silvestri knew there was nothing music could say about this scene.

To give you an idea of what my feelings were, Bucky Barnes is one of my three favorite characters, and he left us first. Because Bucky is popular, but not necessarily “vital” or anything like that, I thought he was gone for good for a few heart-stopping seconds. All we hear is “Steve?” and he’s gone. Even poor Steve has no idea what to do. He doesn’t even comprehend, much like us, that Thanos just actually killed half the universe. There’s a soft breezy sound as characters start to disappear left and right, mixed with the distressed voices of loved ones. Rocket begs for Groot not to go. Okoye gasps as T’Challa disintegrates while he reaches toward her. Wanda, already silenced by witnessing Vision’s brutal end, disappears without a sound. Poor Sam is alone when he goes. Then there are our Avengers on Titan. Still silent, the entire Guardians of the Galaxy disappear. Drax’s scared voice, Mantis’ frightened one, and the pure defeat in Star Lord’s “Oh man,” are the last things we get from our beloved underdog team. Dr. Strange gets the stage to tell Tony, and honestly the audience directly, “It was the only way.” That’s a line to pick apart and theorize for another day, however, then we have Spiderman. Do I even have to talk about this one? There was no need to compose a thing for this scene. Tom Holland begging Tony not to let him go, apologizing, being so scared, it was something that couldn’t be matched by sad or dramatic music. In a word, it was devastating. Devastating. So much so that Tony doesn’t speak another word after the fact. In fact, none of the Avengers do, save for Cap’s simple, “Oh God,” to end our time with our heroes in this cinematic outing.

With the same level of quietness, the film ends. Sometimes it’s toning it down that make an audience feel the emotional scope of a larger than life superhero movie.