The amount of toil that goes into making a movie is unprecedented. Director Stanley Kubrick once famously compared filmmaking to writing War and Peace inside a raging bumper car, while Francis Ford Coppola nearly lost his sanity wrestling with the hellish conditions of Apocalypse Now. For sound mixer Peter Kurland, the arduous process can be described in similar terms. It’s a profession of demanding, relentless strain but also one of abundant rewards. For the past thirty years, Peter has made a living off mixing audio for major motion pictures, recording sounds that reverberate in the areas most moviegoers ignore. His resume, impressive to say the least, includes every film by the Coen Brothers and many mainstream blockbusters such as Men in Black and Walk the Line. Yet despite his many successes, Peter remains a pragmatic and technically minded person. He’s jaded about the film world while simultaneously showing a deep respect for his field. When I meet him for an interview at the Darkhorse Theater, a venue he’s operated for more than twenty years with his wife, Shannon, he’s dressed in a faded grey T-shirt and jeans, his demeanor is cool, and his eyes are tired. In the auditorium, a production of Lanford Wilson’s Vietnam play, Fifth of July, is currently in the works, and the stage resembles a tidy midwestern living room from the 1960s—full of floral-patterned furniture and wood-paneled walls. We sit on the set’s large, pillowy sofa and discuss Peter’s experiences in film for a few hours. Despite dropping a few big names here and there, he speaks in a highly practical and down-to-earth manner. His voice is dry and slightly sardonic. Since childhood, Peter’s life has been surrounded by sound. His father, Sheldon, who was a prolific session musician, played violin on many famous records in Nashville and occasionally brought his son with him to listen in on studio sessions. Some of Peter’s most profound memories are of sitting in the music studio with his father, cramped in between
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