The more 'minimalist' films you experience - by the Dardennes Brothers, say, or Lisandro Alonso and Chantal Akerman - or films with little or no musical soundtrack (The Birds, for example), the more music is exposed as the least important of all Cinematic tools.
"Do films need music" might be a disingenuous question. "Would this film be better without music?" is a better, more pertinent one. In Let the Right One In it felt like an unwelcome visitor. In L'Intrus, an imposter. Music in the former reiterated what we were seeing. In the latter it attempted to mask narrative emptiness with faux mysteriousness. In my mind music had slowly become superfluous, retreating to where it is the story, as in some silent films, or, of course, Musicals.
Or should the question be posed from another angle: "Have you seen a film that you thought would benefit from more music?" I don't think I have.
What is music used for? To aid comprehension (as a guide); to add meaning or excitement by amplifying or counteracting the predominant text; to anticipate an attack (in a horror film) unforeseen by the character; to speak the unspoken; to help you remember the film (an aide memoire). Most of all it is there to be entertaining in and of itself, regardless of its relationship to the rest of the film. For me, saying "but it's a great tune" is not enough.
Considering the root reasons for needing music in these cases we can conclude that music improves. However, though it improves, it puts a cap on the potential of the story to be told in the most effective way possible. In other words music is a band-aid on a broken leg.
Music is too often used to validate a flimsy moment, to paper over cracks, to suspend or distract disbelief. Therefore the problem with extra-diegetic (deriving from outside the fictional world of the film) music is partly fundamental, partly in how it is conventionally utilised.
I believe, even when it is making up for something missing or getting our toes tapping, that music generally closes space, suffocates a film by limiting its emotional palette. Clearly music does not come from the fictional world. It is a screen that stands in the way of a more direct engagement. It's good to be in a character's head for a while, where there's no music.It is, undeniably, an especially artificial part of film. Can music be as exploratory, curious and deep as the human mind or heart? Does it expand our horizons or simply take our hand to point at specific sights, 'manipulating' us?
Is it an exaggeration to say that music turns us from witnesses of people and place (even if that is also a controlled, sealed environment) to consumers of those same objects packaged as a product? Yes, music inevitably changes what we see, but what films use music to spice a situation or to undermine, balance, critique, deepen rather than mirror? It seems that a Director, going to a composer, will ask that composer to 'match' what is on screen rhythmically and tonally.
As it is most soundtracks endorse their existence by the following logic: the music is cool, tense etc. and so one thinks the film would be boring without it. The film though is geared towards the inclusion of music and so that is, in fact, true. Why do we say it would be boring without it? What is it hiding?
Is the ubiquitousness of music about control? When there is no music or even no sound, we start to think. We think all kinds of things that take us away from what the film-maker intended or wants us to think or feel. Understandably, artists can be scared of that silence. Their vision needs to be clear and clearly communicated. The music shepherds us back onto the beaten track.
By its nature and by its use music is damaging many films. Of course there are exceptions. Sofia Coppola uses music with ease and style to comment, critique and enrich (and to get us humming along). She demonstrates that the creation of a soundtrack does not have to be an afterthought.
Action and Science Fiction films imbibe music into their fabric most effectively. Nevertheless, imagine Star Wars with its incredible sounds as the music. What would it be like?
Perhaps there are moments, because film will always be a distant world through a looking-glass, that require a soundtrack. Maybe music is needed when we would otherwise have to physically be there to fully comprehend events.
Below is a link to the iconic 'shower scene' from Psycho - once with music in place, once without music:
Psycho Shower Scene
The first, with music, is a tour de force. It is an entertainment. The second is bare and nude and exposed. As Grace Zabriskie says in Inland Empire, it is now a "brutal f***ing murder". The choice is yours.
Monday, 29 November 2010
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There is one case I can't think of a movie without its music: Goblin and Suspiria go like two lovers hand to hand. They exist for each other, alone they don't mean a thing.
ReplyDeleteI'm generally much more lenient when it comes to the use of music in films. People say that too often music tells them what to feel. I think you could also look at it, in many cases, as more of an invitation than a command. For me, I tend to take it on more of a case-by-case basis.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the greatest filmmakers when it comes to using music is Hou Hsiao-Hsien. I never feel that the music in his films ever overpowers the film itself. He can use loud techno and dance music and, at the same time, present imagery that couldn't be farther from the adrenaline rush of the soundtrack. And in Three Times, he uses a nakedly romantic song in the most "conventional" way imaginable, and yet, the image of a man and woman holding hands for the first time never seemed more fresh.
In other cases, music seems less like a "soundtrack" superimposed upon a film and more like an element of the film's world, one component residing next to others. I really enjoyed Lukas Moodysson's use of ABBA's "SOS" in Together. It resonated powerfully because of the way it contrasted, in tone, with the story (a perfect pop encapsulation of loneliness brushing up against very gritty and lonely reality) and because we learn so much about the young girl in the film by seeing her listen to this song and really make it a part of her life.
Of course, I tend to view cinema as quite "musical" in and of itself, and I approach the art form as a person who loves music almost as much. I feel that I share this view with a filmmaker who is among the "minimalists" you initially refer to but who also found a way to incorporate music into his cinematic vision: Tsai Ming-Liang.
I understand your argument, and believe me, when music is overused in place of emotion that should be supplied by the film itself, then it's often tough to take.
ReplyDeleteI love film music. I'll say that right out front. I agree that there are few films that would benefit from *more* music, but isn't that a testament to a director making the right choice, rather than music bein a hindrance? Saying music limits a film's potential is, I believe, an error.
To use your Star Wars example, I think one of the most "musical" parts of the film is the final Death Star battle, with its lasers, radio cross-talk, and explosions. Terrific sound editing, and very musical.
But how about that scene of Luke gazing into the distant suns of Tatooine? Would it be as effective without music? Would it convey the same sense of longing, of a destiny with the Force? I don't believe so.
What about the terrific crane shot in "Once Upon a Time in the West?" The grandeur of the frontier town that Claudia Cardinale enters is enhanced by Morricone's theme as the camera rises up from the train station and looks over its roof to see the town spread out before us. Natural sound effects alone would have made it a very dull scene indeed.
Incidentally, one of my favorite "no music" films of all time is "Dog Day Afternoon."
Jaime,
ReplyDeleteI do remember. That is a good example.
I tried to put forward the idea of films that are imbibed with the music rather than the visual and the aural parallel and talking over each other
Trevor,
ReplyDelete"People say that too often music tells them what to feel. I think you could also look at it, in many cases, as more of an invitation than a command. For me, I tend to take it on more of a case-by-case basis."
I think it does too often tell you what to feel. There were enough times this happened to me that I thought about what I wrote here. I was impelled to ask what films would be like without music.
There are good examples, I agree. THREE TIMES is one of the best films I've seen. TSAI MING LIANG I can also agree with. Maybe the soundtracks that work best for me (in terms of aiding the film rather than replacing it) are the ones I don't remember afterwards. They have become part of it.
What I am trying here is to put forward an idea or a thought to myself as well as to any reader. I think we need to imagine films without (this is quite a feat in itself) and allow ourselves to see or think in a different way.
"In other cases, music seems less like a "soundtrack" superimposed upon a film and more like an element of the film's world, one component residing next to others."
Absolutely. I mentioned that it isn't just the idea of a music soundtrack but how it is normally used.
"...and because we learn so much about the young girl in the film by seeing her listen to this song and really make it a part of her life."
I have no problem with music that is in the fictional world as in this case - or as in CHUNGKING EXPRESS with California Dreamin'
Cinema is quite musical itself. This is why music if used badly is pointless. It needs to be used with intelligence to be of benefit.
Nathan,
ReplyDeleteThis whole discussion came of course from the bad examples (of music) and the good (of no music) that built up to the extent that I could call into question many other and then all films.
The question mark is crucial(!) I'm still thinking about it. I don't know the answer because there isn't one. Only individual cases. I wanted to open a debate with myself and contributors like yourself.
Perhaps I was too sweeping or generalising in a couple of comments but the main thrust is there and I stand by it. Films could do with less music and, if there is to be, it needs to avoid all the pitfalls I mention. It can limit and wall in a film. Tell us how to feel.
Star Wars, yes. Without music it would fail, in part because it is conceived with music at its heart. Also because I find it impossible to separate its music from emotion or events in that film. On balance that's (probably) to its credit.
I do think good use of music is in the (increasing) minority. If it truly adds rather than blinds or obfuscates or narrows I am all for it. It can enrich, but how often? It's a crutch in most instances.
What did you think of the PSYCHO scene without music by the way? (If you've watched it) I found it fascinating.
I think people don't like to look around themselves and drink in the world like they used to.
ReplyDeleteI see so many on the streets providing their own soundtrack (ipods) to stave off 'boredom'. I don't listen to music when I'm walking. Maybe it's to do with types of character too.
I did watch that PSYCHO segment.
ReplyDeleteThe music heightens the terror of the segment. It's interesting that you use the word entertainment. Yes, PSYCHO is an entertaining (and darkly funny) movie, but the segment is not entertaining.
Without the music, it feels either.... plain.... or snuff-like. Take your pick. Not really scary, but more ugly.
I completely agree with you that some movies these days are using way too much (bad) music. Hans Zimmer is the chief offender, in my opinion.
Sometimes yes, sometimes no, it depends on the director and the music.
ReplyDeleteSome thoughts:
ReplyDelete1) Perhaps the term "music" is way too broad, different types of usages exist, and they are perceived in very different ways, with differing functions. Because of this when your commenters are sometimes discussing "songs" I feel as if there is a bit of apple/oranges problem. Perhaps you may want to define some things.
2) Just because the sound is made with some of the same bangers, blowers and scrapers as that stuff we call music, is it music, or is it sound (depending on usage type, say non-diegetic, instrumental underscore)?
3) Is it ecologically correct to separate the elements of the phenomenon and analyze them as to their own aesthetics, meanings? How does one experience cinema?
Nathan,
ReplyDelete"Without the music, it feels either.... plain.... or snuff-like. Take your pick. Not really scary, but more ugly."
That's interesting. I can see how the brutal, unflinching attack can appear "ugly" or "snuff-like" when it's left exposed.
"I completely agree with you that some movies these days are using way too much (bad) music. Hans Zimmer is the chief offender, in my opinion."
Yeah. It's especially bad (or off-putting) when a composer's soundtracks sound so similar to each other.
It's harder for a film to have a unique feel then.
Simon,
ReplyDelete"Sometimes yes, sometimes no, it depends on the director and the music."
I can't (and won't) argue with that Simon(!)
For me Sofia Coppola and Hou Hsiao Hsien (mentioned by Trevor above) are the best at using music.
Are there any particular directors or films that you think use music well (or badly)?
"Because of this when your commenters are sometimes discussing "songs" I feel as if there is a bit of apple/oranges problem. Perhaps you may want to define some things."
ReplyDeleteYes. I did mention extra-diegetic music being different from 'in the fictional world' music.
There is a difference, I suppose, between discrete songs (normally well-known) and a fresh soundtrack in the way we experience the film.
"Just because the sound is made with some of the same bangers, blowers and scrapers as that stuff we call music, is it music, or is it sound (depending on usage type, say non-diegetic, instrumental underscore)?"
Good point and one I began on. If you use sound as a sort of musical text that seems less intrusive as long as it doesn't become self-conscious or pat (I remember the start of LOVE ME TONIGHT or music made by pickaxes in ZATOICHI).
I didn't mean sounds approximating a musical score but being strong, bold and interesting enough to fill the space into which boredom gets sucked.
"Is it ecologically correct to separate the elements of the phenomenon and analyze them as to their own aesthetics, meanings? How does one experience cinema?"
Good point.
There are situations I suppose where this might not be possible or 'correct'. However when a scene starts without music and builds an emotional character and then the music appears it is impossible not to consider the two as separate entities (even if there is no perfect comparison between how it is and how it might have been).
It's like when the atmosphere of a dinner party changes with a new guest.
Can one slice a film into its constituent parts? Are they constituent parts at all if they form a coherent whole and were destined to do so?
Thanks for the comment Anonymous.
Diegetic music and non-diegetic music are two different beasts, although they can certainly both be used poorly. There are few things I am more baffled by than non-diegetic music in supposedly realistic films. What a contradiction! It probably stems from melodrama, though - melo, meaning music. Many people rail against music in films because it is manipulative - others love it because it can be effectively manipulative. Fassbinder loved Sirk's melodramas because they were effective. It's really a matter of what you do with it all. However, if you don't want your film to be melodramatic - you should probably avoid making it into a musical drama. It goes hand and hand. For most Hollywood films I expect a nice, mediocre film and I get a nice, mediocre film with nice, mediocre music. If someone wants to make a great film, though, the sound can be a great boon or as great a bust as dumping buckets of bleach on the film stock - it's all a manipulation of film elements, which in turn becomes a manipulation of experience. The important part, I think, is to have a clue. Just have a clue. As evidenced by examples thus far, some filmmakers have a clue. It can be amazing! Others don't. And if you don't have a clue, that may end up becoming a problem. Most filmmakers are clueless and lack ideas, so there's that problem.
ReplyDeletePersonally, as someone who almost always hates non-diegetic music use in film, I am constantly baffled by people praising what to my ears are slight variations of each other - simple, soothing string arrangements. Is this the height of human expression, really? It makes for a pleasant elevator ride, but why is it obscuring the film's ideas? Or is this film just supposed to be more pleasant than your average elevator ride? Get me out of here! That's my thinking, anyway. Perhaps it stems from a fear of elevators. Thank god for escalators.
"It probably stems from melodrama, though - melo, meaning music. Many people rail against music in films because it is manipulative - others love it because it can be effectively manipulative."
ReplyDeleteTwo great points, LEAVES. I hadn't really thought about people wanting to be manipulated, even if it's blatant. That could be partly down to what their used to, though.
"I am constantly baffled by people praising what to my ears are slight variations of each other - simple, soothing string arrangements. Is this the height of human expression, really? It makes for a pleasant elevator ride, but why is it obscuring the film's ideas?"
Absolutely. If only more film-makers "had a clue".
"Perhaps it stems from a fear of elevators. Thank god for escalators."
Haha!
It could be interesting, if you're interested in the subject, to compare a myriad of different examples of the use of music in cinema. I can think of all sorts of examples of music being used differently - the same song done in many different styles, always diegetic, in The Long Goodbye, almost uniformly (there may be one aberration) diegetic music in The Double Life of Veronique which nevertheless plays an essential, central role in the film (as it is about a pair of musicians), Rivette's playful insertion of a near ubiquitous 'house band' inside the castle where a group of female pirates reside in Noroit where their presence seems out of place in a visual sense in the same way that their music would seem out of place were they not there and the music simply non-diegetic, and then a slew of non-diegetic approaches (some carefully considered, some not so much).
ReplyDeleteAs for manipulation, the term can certainly take on a pejorative when it is the sort of overbearing, restrictive act, but by this same process you can simply focus attention and create rhythm, as well. For Fassbinder, from what I understand, he loved the manipulative power of the melodrama form in order to create the same sorts of feelings that they would have felt had the characters being portrayed been your standard heterosexual married couple. Instead, he used it to challenge social mores by getting people to see groups that they had previously perceived as 'other' as the same as those they would have identified as themselves, something he found in Sirk, as well. Music, manipulation, melodrama, it's all in the ideas, not the descriptors.
"It could be interesting, if you're interested in the subject, to compare a myriad of different examples of the use of music in cinema. I can think of all sorts of examples of music being used differently - the same song done in many different styles, always diegetic..."
ReplyDeleteI think that would be fascinating, LEAVES, but something that would need a good deal of thought and research. I was just looking to try to get a copy of NOROIT, actually. Rivette's LE PONT DU NORD and JEANNE LA PUCELLE are two of my favourites.
"Music, manipulation, melodrama, it's all in the ideas, not the descriptors."
Yes, to a large extent. It still comes down, as all art, to personal preference, that unique filter.
I was talking to a friend once, comparing books and movies, and we came to the conclusion that (in general and all other standard qualifications apply) books make their points using what the characters feel and movies using what we feel.
ReplyDeleteFar as I can see, music is probably the strongest arbiter of feeling; it is the easiest way for the filmmaker to get his point across. Which is why one is able to think of it particularly as sticking out. Would you ever ask the question, is cutting necessary? Cutting can be as badly misused, just rarely as prominently.
Re manipulation: I think movies are about what I feel. So do I want to be manipulated? For me, manipulation is at the core of cinema's art.
"it's all in the ideas, not the descriptors." - LEAVES
"Cinema is not about what it's about, but how it's about it." -Roger Ebert.
Both viewpoints seem to me to miss the central point; cinema is about what it's about by how it's about it.
The appeal for me of art as a method of communication is that it cannot be reduced. Just saying "imagine a planet where whatever you wanted most would become real" doesn't in any way give you a conception of the understanding of this idea you get when you watch Solyaris. And you can't separate this understanding from your feelings.
The idea communicated by art is the feeling of the idea.
"If there were a better, clearer, shorter way of saying what the fiction says, then why not scrap the fiction?" - J. M Coetzee (my favourite writer)
"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
[...]
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,"—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.""-Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn
"I believe poets read poetry differently than non-poets do. When some readers talk, I am amazed by the appetite for paraphrase. When critics talk, I am just as amazed by how completely they hear poetry as a function of culture (another sort of paraphrase). But when I hear poets, I hear the enchantment of the work. Their ideas about a poem are always borne by some conception of intimacy or distance of voice, rigor or looseness of attitude, delicacy or directness of treatment. Above all, poets always seem to listen, even as they compose, to the voice of that something that decides the rightness of their designs."-Mary Kinzie
"How different prose is; sometimes the two mediums refuse to say the same things. I found this lately doing an obituary on Hannah Arendt. Without verse, without philosophy, I found it hard, I was naked without my line-ends"-Robert Lowell
In the history of Cinema music predates sound. So perhaps it is somewhat inappropriate to refer to the music of film as the awkward 3rd wheel. Everything in a film comes down to directorial choice (ideally), and the choice to have a film or a specific scene without music is, in and of itself, a musical choice. Therefore your question is arbitrary, as it logically leads to “Do films need bad (as in ‘bad choice of or to have’) music?”, which is fundamentally no different than asking “Do films need bad camerawork or bad editing?”, as it could be equally argued that an obvious or generic choice of camera angle or match-cuts tells the audience that which should be felt or interpreted more subtly, or on its own entirely. Of course, I do agree with a lot of what you’re saying. With docudrama or cinéma vérité type material the most common use of film music can certainly be undermining for reasons you’ve already discussed in detail. However, the bulk of movies are meant to be entertaining. And music is entertaining.
ReplyDeleteParticularly with genre films, music enriches the textures and celebrates the conventions or traditions of whatever the kind of genre being dealt either by continuing from, or by waxing influences, inspirations or allusions to, past endeavors of said or similar genres. Vista shots of a helicopter flying upon a dinosaur island are celebrated with a trumpeting National Geographic/Wild Kingdom-like adventure melody. It’s a moment of both discovery and escapism to a fantastical place, musically coded with broad pop-culture familiarity, that audiences want to celebrate, whether they realize it or not. The film score accentuates these desires near perfectly. Without it, blah …the scene is cold porridge. Flat, dry, too objective. Or let’s consider another kind of island venture, where two Federal Marshal trench coats are ferried ashore then driven to the front gates of an insane asylum. The accompanying music–from a larger compilation of contemporary classical–is crass and unnerving, almost overwhelming at its apex; and it doesn’t merely build up tension, but celebrates it in pulpy hardboiled fashion. The music is part of the décor, and what is a haunted house ride without spooky décor?
Maybe music shouldn’t always tell the audience how to feel or what the characters are feeling, but I think it effective when filmmakers use music to construct their fictional world. I don’t know, from my end these comments are all but reactionary. I just blurted this stuff out. It’s a complex issue and I think further meditation is required.
Space Cadet signing out.
Space Cadet,
ReplyDelete"In the history of Cinema music predates sound. So perhaps it is somewhat inappropriate to refer to the music of film as the awkward 3rd wheel."
True enough. But nowadays, when there are so many examples of films without music that tend towards the documentary (if not the impossible goal of the erroneously-named 'realist') it is easy to see the music as something added. This is because it had been taken away from films and, of course, never existed as a backing for the real world.
"Therefore your question is arbitrary, as it logically leads to “Do films need bad (as in ‘bad choice of or to have’) music?”, which is fundamentally no different than asking “Do films need bad camerawork or bad editing?”"
I agree and I said it myself, calling it a "disingenuous question". You're right. It's not about whether film can work with music but about whether a film can also work without it (I maintain the majority would) in similar or different ways. How is music being used? "Does this film I am watching need this music?" is an interesting question.
All elements of a film create a whole but they did start as separate elements and can still (with difficulty perhaps) be pulled or imagined apart. That's what I try to do. We ask all the time why a certain character is needed, or a particular shot etc.
Your National Geographic example is great. For me a sunset in a film will never have the same impact as in real life. In that case, where something is needed to restore emotional immediacy music may work. But what else, less intrusive, could also work? Slow camera movement, a pan in, across, the sounds of the wind, of animals?
I think we have become used to, attuned to, expectant of these triggers that are themselves cliches triggered by the visuals. Cinema is first a visual medium and I think it needs to breathe sometimes.
"I just blurted this stuff out. It’s a complex issue and I think further meditation is required."
Thanks very much for the comments Space Cadet. It is a complex issue and one I couldn't do justice to in such a short space.
Ronak,
ReplyDelete"...books make their points using what the characters feel and movies using what we feel."
That's very true. Books, though, have to write silence, write nothingness. Films can sit a while.
"Far as I can see, music is probably the strongest arbiter of feeling; it is the easiest way for the filmmaker to get his point across. Which is why one is able to think of it particularly as sticking out."
Precisely. Because it's easy though it is a shortcut, sometimes depriving us of a twistier more fulfilling journey of our own within the world. It can be prescriptive.
Manipulation is at the core of art, yes, but there are levels of manipulation (maybe the most manipulative is the sort that seems entirely UNmanipulative) and levels of control exerted.
What a great barrage of quotes! Makes you think...
- books make their points using what the characters feel and movies using what we feel.
ReplyDeleteAre you saying that the horror/thriller genre is unique to film? The 'giallo' genre is named after the yellow color of the horror/thriller books, which certainly 'used what the audience felt'. This just plain seems wrong. Some books work one way, some the other, and some an entirely different way; the same with film.
- Would you ever ask the question, is cutting necessary?
Absolutely. This is why so many filmmakers work to hide their cuts or use long takes while others develop entire theories around the method of juxtaposition using cuts. The use of the cut is always a question. It's no different in literature - writers can choose stream-of-consciousness, first/third/second person narration, retroactive or active narration, linear or non-linear storytelling in order to decide from what perspective to deliver content. How does a book use music? Rhyme, meter, and rhetoric are excellent tools. One of Nabokov's favorite books of the last century was built around a linguistic system which utilized the sounds of the words based around the author's musical theories. As such, even in a 'silent' medium there are choices of sound, of musicality, and how and whether it should be employed.
- Both viewpoints seem to me to miss the central point; cinema is about what it's about by how it's about it.
I see no reason why this contradicts my point, but it also seems a bit reductive.
- The appeal for me of art as a method of communication is that it cannot be reduced.
Seems silly, since your example of the impossibility of reduction was to reduce it to text, from which Solaris was birthed, and then reduced the text of Solaris to one sentence. How many contradictions can you fit into one example? That you went on to reduce art to some silly aphorisms doesn't really help your point.
- In the history of Cinema music predates sound.
Your point contradicts itself, since the lack of sound imposed the question of 'what should accompany the film?' Thus, the question now is the same as in the beginning of cinema - what kind of sound should accompany the film, if any? Additionally, painting began in caves, but this need not mean that all painters must choose what kind of rock they want to paint on. A film is subject to the choices at hand, not the choices of other artists in a similar medium (we could call sound film a different medium, for instance).
-Particularly with genre films, music enriches the textures and celebrates the conventions or traditions of whatever the kind of genre being dealt either by continuing from
And genre implicitly implies following certain forms, since we categorize genre films according to their resemblance to other films. This doesn't mean that the conditions of the genre aren't awful.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI have always supported the use of music and have a collection of over 1,500 CDs of film scores. So you know where I'm going here. However there is no question it sometimes is a crutch for directors, and it often superficially provides what the narrative can't.
ReplyDeleteOne of your most brilliant essays. God, are you on a roll in every sense!
Some quick thoughts:
ReplyDelete- i think there IS a fear of silence that often occurs in films. It makes me think of the kind of person who keeps chatting all the time because they are afraid of a lull in the conversation.
- I was watching JAWS on TV a month or so ago - tired, and could'nt be bothered to watch anything else. I noticed something new in this umpteenth viewing - aside from the fine and overly-familiar mood-enhancing 'shark-coming-to-get-you" orchestral chunks'n'thumps, the rest of the score was largely rubbish. Bombastic. When the lads are out in the boat hunting the shark, the music almost sounds swash-buckling, kind of jaunty. I wondered if it would've been better to have had the rhythm of the boat on the sea, the thrashing of waves, as the sole 'musical' texture for the film.
- In an article in The Wire magazine about 15 years ago, a composer by the name of Paul Schutze wrote on the mis-use of music in film. This is all from memory, so I'm bound to be misquoting the essay, but an interesting point was raised regards Cronenberg's CRASH. Schutze pointed out that the score, an acoustic guitary jangle, did not sufficiently serve the mood and content of the film. He referred to a moment in the film when a character purposely crashes a car, and the camera pans across the wreckage, we hear the pained groan of battered metal, an almost musical moment where the car seems to sing in agony. Schutze said that THIS sound could have made for a better musical score throughout the film.
Sam,
ReplyDeleteThat is quite a collection! I'm glad you can see where I'm coming from even if you aren't in total agreement.
Thanks.
Michael,
ReplyDelete"It makes me think of the kind of person who keeps chatting all the time because they are afraid of a lull in the conversation."
Yes, that's a good comparison.
"I wondered if it would've been better to have had the rhythm of the boat on the sea, the thrashing of waves, as the sole 'musical' texture for the film."
That is precisely the kind of example that I was referring to. CRASH too. I'll try and find the article. What a different film JAWS would be, perhaps with greater emphasis on tension rather than confrontation or adventure. The fear of the unknown would come through in the silence.
"...because this kind of music has been used in the past to achieve this kind of emotion.""
I agree. Certain musical cues/chords/melodies have become emotional shorthand - which not only distances in some way the audience from the film but fails to differentiate the film from whom it derives its shorthand.
I like the thought of making the everyday (just walking around) "cinematic".
Michael,
ReplyDeleteOn Psycho, I think you're right. It does make it seem "illicit", though I wouldn't go as far as Nathan did above in calling it "Snuff-like". It does take away a veneer of enjoyment and, I think, it makes the scene more authentic, closer to the character being killed.
Without music she's less another victim in a horror entertainment.
P.S. Your second comment has disappeared (again), so I'm now answering a phantom comment.
Here's the second comment, the mysterious disappearing phantom comment. No worries about the reversed order (answer to comment first, actual comment second) - we'll just call this a 'flashback'!
ReplyDelete"- i agree with your comment about the hermetically sealed environment created by plugging in to iPods, et al. There seems to a promotion of disengagement with the sounds and 'music' of the natural world around us. I enjoy actively listening to the environment around me when meandering around. But, I also enjoy plugging in and making hermetic-listening a creative venture. I find sometimes that I can connect the music i'm listening to on the iPod to the external world, and find i am soundtracking my walks. Suddenly the experience seems oddly richer, and turns the everyday into something almost cinematic.
- Watched the Psycho scenes. Really interesting, isn't it? Without music the scene seems to retreat from the realm of cinema, enters a realm of 'illicit' viewing, takes away a pleasure of viewing. No answers, no deeper thoughts at present, just extremely thought-provoking.
Cheers for the post, I really appreciated all the ideas and opinions it has brought forth so far!"
Interesting debate. The version without music feels so much more naked and dirty. The violins slice and stab and then the thunderous, brooding finale echo is almost like the life is ebbing out.
ReplyDeleteI just watched 'The Jar' from 'Alfred Hitchcock Hour' and Herrmann's brooding underscore as the inhabitants of a small town gather to stare directly into the camera/jar with it's mysterious contents elevates it to another level.
I think a person could make a case against classical movie cinematography (which has now been so tortured via shaky hand-held camera-work), or even sets. Why not have more movies done along the lines of 'Our Town'?
Cinematography is an art form, sound design is an art form, musical scores are too. Telling a story with light to create mood, or sounds ('Outer Limits', 'Citizen Kane', 'Bradbury 13', ect) or telling a tale with musical compositions - it all depends on the use of the art to aid the film. When it works, alchemy is achieved.
I can't think of the shadow of Scarlet O'Hara, drenched in red sunset, and her lines as she picks up the dirt and promises never to be in poverty again without Max Steiner's magnificently poetic scoring. Or Herrmann's psychologically probing underscore in 'Vertigo' and 'The Ghost and Mrs Muir'.
I also love the identifiable sameness of scoring by specific composers and I do one that doesn't contain a signiture; Barry, Herrmann, Morricone, Jarr, Rosza, - perhaps because they are autuers too.
I remember a David Raskin quote, in which he describes watching 'Murder on the Orient Express' with Herrmann and him riling at the light frothy '20s pastiche as the train left the station - that had been layered on by the composer. To Herrmann, is should have brooding and loud and darkly ominous. A train of DEATH. Raskin disagreed and thought the music fine for such a frolic. He obviously didn't understand, which is why he is almost forgotten. Herrmann would have given it a rich depth and darkness, brought out elements that were invisible, to complement the lightness. It would have been a whole film.
Bobby,
ReplyDeleteHerrmann is (generally) a very good example of someone who could complement rather than hold back a film.
"...brought out elements that were invisible"
That is precisely what so few composers (aided and abetted by their directors) achieve, or even seek to achieve.
There are moments, as with GONE WITH THE WIND, where music and image have become so entwined that the music can stand for the image. The question is whether that is for the good or not.
"I also love the identifiable sameness of scoring by specific composers and I do one that doesn't contain a signiture; Barry, Herrmann, Morricone, Jarr, Rosza, - perhaps because they are autuers too."
Very true about them being auteurs too, something I haven't considered too deeply until now. I would still rather the work of art of its own uniqueness as opposed to being (too obviously) vehicle for an artist's signature style.
Thanks for the comments Bobby, and for another perspective on the PSYCHO clip.
Here's a nifty thing that Spielberg and Williams did with JAWS. Throughout the film, the audience is trained to expect the shark with the familiar two-note motif.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest jump in the film, then, comes when there's NO music and the shark appears out of nowhere, when Brody is throwing chum into the water.
Nathan,
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting. That's a pretty clever device that will work even if you aren't aware of it.
I saw a clip recently of Kim Ji Woon's I SAW THE DEVIL in which a couple of minutes of bombastic music suddenly stopped to zone in on a man realising his wife was dead.
It can be very effective when music is used and then removed, like a carpet being pulled from under us. It changes the whole mood and makes you refocus.
LEAVES:
ReplyDeleteSorry for replying so late, but I was blocked from blogs throughout December and then I forgot till I waltzed in to this blog again today. Hope you somehow get a notification that there's been a reply.
While you make a good point about the horror and thriller genres in literature, I think I'd still stand by my assertion. Somehow when I'm reading Loveccraft or le Carre or someone else similar, I inevitably feel as if my emotional reaction is being filtered through other people.
At some level, because it's told, I feel as if there's a person between me and the story, even in completely "cinematic" works like The Maltese Falcon.
About my assertion that "would you ever ask is cutting necessary" or some such, it was mostly a rhetorical point. Of course it's not wholly necessary (you can have movies in one shot and whatnot); what I was trying to get at was that the question is not "is it necessary" but "what does it add".
As for the other two things, I now think I was overdoing the waxing eloquent thing there.
what is music?
ReplyDeleteno way dude its an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.
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