# The purpose / effect of film music



## Guest

Searching for studies into the effect of film music (and therefore its likely purpose) I came across a study which supported my 'hypothesis' (not really, just a hunch ) that the visuals are more important than the music in impacting on the emotional response to a film.



> The analysis of the effects of incongruentfilm-music combinations directly tells us which modality, visual or auditory, isstronger in modulating a dominant emotional appraisal of a film sequence. Theresults are very clear. In all cases, except the case of fear, the emotional quality of visual information (film) has a stronger effect than the emotional quality of auditory information (music).


https://www.researchgate.net/public..._on_the_emotional_appraisal_of_film_sequences

This was just the first piece of research into the issue I found, so I'm not claiming that my hunch has been incontrovertibly proven. Nor am I able to comment on the soundness of the study or the methodology.

Has anyone come across any other studies into the effect of music in film? What do you make of the findings in this study?

And in terms of the purpose of film music, arguably the most successful scores are not necessarily those that are most musically memorable or complex, but those that confirm or enhance the emotional impact that the director wishes his audience to feel from watching the visuals.


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## Art Rock

If you've seen the movie (or TV series), there is an almost unavoidable link between the music and scenes you recollect. That does not imply that the music would not work on its own though. I like several soundtracks of movies/series that I've never seen. For instance, Peter Gabriel's work for the movies Rabbit-Proof Fence (issued as Long walk home) and Scorcese's The Last Temptation of Christ, as well as (to stick more to classical) the music by Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir for the TV series Chernobyl.


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## Guest

Art Rock said:


> If you've seen the movie (or TV series), there is an almost unavoidable link between the music and scenes you recollect.


Yes, if I read the research correctly, music helps firm up the scenes in long-term memory.



Art Rock said:


> That does not imply that the music would not work on its own though.


No, although it raises the question of what 'work' means. If you mean simply that it can be enjoyed on its own, yes, undoubtedly. If you mean that it stands up as a formally constructed piece (in the same way that a symphony does, for example) I'd question that.

What I'm looking for is some research that can confirm that while 'big theme' soundtracks are certainly memorable (and stand up on their own), there are scores that are just as effective that do not draw attention to themselves in the same way. Their effect is more subliminal. One of the few soundtracks I own is Jóhann Jóhannsson's for _Arrival_. It's barely memorable - no whistleable tunes (the bit that might be regarded as memorable was written by Max Richter anyway) - but seems to me a good example of a score that works without either memorable melody or rhythm. To confirm this would require the director to provide a map of the emotions he intended us to feel; and for researchers to test audience response for the music's success in achieving this. I would argue that the score is actually emotionally neutral or uncertain, matching the uncertainty of the narrative. The Richter is more obviously on the 'sad' end of the 'joy/sadness' dimension and confirms the emotional climax of the movie.

(Hildur Guðnadóttir played solo cello on the _Arrival _soundtrack!)


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## Jacck

MacLeod said:


> No, although it raises the question of what 'work' means. If you mean simply that it can be enjoyed on its own, yes, undoubtedly. If you mean that it stands up as a formally constructed piece (in the same way that a symphony does, for example) I'd question that.
> 
> What I'm looking for is some research that can confirm that while 'big theme' soundtracks are certainly memorable (and stand up on their own), there are scores that are just as effective that do not draw attention to themselves in the same way. Their effect is more subliminal. One of the few soundtracks I own is Jóhann Jóhannsson's for _Arrival_. It's barely memorable - no whistleable tunes (the bit that might be regarded as memorable was written by Max Richter anyway) - but seems to me a good example of a score that works without either memorable melody or rhythm. To confirm this would require the director to provide a map of the emotions he intended us to feel; and for researchers to test audience response for the music's success in achieving this. I would argue that the score is actually emotionally neutral or uncertain, matching the uncertainty of the narrative. The Richter is more obviously on the 'sad' end of the 'joy/sadness' dimension and confirms the emotional climax of the movie.


the soundtracks are varied. Some are more like classical music and can stand on their own, others are more or less sound background to enhance the scenes and cannot stand on their own. AFAIK, the formal structure for symphonies was abandoned in the 20th century. There are some outstanding sountracks that I can listen to as a whole just like I would listen to a symphony. For example the Total Recall sountrack






this both enhanced the movie greatly and can stand perfectly on its own

many other soundtracks are unlistenable as a whole. For example from Hans Zimmer. He is a minimalist and composed some memorable melodies, but his soundtracks mostly contain just one main melody repeated over many scenes in the movie and the rest is filler, so it it unlistenable as a standalone. There are exceptions. He composed some genuinely good scores such as The Last Samurai or Interstellar. Many are just bland to bad. And most are a mixture of one strong melody and these and boring filler.


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## Jacck

MacLeod said:


> Searching for studies into the effect of film music (and therefore its likely purpose) I came across a study which supported my 'hypothesis' (not really, just a hunch ) that the visuals are more important than the music in impacting on the emotional response to a film.
> 
> https://www.researchgate.net/public..._on_the_emotional_appraisal_of_film_sequences
> 
> This was just the first piece of research into the issue I found, so I'm not claiming that my hunch has been incontrovertibly proven. Nor am I able to comment on the soundness of the study or the methodology.
> 
> Has anyone come across any other studies into the effect of music in film? What do you make of the findings in this study?
> 
> And in terms of the purpose of film music, arguably the most successful scores are not necessarily those that are most musically memorable or complex, but those that confirm or enhance the emotional impact that the director wishes his audience to feel from watching the visuals.


I think that the musical scores can make or break a movie. An outstanding score can make a mediocre movie into something totally exceptional and vice versa. Conan the Barbarian would be an average movie, but if you add to it the epic score from Poledouris, it is something special. Or Goldsmiths soundtrack for the Medicine Man. The music really enhanced the scenes, for example when they climb into the tree tops in the rainforest and this plays


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## Guest

Jacck said:


> the soundtracks are varied. Some are more like classical music and can stand on their own, others are more or less sound background to enhance the scenes and cannot stand on their own.


I can see this thread going off the rails already.

I'm not really interested in whether a soundtrack can stand on its own. That's a distraction. More to the point with Zimmer is whether his score is successful in its primary task, which is what I've asked about in my OP.


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## Guest

Jacck said:


> I think that the musical scores can make or break a movie. An outstanding score can make a mediocre movie into something totally exceptional and vice versa. Conan the Barbarian would be an average movie, but if you add to it the epic score from Poledouris, it is something special. Or Goldsmiths soundtrack for the Medicine Man. The music really enhanced the scenes, for example when they climb into the tree tops in the rainforest and this plays


I think that a musical score can have an enhancing effect - or a distracting effect - but not that it can make or break a movie.

Let's put it this way. Movies can stand on their own without a soundtrack.


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## Jacck

MacLeod said:


> I think that a musical score can have an enhancing effect - or a distracting effect - but not that it can make or break a movie.
> 
> Let's put it this way. Movies can stand on their own without a soundtrack.


yes, but many would be much worse without the OST. Try watching Star Wars, Alien etc without the OST


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## Guest

Jacck said:


> yes, but many would be much worse without the OST. Try watching Star Wars, Alien etc without the OST


I was thinking of silent movies.


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## Jacck

MacLeod said:


> I was thinking of silent movies.


silent movies had music


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## Guest

Jacck said:


> silent movies had music


Yes, of course many of them did, but how many directors of the era were creating a complete audio-visual experience over which they had the kind of control that Spielberg and Williams have today?

If a movie's visual core can't stand on its own, music can't rescue it.


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## mikeh375

MacLeod said:


> Yes, if I read the research correctly, music helps firm up the scenes in long-term memory.
> 
> No, although it raises the question of what 'work' means. If you mean simply that it can be enjoyed on its own, yes, undoubtedly. If you mean that it stands up as a formally constructed piece (in the same way that a symphony does, for example) I'd question that.
> 
> What I'm looking for is some research that can confirm that while 'big theme' soundtracks are certainly memorable (and stand up on their own), there are scores that are just as effective that do not draw attention to themselves in the same way. Their effect is more subliminal. One of the few soundtracks I own is Jóhann Jóhannsson's for _Arrival_. It's barely memorable - no whistleable tunes (the bit that might be regarded as memorable was written by Max Richter anyway) - but seems to me a good example of a score that works without either memorable melody or rhythm. To confirm this would require the director to provide a map of the emotions he intended us to feel; and for researchers to test audience response for the music's success in achieving this. I would argue that the score is actually emotionally neutral or uncertain, matching the uncertainty of the narrative. The Richter is more obviously on the 'sad' end of the 'joy/sadness' dimension and confirms the emotional climax of the movie.
> 
> (Hildur Guðnadóttir played solo cello on the _Arrival _soundtrack!)


I'm so pleased you have noted the score to 'Arrival' MacL as it stands out for me too as being one of the more clever of recent scores. I found it to be remarkably effective, especially the sound design approach for the alien craft (the drone).

Apologies for not yet reading your link but I can tell you from direct experience that music will certainly heighten emotional efficacy in a scene when done well and there is literally an unlimited number of ways one can go about it, ranging from the obscure, the thematic approach, the hackneyed (of which there is a lot), all the way to the designed sound approach. Some scenes can be quite flat on their own but once post production gets involved (not just music too), the transformation can be very marked.

I quite agree too that the less complex, the more effective the music, especially in dialogue heavy scenes, where clearly the spoken line is of the utmost importance and part of the skill a film composer has to develop is sensitivity to the spoken word so as to not intrude. Goldsmith was one of the best in this regard. Apparently when a dubbing engineer (sorry, name forgotten) who had worked with Goldsmith's scores a lot, knew he was to be mixing into a soundtrack one of Goldsmith's scores, he set the levels on his mixing desk and hardly bothered touching them for the entire dubb. Whilst no doubt in part apocryphal, the story effectively conveys Goldsmith's brilliant artifice. (Just in case you are not aware of this, during a dubb, the mixing engineer will have all the sound for the complete soundtrack (dialogue, effects, foley, atmos, music etc,) on separate tracks so he can blend them to the director's wishes.

I also question whether a piece composed for a scene in a film, whilst perhaps being listenable to on it's own, constitutes a 'work' in the concert hall sense. There are of course exceptions, Williams being a prime example as his complexity offers more. But approach to both ways of writing is utterly different imv. The technical and musical constraints that impinge on freedom of expression in a film cue are anathema to extended composition, which requires a totally different compositional mindset, one that is free to impose its own restrictions and able to imagine and develop unhindered by external temporal events. The musical narratives and their future trajectories are different, one is in effect mostly sealed with film, the other for the concert hall is open to imagination and fantasy and its genesis is more personal.

Related to the OP is the effect of the DAW and samples on film composing which has affected the technical and musical quality of the score much to the detriment of the trained approach.


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## Guest

Film music is inextricably linked to the meaning of the images; central to the understanding of these. Not all film scores are equal; some are bog standard while others are great. Hitchcock's partnership with Bernard Herrmann was one example of the symbiotic relationship between image and music. One couldn't exist without the other (cf "Reading Film Music", Royal S. Brown). Not only is music used to cue emotions, instill additional fear and trepidation it actually undercuts the framed image by providing an alternate narrative; a reversion to the past, hints of other ideas, ridicule and parody (cf the music by De Vol for those funny comedies with Doris Day and Rock Hudson), just as some examples. Try watching the sequence with Marian driving away from Phoenix with the money in "Psycho" without the accompanying music of Bernard Herrmann!! She could be on a shopping trip. Hitchcock had a falling out with Herrmann (everybody did!) but he found out too late that the nexus between his images and Herrmann's music was central to the success of his films.


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## JAS

Jacck said:


> silent movies had music


Not only did silent movies have music, some of it admittedly "library" music, but also real scores written expressly for the film for bigger productions (although not always practical as the film travelled to smaller venues). Indeed, music was so important to silent films that there was often a piano player on the set to establish the tone for the scene. (They could get away with that, of course, because there was no recording being made on the set.)


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## Guest

JAS said:


> Not only did silent movies have music, some of it admittedly "library" music, but also real scores written expressly for the film for bigger productions (although not always practical as the film travelled to smaller venues). Indeed, music was so important to silent films that there was often a piano player on the set to establish the tone for the scene. (They could get away with that, of course, because there was no recording being made on the set.)


As I said, what I had in mind were the many silent movies where the visual took precedence over the aural, and musical accompaniment was nothing more than that.

Christabel's point about Hitchcock and Herrmann is well made, except that youd have to have the visual equivalent of a tin ear if you think Marion might be going shopping.

I've never watched a 'modern' movie in its entirety with the score absent (you'd still need to hear the dialogue), but I have watched silent era movies without the score and had no trouble understanding what was going on or what emotions are expected. What is interesting about silent movies and scores is how it is thought to be perfectly acceptable for new scores to be written for them, regardless of the visual image. Try comparing the different musical incarnations of _The General _or _The Phantom Carriage_. What it illustrates is what we all agree on, which is the significant impact music can have on our emotional response, and how this can be retuned with different scores.


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## Guest

MacLeod said:


> As I said, what I had in mind were the many silent movies where the visual took precedence over the aural, and musical accompaniment was nothing more than that.
> 
> Christabel's point about Hitchcock and Herrmann is well made, except that youd have to have the visual equivalent of a tin ear if you think Marion might be going shopping.
> 
> I've never watched a 'modern' movie in its entirety with the score absent (you'd still need to hear the dialogue), but I have watched silent era movies without the score and had no trouble understanding what was going on or what emotions are expected. What is interesting about silent movies and scores is how it is thought to be perfectly acceptable for new scores to be written for them, regardless of the visual image. Try comparing the different musical incarnations of _The General _or _The Phantom Carriage_. What it illustrates is what we all agree on, which is the significant impact music can have on our emotional response, and how this can be retuned with different scores.


I pinched the quote about Marion from Royal S. Brown from his book I earlier cited, and I've used it when I've taught film myself. The music adds EVERYTHING to that film; every frame of it. If not shopping then driving to or from a family meeting or an important job interview. *Certainly not away from the police in fear of being hunted and caught, or paranoia and fear.* Herrmann's score gives that scene all the urgency justified to unsettle audiences with its foretaste of doom. And the rhythms are directly related back to the visual disturbances of the opening title sequence. Herrmann was one of the very greatest film composers and he often had to make very convincing arguments to Hitchcock to have certain passages included in the films.

Silent film is another situation entirely. The dearth of skilled musicians in country towns and smaller regional centres meant that stock piano or organ music had to be used to fill in for the total silence. Nobody wanted to go to the "silent" cinema to listen to Cage's "4.33". The music wasn't used for emotional triggers since no standard 'score' was available. Only think of the expertise of keyboard musicians (as they usually were) who had to 'read' a film he/she hadn't seen before and provide simultaneous, credible background music. That tells you that the nexus was thin between music, emotion and plot - and the music always responded rather than anticiipated. The acting style was mimetic anyway and had to carry the film in toto with overtly physical emotional cues. (And if you couldn't read you didn't go the cinema anyway!!)

"*The General*" is one of the finest films ever made; the restoration is available here on U-Tube accompanied by a purposeful 'score' for 20th and 21st century sound film audiences: sound on film was still experimental when Keaton made this one in 1927. Lots of cinemas which played this film would have had keyboard accompaniment only. This film can stand alone without cues of "Dixie" and rhythmic passages emulating the turning of locomotive wheels. We've already been told through inter-titles that he's going to enlist before the "Dixie" passages are played. Compare with "Psycho" were we have no idea of imminent danger unless *forewarned* by Bernard Herrmann.


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## mikeh375

Herrmann could also rewrite cues at lightning speed. I read once that he had to rewrite several minutes worth of music due to last minute edits (a still common occurrence). This he did in a break from the actual recording of the soundtrack, with a team of copyists waiting nearby for every finished page in order to write out parts.
Was it Williams who called him "the godfather of film scoring"?


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## Guest

@Christabel.

Your 'everything' is such splendid hyperbole. It's no wonder Hitch and Bernie fell out if the director and cinematographer no longer made any contribution.

I'm not arguing against Herrmann's invaluable contribution, but to take one scene out of context as you do, is to deprive the movie of essential context. Of course you'd know what was happening because you'd have watched from the beginning!

However, we can't check that since we can't un-know what happened. So, try watching a silent movie that you've never seen, and know nothing about, but in silence.


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## mikeh375

Early on, one of the consequences of equating emotions on screen with music was the standardising and then an increasingly incessant use of musical tropes - simplistically speaking, minor=sad, dissonance=horror, Rachmaninoff = falling in love, etc. Inevitably this tended to lead towards a stylised approach to writing a score that confined what was musically possible because of expectations from the more conventional directors and the public. Jas mentioned above that sheet music was available for all conceivable emotional states during the silent era and that was because of this burgeoning association.

Then there where the trail blazers, the mavericks, the unique talents, and that tended to be not just a composer like Herrmann, but directors too, who pushed the boundaries and opened up the language of film music beyond the lowest, hackneyed and superficial common musical denominators.

Clearly early on, live music was the only option for a soundtrack. Today the timbral range is digitally endless and if one factors in technology such as surround sound, one could be forgiven for wanting unique experiences all the time. It's just not the case in the vast majority of releases for those tropes are still there and money has to be made therefore expectation has to be met. 

Perhaps there is something in those tropes after all but in certain film genres, they've been repeated too much and to the detriment of film score creativity imv.
We need a new Herrmann.


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## Guest

MacLeod said:


> @Christabel.
> 
> Your 'everything' is such splendid hyperbole. It's no wonder Hitch and Bernie fell out if the director and cinematographer no longer made any contribution.
> 
> I'm not arguing against Herrmann's invaluable contribution, but to take one scene out of context as you do, is to deprive the movie of essential context. Of course you'd know what was happening because you'd have watched from the beginning!
> 
> However, we can't check that since we can't un-know what happened. So, try watching a silent movie that you've never seen, and know nothing about, but in silence.


You want to argue by parsing sentences. I have post-grad qualifications in film and worked in documentary film for television, plus have read VAST amounts on cinema, considering myself somewhat of an expert when it comes to film - teaching and reviewing them amongst other skills. I just love coming onto the internet to take lessons from 'experts'.

You are arguing against yourself in your last paragraph; take a look again at what I wrote. I repeat: silent film has its own mimesis and tropes to cue people SANS a musical soundtrack. Inter-titles provide the information but it's largely up to the actors to display emotions - fear, love, shock, horror, dread etc.;- with their bodies and faces. They were meant to operate on a single plane without music; the cinemas used incidental music so that the audiences could hear something, not sit listening to the sounds of munching potato chips.

Have a look at "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" with Charles Laughton. The director used very little music. Laughton carried the most poignant scenes entirely on his own and these spoke for themselves. Remember this was in a decade after the first Vitaphone picture was made and people EXPECTED lots of music; but Dieterle was having none of it when it came to his great lead actor. The 1930s were a breakthrough decade because of saturations of music (Warner Bros) and vast amounts of dialogue (Howard Hawks asked "how much dialogue should we use?"). They also had access to some of the greatest composers for film in all countries. Much of that music provides a heroic or tragic backdrop but film can certainly trigger our emotions without music. View again "To Kill a Mockingbird" - many scenes without music.

The two films I've mentioned are both MASTERPIECES. Also, Powell and Pressburger's "The Red Shoes" - a ballet film but the emotionally charged scenes are carried by the actors, primarily.

Howard Hawks almost never used music in his dialogue sequences in the screwball comedies. He didn't need music to say 'this is funny; this is sad'. The dialogue and the sound effects provide the rhythm and the jokes are the punctuation.


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## Guest

> silent film has its own mimesis and tropes to cue people SANS a musical soundtrack. Inter-titles provide the information but it's largely up to the actors to display emotions - fear, love, shock, horror, dread etc.;- with their bodies and faces. They were meant to operate on a single plane without music


So, we agree.



> film can certainly trigger our emotions without music. View again "To Kill a Mockingbird" - many scenes without music.


And again, we agree. Excellent.


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## Guest

The Hitchcock/Herrmann relationship soured and "Hitch" never had a successful film like those he previously enjoyed while working with Benny. "Torn Curtain" was where the rift happened and the film was marred by an indifferent score.

It's true that Herrmann's music raised to another level films which were often very mediocre, for example: "*The Day the Earth Stood Still*" and "*The Devil and Daniel Webster*". His score for "*The Ghost and Mrs. Muir*" was one of his finest, even though the film isn't particularly significant IMO; even better than "*Citizen Kane*". The symbiotic relationship of music to image was, for Hitchcock in particular, only fully understood by the director by the time it was too late.

His two scores for Hitchcock "Psycho" and "Vertigo" remain the greatest and it's impossible to imagine the first without the disturbing edge-of-the-seat dissonance and the leitmotif-laden fantasy and romance of the latter - with its look back to Tristan. In a sense "Vertigo" is Hitchcock's most 'operatic' film. Music as narrative working in equal proportion to all the other elements. A complex interrelationship.

Today much film music is generic and atmospheric and a long way from the thematic cues which provide much additional information to audiences apart from that which appears on screen.


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## Jacck

Christabel said:


> Today much film music is generic and atmospheric and a long way from the thematic cues which provide much additional information to audiences apart from that which appears on screen.


I partly blame Hans Zimmer for this degeneration of film music. Compared to scores by Goldsmith or Williams, his music is pretty primitive, minimalistic and synthetic. But he was successful and had many copycats, which totally changed the film music industry. Now we mostly get bland generic scores. (there are some exceptions)


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## Guest

Jacck said:


> I partly blame Hans Zimmer for this degeneration of film music. Compared to scores by Goldsmith or Williams, his music is pretty primitive, minimalistic and synthetic. But he was successful and had many copycats, which totally changed the film music industry. Now we mostly get bland generic scores. (there are some exceptions)


But is it effective? Does it achieve what film music sets out to achieve?

It's all very well extolling the virtues of the greats, but does it get us nearer to identifying what it is they achieve? Too often, what is cited is that they achieve 'stand aloneness'!



> Music as narrative working in equal proportion to all the other elements. A complex interrelationship


I like this from Christabel, and I think there are other composers than Herrmann who achieve this.

It's certainly true that some Zimmer studio scores seem formulaic, but I wouldn't hold that against Zimmer himself. I assume he produces what the director asks, and he is one of the go-to composers precisely because they want what he does.


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## JAS

Jacck said:


> I partly blame Hans Zimmer for this degeneration of film music. Compared to scores by Goldsmith or Williams, his music is pretty primitive, minimalistic and synthetic. But he was successful and had many copycats, which totally changed the film music industry. Now we mostly get bland generic scores. (there are some exceptions)


I tend to think of Zimmer as a symptom rather than a cause, but he is a useful symbol of the plight of scoring these days. (A big part of the problem, I think, is that films get edited and re-edited right down to the release time, so having a score wedded to a particular cut is less flexible. For what Zimmer produces, it hardly matters.)


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## Guest

Which movies in the recent past have been scored with sub standard music? How many?


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## Guest

Jacck said:


> I partly blame Hans Zimmer for this degeneration of film music. Compared to scores by Goldsmith or Williams, his music is pretty primitive, minimalistic and synthetic. But he was successful and had many copycats, which totally changed the film music industry. Now we mostly get bland generic scores. (there are some exceptions)


I have to say that amongst film music aficionados Hans Zimmer is not rated highly. I don't know too many other modern film composers apart from the excellent John Williams; my interest is mostly in 20th century film music.


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## pianozach

MacLeod said:


> I can see this thread going off the rails already.
> 
> I'm not really interested in whether a soundtrack can stand on its own. That's a distraction. More to the point with Zimmer is whether his score is successful in its primary task, which is what I've asked about in my OP.


Oh, yes. Quite. Off the rails. Like The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp.

There are so many "types" of films scores, and genres of film.

I'm pretty sure there are mountains of literature on the subject, and plenty of websites with plenty of wisdom and dumbassery alike.

As to your OP, I think you may want to explore examples of scenes from films, and those same scenes with the score removed, or other scores inserted. I think I gave some examples in the *John Williams* thread.

*Silent films* are a great personal resource, as there are many famous and lauded silent films with two or more scores available.

It's also important to remember that it's not just ONE scene for some better scores, but the way the OVERALL score builds and adds and develops as the film develops.


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## Guest

Play this without the music, then replay with the music.






Do the same with this from 1:15:






Discuss.

Then there's this miraculous score, invoking Wagner's "Liebestod" - only, in an ironic reversal, in this scene Marian is brought back to life:






Herrmann's unresolved V7s keep us apprehensive and on edge. And the final scene from 3:15 here. Herrmann's music, circular and relentless, obsessive and unresolved, appears to be moving upwards but, in fact, it's sweep is actually downwards as Scott and "Madelaine" move up the spiral staircase. Bravura music and an incredible performance from Stewart ("you shouldn't have been so sentimental"). I feel Novak wasn't up to the part. The final shot with the nun hits a false note, but the idea of judgment and retribution would have been consistent with Hitchcock's own religious beliefs.


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## Guest

Christabel said:


> Play this without the music, then replay with the music.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Do the same with this from 1:15:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Discuss.


Let's just look at the _Psycho_. Before considering this with the music, it would make sense to explore what we get from the soundless version. However, as I suggested earlier, it's difficult to do this without reading in everything I already know from having watched it several times before.

Still, the surface narrative is clear - woman takes a shower, someone comes in and stabs her, repeatedly, while she struggles to defend herself. The assailant flees before checking that she is dead (we see her leaning against the wall, then cut to the back of the maniac exiting the bathroom). Woman falls over the edge of the bath, pulling part of the the shower curtain down with her. The close-up of her still, but open eye suggests she is dead (not merely unconscious). We look at a folded newspaper, then a house up a nearby stoop. Then a man arrives, looks horrified at what he sees, knocks over a picture of a bird.

Cut (in this extract at least).

Knowing what preceded this helps us understand the narrative and thematic significance of the folded newspaper, the bird and the house. Additionally, the sexual suggestiveness of the assault that has been inferred by critics becomes, IMO, more readily visible (even obvious, I think). There are other things to consider, such as the choice of shots of the shower head, the outstretched hand, the plughole etc and what they contribute, but let's not go on for hours.

Lastly, the whole sequence is remarkably bloodless, yet still visually horrific. A more modern film would have bloodied prosthetic wounds, blood on the curtain, blood oozing from the back of her head as she slides down the wall, CGI blood. Oh, and the knife actually striking flesh before the blood!

The music adds the gore, metaphorically speaking. I don't suppose Hitchcock consciously decided not to have gore and to let the music do the work instead, but that seems to have been the effect, if not the intent.


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## Guest

pianozach said:


> Oh, yes. Quite. Off the rails. Like The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp.
> 
> There are so many "types" of films scores, and genres of film.
> 
> I'm pretty sure there are mountains of literature on the subject, and plenty of websites with plenty of wisdom and dumbassery alike.
> 
> As to your OP, I think you may want to explore examples of scenes from films, and those same scenes with the score removed, or other scores inserted. I think I gave some examples in the *John Williams* thread.
> 
> *Silent films* are a great personal resource, as there are many famous and lauded silent films with two or more scores available.
> 
> It's also important to remember that it's not just ONE scene for some better scores, but the way the OVERALL score builds and adds and develops as the film develops.


Thanks for the general exhortation.  If I seemed impatient in my 'off the rails' comment, I'm sorry, but it's because I had already been involved in extensive discussion about John Williams. I'm not looking for a discussion about either the merits of individual composers or, what seems to me the substance of much of the discussion about film music on TC, how the best scores tend to be identified simply because they 'stand up on their own'. I deliberately started a different thread to ask different questions.

Generalised criticisms of Zimmer and other unnamed current composers are as off-piste for me as generalised praise for Williams and Herrmann. I like a number of the films he has scored (and probably the score too - _Gladiator, Dunkirk _and _Inception _are three examples) and fail to see what the complaint is.

mike375 and Christabel seem to have got the hang of it. Thanks.


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## Merl

I enjoy a lot of horror movies, especially ones from Asia. One thing many of them have in common is the limited use of music. This creates tension and atmosphere. When I watch American horror movies it's exactly the opposite. You can tell when the scares are coming because they ramp up the soundtrack, incidental music or background sounds, or stop it dead. Makes it all very boring and predictable. Watch the remakes of some of the classic Japanese horror movies and you'll see and hear exactly what I mean (eg 'Ju-on', the Grudge).


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## pianozach

MacLeod said:


> Let's just look at the _Psycho_. Before considering this with the music, it would make sense to explore what we get from the soundless version. However, as I suggested earlier, it's difficult to do this without reading in everything I already know from having watched it several times before.
> 
> Still, the surface narrative is clear - woman takes a shower, someone comes in and stabs her, repeatedly, while she struggles to defend herself. The assailant flees before checking that she is dead (we see her leaning against the wall, then cut to the back of the maniac exiting the bathroom). Woman falls over the edge of the bath, pulling part of the the shower curtain down with her. The close-up of her still, but open eye suggests she is dead (not merely unconscious). We look at a folded newspaper, then a house up a nearby stoop. Then a man arrives, looks horrified at what he sees, knocks over a picture of a bird.
> 
> Cut (in this extract at least).
> 
> Knowing what preceded this helps us understand the narrative and thematic significance of the folded newspaper, the bird and the house. Additionally, the sexual suggestiveness of the assault that has been inferred by critics becomes, IMO, more readily visible (even obvious, I think). There are other things to consider, such as the choice of shots of the shower head, the outstretched hand, the plughole etc and what they contribute, but let's not go on for hours.
> 
> Lastly, the whole sequence is remarkably bloodless, yet still visually horrific. A more modern film would have bloodied prosthetic wounds, blood on the curtain, blood oozing from the back of her head as she slides down the wall, CGI blood. Oh, and the knife actually striking flesh before the blood!
> 
> The music adds the gore, metaphorically speaking. I don't suppose Hitchcock consciously decided not to have gore and to let the music do the work instead, but that seems to have been the effect, if not the intent.


Yes, that is a basic difference between classic suspense, and blood-'n'-guts horror.

And, yes, *Hitchcock*'s films were carefully crafted by a director some classify as a genius.

So, yes, Hitchcock's film might very well stand on it's own merits without the score. But a film is far more than that. Obviously Hitchcock had his hand in all aspects of film creation, including cinematography, set decor, even locations themselves (he rarely used location filming, preferring to have complete control over the location by shooting his films on sound stages - ironic, since his location films are notoriously popular tourist attractions).

But one cannot deny how *Bernard Hermann*'s scores elevated Hitch's films even beyond the cinematography and dialogue and script and body language, etc.

*Psycho* especially. The film and the music create a scene that is far greater than just the daily rushes or the audio of the score.

As for the conscious decision to forego blood 'n' guts . . . well, Hitch was quite aware that suspense and subtlety made for better films than in-your-face realism.


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## Guest

pianozach said:


> But one cannot deny how *Bernard Hermann*'s scores elevated Hitch's films even beyond the cinematography and dialogue and script and body language, etc.


Alternatively, Hitch provided the quality of 'cinematography and dialogue and script and body language, etc' to match Herrmann's score.

Or, as Christabel put it, "Music as narrative working *in equal proportion to all the other elements*. A complex interrelationship"

Anyway, Hitch and Herrmann are all too easy. What about Alex Weston's score for _The Farewell_? Or Max Richter's for _Ad Astra_ or Alexandre Desplat's score for _The Grand Budapest Hotel_?

It's just too easy to get off on the older classics, leaving the composers of the scores of, say, the last 20 years out in the cold.


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## Guest

Let's see how film music skews the real meaning of the film. Here's a chase sequence from Penn's 1967 "Bonnie and Clyde". You'll notice the well-choreographed car scenes accompanied by banjo riffing. A film containing and about shocking violence made to seem like a romantic frolic and free-for-all from a bunch of losers. The music trivializes the violence and fetishizes the outlaws as a bunch of misfits who are themselves victims of the Depression, rather than violent amoral and vicious criminals. And the film parodies and ridicules the comments of victims, "there I was staring into the face of death".






The apotheosis of the film is a slow-mo montage of the bullet-riddled couple, played out for the horror of audiences with gratuitous violence.

And we wonder why Americans have problems with gun violence. I don't.


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## Guest

Just a minute. You posted some Herrmann and said, "Discuss." I did, but it usually takes at least two to discuss. Now you're on to Strouse (and Scruggs)!

What's _your _opinion on the _Psycho _clip?


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## Guest

MacLeod said:


> Just a minute. You posted some Herrmann and said, "Discuss." I did, but it usually takes at least two to discuss. Now you're on to Strouse (and Scruggs)!
> 
> What's _your _opinion on the _Psycho _clip?


I've already commented; it's up to others to add further. The other comments about Hitchcock were basically in line with my own and you've dismissed this as 'too easy'.

I'm adding another film and another example as you've dismissed the films of the 'classic era' in favour of modern films from the last *20 years*. As I've written before, I don't know very much about these as I rarely watch modern cinema - with a dozen or so excellent exceptions. They are either coarse and violent, or just coarse, shouty and unfunny or simply films for the retirement village. English films aren't very much better, IMO.

It would be 15 years since I stepped into a cinema. The last time was "In Search of Beethoven".

You might all be interested in this site: Mark knows his stuff and writes about the films you probably watch.

https://www.filmmusicnotes.com/


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## Guest

Christabel said:


> I've already commented; it's up to others to add further. The other comments about Hitchcock were basically in line with my own and you've dismissed this as 'too easy'.


I didn't dismiss anything. I pointed out that if we're to attempt to consider a film score's contribution, listening to films we already know really well (such as from the 'classic' era) is unhelpful.



Christabel said:


> As I've written before, I don't know very much about these as I rarely watch modern cinema - with a dozen or so excellent exceptions. They are either coarse and violent, or just coarse, shouty and unfunny or simply films for the retirement village. English films aren't very much better, IMO.
> 
> It would be 15 years since I stepped into a cinema. The last time was "In Search of Beethoven".


I thought you were an expert (The purpose / effect of film music)

Thanks for the link though. I note that Mark says, in a reply to a comment from one of his readers



> I believe one absolutely must see the film when studying film music. It not only clarifies its meaning but also gets at the reasons why the music is structured the way it is, which is quite different from, say, concert music, where the music can more easily be studied on its own


https://www.filmmusicnotes.com/osca...ohannssons-the-theory-of-everything/#comments

I also like his quote from Herrmann:



> You know, the reason I don't like this tune business is that a tune has to have eight or sixteen bars, which limits you as a composer. Once you start, you've got to finish-eight or sixteen bars. Otherwise, the audience doesn't know what the hell it's about. It's putting handcuffs on yourself.


https://www.filmmusicnotes.com/comparing-bernard-herrmanns-psycho-score-and-sinfonietta-1936/

I'd like to know what he thinks of Johannson's score for Arrival. He does at least write positively about Desplat and Zimmer!


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## Guest

MacLeod said:


> I didn't dismiss anything. I pointed out that if we're to attempt to consider a film score's contribution, listening to films we already know really well (such as from the 'classic' era) is unhelpful.
> 
> I thought you were an expert (The purpose / effect of film music)
> 
> Thanks for the link though. I note that Mark says, in a reply to a comment from one of his readers
> 
> https://www.filmmusicnotes.com/osca...ohannssons-the-theory-of-everything/#comments
> 
> I also like his quote from Herrmann:
> 
> https://www.filmmusicnotes.com/comparing-bernard-herrmanns-psycho-score-and-sinfonietta-1936/
> 
> I'd like to know what he thinks of Johannson's score for Arrival. He does at least write positively about Desplat and Zimmer!


I am an expert on film pre circa 1990. After that they don't interest me for the reasons I've stated.

Mark Richards has been writing that blog for some years now; I used to email him privately some time ago, and we'd have discussions about Bernard Herrmann. He is a musicologist, if my memory serves me. He has PhD and is an Assistant Professor at Florida State University. He is Canadian.


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## Guest

I wrote this for a community education program on American film music which I delivered last year. This was part of the introduction and I think it conveys some of the ideas on this topic in structural form:

I identify specifically two types of music for American narrative cinema. Firstly, the 'main score' or 'title music' - that music which is synonymous with the film and its overall meaning, which is *non-diegetic and which represents the main ideas in the film. Secondly, the atmospheric tracks in a film which may not necessarily be 'melodic' or 'thematic' per se, but which cue audiences about love, drama, fear, pathos, suspense, horror and action.

Sometimes it is more complex than merely those individual elements and music can be an amalgam of particular motifs and ideas which recur through the film, and we hear this - for example - with the music of Eric Wolfgang Korngold's "*Kings Row*". But these symphonic, often grand, scores also represented the power and prestige of the film studios and were sometimes less about the film and more about Warner Brothers, for example. This particular score, Max Steiner's for "Mildred Pierce" doesn't really reflect the serious and dramatic concerns of its noir narrative but it does sound out "melodrama" more broadly in its lush treatment:






Of course, music can be used to great comic effect in films when it counterpoints the action and provides audiences with an alternative narrative to that which is occurring onscreen. I'm thinking here, just as a couple of examples, about some of the famous sophisticated comedies of Billy Wilder - '*Some Like it Hot*", "*The Seven Year Itch*" and "*1,2,3*". Musical motifs and effects can provide a comic and absurdist element beyond that what is offered visually. One film composer of the 1960s, Frank DeVol, was hugely successful in providing musical gags to accompany the onscreen action in the comedies of Doris Day and Rock Hudson. DeVol was known for his wit which he employed to hilarious effect very often. He was never considered a 'serious' film composer like some of those who have achieved international recognition, but his music was an unique addition to comedy mostly through the use of short musical effects.

Some art music composers have written music for film; Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Georges Auric, George Antheil, Peter Sculthorpe, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Leonard Bernstein, Malcolm Arnold, Arnold Bax, Ralph Vaughn-Williams, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, John Adams, John Corigliano, Ross Edwards, William Walton - just to name a few. Some composers specialized in film and also created music for the concert hall or recital, eg. Eric Wolfgang Korngold. Their music for film was symphonic in scope and capable of stand-alone performances. This kind of film music was rarely atmospheric or disjointed. The themes would be woven into the narrative to create effects such as grandeur, heroism, romance, bravado, etc.as in Korngold's somewhat eclectic score for "The Adventures of Robin Hood":






Leitmotif for film was a specialization of Bernard Herrmann, who started his career writing in a symphonic style but this evolved with his first film of significant thematic fragmentation, "*The Trouble with Harry*" for Hitchcock. Specific motifs belonged to individual characters and scenes, and comedic effects are to be found here in the opening title music:


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## JAS

Christabel said:


> . . . And we wonder why Americans have problems with gun violence. I don't.


Tarantiono seems to think that he is the new Peckinpah. He seems to love to focus on violence as a naturalist might film the opening of a flower. (Let me note that in general I do not care for Tarantino movies, which to me mostly seem to be an effort to show that what made B-movies bad, when they were bad, was not the lack of a budget.) Gun violence in the US is more complicated than movies (or video games). It is interwoven in the culture, in some ways going back to Colonial days, and really romanticized by our Western mythology.


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## Guest

Christabel said:


> Mark Richards has been writing that blog for some years now; I used to email him privately some time ago, and we'd have discussions about Bernard Herrmann. He is a musicologist, if my memory serves me. He has PhD and is an Assistant Professor at Florida State University. He is Canadian.


Yep. Got all that from his website and I've been reading his articles and the comments from other readers (like 'sue' who also likes Royal S Brown's book).

I also watched part of a YTB documentary about Herrmann in which Brown appears (though I missed him). I think TC member Fabulin is also aware of Richards.

John Williams: worthy addition to the canon or charlatan?


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## Guest

JAS said:


> Tarantiono seems to think that he is the new Peckinpah. He seems to love to focus on violence as a naturalist might film the opening of a flower. (Let me note that in general I do not care for Tarantino movies, which to me mostly seem to be an effort to show that what made B-movies bad, when they were bad, was not the lack of a budget.) Gun violence in the US is more complicated than movies (or video games). It is interwoven in the culture, in some ways going back to Colonial days, and really romanticized by our Western mythology.


Which is exactly what I said.


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## Guest

JAS said:


> Tarantiono seems to think that he is the new Peckinpah. He seems to love to focus on violence as a naturalist might film the opening of a flower. (Let me note that in general I do not care for Tarantino movies, which to me mostly seem to be an effort to show that what made B-movies bad, when they were bad, was not the lack of a budget.) Gun violence in the US is more complicated than movies (or video games). It is interwoven in the culture, in some ways going back to Colonial days, and really romanticized by our Western mythology.


I've never watched a Tarantino, so I can't comment.

I have watched several Peckinpah, my favourite being _Guns in the Afternoon _(or _Ride the High Country_). Whilst he did gain a reputation for slo-mo violence in a couple of his movies, that was not all he was about. I note that he regularly used Jerry Fielding as his composer. (The music for _Guns in the Afternoon _was composed by George Bassman, who had a score for _Bonnie and Clyde_ rejected!)

It's a long time since I saw _Bonnie and Clyde_, but the clip shared earlier confirms my memories of it that it was oddly comedic - though to what purpose I couldn't say - so I read Pauline Kael's article from 1968 in The New Yorker.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1967/10/21/bonnie-and-clyde



> People in the audience at "Bonnie and Clyde" are laughing, demonstrating that they're not stooges-that they appreciate the joke-when they catch the first bullet fight in the face. The movie keeps them off balance to the end. During the first part of the picture, a woman in my row was gleefully assuring her companions, "It's a comedy. It's a comedy." After a while, she didn't say anything. Instead of the movie spoof, which tells the audience that it doesn't need to feel or care, that it's all just in fun, that "we were only kidding," "Bonnie and Clyde" disrupts us with "And you thought we were only kidding."


Anyway, that's a side issue. Back to the music. It seems to me to offer an example of a third type of music (in addition to the two identified by Christabel) which is the use of someone else's work as a commentary. Earl Scruggs didn't write 'Foggy Mountain Breakdown' specially for the movie, nor was it used as a title or overture, or integral to the narrative in the same way as a typical film composer's score would be used.



Christabel said:


> Mark knows his stuff and writes about the films you probably watch.


BTW - what _are _the films I probably watch?


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## CC301233

Jacck said:


> I think that the musical scores can make or break a movie. An outstanding score can make a mediocre movie into something totally exceptional and vice versa. Conan the Barbarian would be an average movie, but if you add to it the epic score from Poledouris, it is something special. Or Goldsmiths soundtrack for the Medicine Man. The music really enhanced the scenes, for example when they climb into the tree tops in the rainforest and this plays


Precisely. Whereas an author can pique our imagination/interest in their story with "words" (which is all they have to work with), a film maker/director has to tell their story with "visuals" primarily.... visuals and sounds/music... a much harder task, I think as it's not as reliable that the audience will "get" what the film maker is trying to communicate.

As a classic example of where music sets the tone and the heightened emotion (in this case at the very opening of the movie), I offer the "Obliviate" scene at the beginning of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1."


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## Guest

MacLeod said:


> I've never watched a Tarantino, so I can't comment.
> 
> I have watched several Peckinpah, my favourite being _Guns in the Afternoon _(or _Ride the High Country_). Whilst he did gain a reputation for slo-mo violence in a couple of his movies, that was not all he was about. I note that he regularly used Jerry Fielding as his composer. (The music for _Guns in the Afternoon _was composed by George Bassman, who had a score for _Bonnie and Clyde_ rejected!)
> 
> It's a long time since I saw _Bonnie and Clyde_, but the clip shared earlier confirms my memories of it that it was oddly comedic - though to what purpose I couldn't say - so I read Pauline Kael's article from 1968 in The New Yorker.
> 
> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1967/10/21/bonnie-and-clyde
> 
> Anyway, that's a side issue. Back to the music. It seems to me to offer an example of a third type of music (in addition to the two identified by Christabel) which is the use of someone else's work as a commentary. Earl Scruggs didn't write 'Foggy Mountain Breakdown' specially for the movie, nor was it used as a title or overture, or integral to the narrative in the same way as a typical film composer's score would be used.
> 
> BTW - what _are _the films I probably watch?


You probably need to read Bosley Crowther's NYT review of "Bonnie and Clyde", for a bit of balance. The film glorified violence, but you can call that 'comedic' if you want. It's a free country (but a violent one).

I don't know what films you watch, but I'm betting they've been made in the last decade or so.

My husband's cousin is a London Psychiatrist (now retired, but up until recently he had a regular blog on the "Huffington Post"). He did a lifetime's work with troubled and violent adolescents and produced at least one book. He advised the British government and on a lecture tour out here to Australia many years ago he told me, while staying with us, that the link between cultural violence and violent behaviour was undeniable and that it was futile to try and argue against it. He said a troubled youth who saw people deriving pleasure in a cinema when somebody drove a knife into another person would very easily find reason to emulate that action, since it was a culturally sanctioned legitimate form of entertainment.


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## Guest

Christabel said:


> You probably need to read Bosley Crowther's NYT review of "Bonnie and Clyde", for a bit of balance. The film glorified violence, but you can call that 'comedic' if you want. It's a free country (but a violent one).


Sticking with the effect of the music, I don't see how the images, taken with the banjo music in that particular scene could be taken any other way. But since I quite clearly said I couldn't remember the film very well, it's a bit steep to infer that I was suggesting the whole movie was comedic. It's why I looked for a review to remind me. I read the snippet of the NYT review on Metacritic, but the full review is not available. I also noted what Roger Ebert had to say:



> Bonnie and Clyde is a milestone in the history of American movies, a work of truth and brilliance. It is also pitilessly cruel, filled with sympathy, nauseating, funny, heartbreaking, and astonishingly beautiful.


Again, full review not available.



Christabel said:


> I don't know what films you watch, but I'm betting they've been made in the last decade or so.


What on earth did I post that leads you to that conclusion?


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## Guest

CC301233 said:


> Precisely. Whereas an author can pique our imagination/interest in their story with "words" (which is all they have to work with), a film maker/director has to tell their story with "visuals" primarily.... visuals and sounds/music... a much harder task, I think as it's not as reliable that the audience will "get" what the film maker is trying to communicate.


Since the writer only has words to work with, s/he has a harder job to some extent, since they have to rely on your imagination to create a mind's eye picture of what they are writing about.

By contrast, a filmmaker can, if they wish, spoon feed the audience with all the right visuals and sounds - so, not, IMO, a harder task. But the comparison with literature is needless. Books and movies are different media and each has its own merits.



CC301233 said:


> As a classic example of where music sets the tone and the heightened emotion (in this case at the very opening of the movie), I offer the "Obliviate" scene at the beginning of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1."


An interesting choice. Does the music alone direct us to have a particular emotional response? Or do the visuals contribute something too?


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## CC301233

MacLeod said:


> Since the writer only has words to work with, s/he has a harder job to some extent, since they have to rely on your imagination to create a mind's eye picture of what they are writing about.
> 
> By contrast, a filmmaker can, if they wish, spoon feed the audience with all the right visuals and sounds - so, not, IMO, a harder task. But the comparison with literature is needless. Books and movies are different media and each has its own merits.


It's always been easier for me to "interpret" a story teller's tale via words. If they do their job right, I'll get it. I have not been so lucky with films. Historically, it's been much harder for me to "get" a visual, as opposed to words. Words truly foster that imagination in a way that film visuals, can't. With words, your imagination is "prompted" more. With visuals, yes the film maker can feed you all kinds of things but if you don't recognize them as what *should* pique your imagination.... And in most cases, film visuals do not, after watching it for the first few times. I have to spend additional time figuring the visuals out.



MacLeod said:


> An interesting choice. Does the music alone direct us to have a particular emotional response? Or do the visuals contribute something too?


I'd say it's the main driver. I think the music fuels the sense of anxiety as seen in the visuals... If the music were different, I'm not sure I could say the same thing.


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## pianozach

MacLeod said:


> It's a long time since I saw _Bonnie and Clyde_, but the clip shared earlier confirms my memories of it that it was oddly comedic - though to what purpose I couldn't say - so I read Pauline Kael's article from 1968 in The New Yorker.


So many fingers in the pie.

I once had an "in" with someone who worked at a studio . . . I got an advance working script for a film called *Lethal Contact*, written as a tongue-in-cheek throwback tribute/comedy alien horror about aliens that extract brains from humans for consumption of the endorphins after getting them high.

I quickly recorded and submitted a "title" song . . . a 70s-style James Bond/The Blob/Twilight Zone hybrid.

Naturally, it was not even considered, as the director decided this great quirky script would be filmed as an Alien/Horror/Action film instead, eliminating the dark comedic elements entirely. They even changed the title to Dark Angel (until they discovered there were already a couple of films with that title), then settling on *"I Come In Peace"*, and cast *Dolph Lundgren* in the lead.

It ended up losing money.

The point is that the script that's bought gets "corrupted" by the many different people involved; from actors, directors, producers, and to a lesser extent, cinematographers, spouses, etc.

For instance, for the film *Grease*, which was optioned based on its incredible success on Broadway, many things were changed because of the cast. Casting *Olivia Newton John* necessitated reworking the Polish Sandy into an Australian Sandy. Star *John Travolta* loved the song _*Greased Lightning*_, so it was yanked from supporting character Kenickie and given to lead character Danny. In fact, the success of the Broadway production was partly due to the ensemble nature of the show . . . . most of the supporting leads, male and female, had their own song. One of Danny's songs, _*Alone At the Drive-In Movie*_, was replaced with an inferior song (_*"Oh, Sandy"*_), as the vocal needs of the original were beyond the technical skills of Travolta.

There's many other changes made, but the point is that a studio will acquire the rights to film a novel or show because it is *so good* . . . then *change* it, sometimes improving it, but more often, ruining some of the source material in the process.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you *Cats.

*


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## Guest

pianozach said:


> So many fingers in the pie.


Well, yes, I think what you're saying is that with so many people involved in the creation of a film - or involved in interfering with the creation of a film - it's not always easy to see a simple relationship between what the director wanted, what the composer provided, what ended up on the screen and what effect it has on the audience. Fair point. It's probably one of the reasons why established directors end up using the same composers if they can, because they've developed a reliable relationship. It's one point of certainty in an uncertain business.



CC301233 said:


> I have to spend additional time figuring the visuals out.


I think most of us do - at least, when we're dealing with directors who get to shoot what they want in the way they want. With some movies, the purpose of 'visuals' is the same: tell the story in the most efficient way possible. They tend to be easy to read. With others, one has to ask why the director has chosen a particular look, shot, framing, movement etc. That can make for challenging viewing, and necessary more than once.



CC301233 said:


> I'd say it's the main driver. I think the music fuels the sense of anxiety as seen in the visuals... If the music were different, I'm not sure I could say the same thing.


I'm not sure I'd agree with 'main' driver, but I do agree that it has to be there in the visuals in the first place.

Which brings us back to the research I cited in my OP.



> The analysis of the effects of incongruent film-music combinations directly tells us which modality, visual or auditory, is stronger in modulating a dominant emotional appraisal of a film sequence. The results are very clear. In all cases, except the case of fear, the emotional quality of visual information (film) has a stronger effect than the emotional quality of auditory information (music).


I return to it because it underlines my opinion that some film composers have a reputation way beyond their actual contribution to a movie. Perhaps it's because, as CC301233 confesses, music is easier to 'read' than the visuals. Sound gets in the way of sight.


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