Film Music, Midterm 2 - Music 3344
Death in Venice (1971)
protagonist is composer Gustav von Aschenbach (1971, dir. Luchino Visconti, score adapted from Gustav Mahler)
Amadeus (1984)
protagonist is composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1984, dir. Miloš Forman, score adapted from Mozart)
High Noon (1952)
theme song ("Do not forsake me") appears in multiple ways • sung during opening credits • diegetic, played by several characters in the film • nondiegetic • broken down into nondiegetic leitmotifs • different parts of the song go into characterizing different elements
French New Wave
A film movement (1950s and 1960s) in France in opposition to the conventional studio system. Films often low budget with young actors, shot on location, used unconventional sound and editing patterns, and addressed the struggle for personal expression.
Singin' in the Rain (1952)
Directed by Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen Original score by Lennie Hayton Songs adapted by Nacio Herb Brown One of the great MGM musicals Original, new script, featured old songs written for earlier films
Maurice Jarre (1924-2009)
French born, worked in movies and TV, best known for scoring director Sir David Lean's last four films ("Lawrence of Arabia", 1962 through "A Passage to India", 1984)
Cinema verité
French term for truth film, a documentary style that records fragments of everyday life unobtrusively; it often features a rough, grainy look and shaky, handheld camera work "Fly on the wall" Filmmakers: Frederick Wiseman, John Cassavetes
Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)
composer, conductor from very beginning, an innovative & eager composer for music theatre (e.g., musicals On the Town, 1944 & West Side Story, 1957) On the Waterfront: Bernstein's only original film score not adapted from a stage production with musical songs
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
dir. Billy Wilder, music by Franz Waxman Waxman uses elements from Richard Strauss, gives the demented has-been star Norma Desmond an exotic "Salome" style theme (pitch oscillation & repetitions)
Maurice Jarre's score
long-spanning, "epic" melodies & leitmotifs (a kind of "cinemascope" in musical terms!) • "English" (tonal) vs. "Arabian" (aug.2nd, modal) themes • relative restraint, music doesn't enter until 17 minutes in • full orchestra with ondes martenot, cithara, darbuka
Film Noir scoring characteristics
minimal music for small ensembles preference for low registers & dissonant harmonies urban styles, esp. jazz
Biblical epic scores
monumental, heavily orchestrated scores by studio composers (ex.: Ben-Hur by Miklós Rózsa, 1959) "epic" score style then largely vanishes until Star Wars (1977; directed by George Lucas, music by John Williams) The Ten Commandments (1956; dir. Decil B. DeMille) - composer Elmer Bernstein uses "middle Eastern" effects & instruments
MGM musicals
most important developments came from the production unit headed by Arthur Freed (Singin' in the Rain)
Vangelis (b. 1943)
variety of imitative & entirely synthetic sounds; acclaimed synthesized scores for Chariots of Fire (1981) and Blade Runner (1982)
Dr. No (1962)
— first James Bond movie; first appearance of the soon-to-be-famous "James Bond theme," written by Monty Norman and arranged by John Barry, under the opening titles
Vertigo (1958)
dir. Hitchcock, music by Herrmann late (belated?) homage to romantic thrillers
period music
music that, selected as appropriate to the film and the scene, helps establish the historical time when the narrative is taking place two directors who break this rule of period music: Sofia Coppola (Antoinette, 2006) and Baz Luhrmann (Romeo + Juliet, 1996; Moulin Rouge, 2001)
meta-diegetic
sound (or music) that represents a character's inner world, such as nightmares, dreams, daydreams, hallucinations, wishes, etc.
Hollywood demise
started in 1948, when Paramount lost an anti-trust case & had to drop its theater chain
Epic
A long film, book, or other work portraying heroic deeds and adventures or covering an extended period of time; 'a Hollywood biblical epic'
Psycho (1960)
Alfred Hitchcock, music by Herrmann moral "ambiguity" of film noir? protagonist murdered one-third way through the movie: forceful change of film genre? overdose of poetic justice?! new (unsettling) vocabulary of editing & camera angles
acousmatic
the source of the sound (or music) is not seen, at least at first; there is an invisible sound source
Rise of the Blockbuster
1956 - 1972: run of expensive & epic blockbuster films, in a last gasp of the big Hollywood studio system (Around the World in 80 Days, The Ten Commandments, Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago...)
42nd Street (1933)
Directed by Lloyd Bacon Musical numbers by Busby Berkeley Songs by Harry Warren Landmark in the history of film musicals: a coherent quick-moving comic drama with lavish revue numbers by Busby Berkeley
Girl Crazy (1943)
Directed by Norman Taurog and Busby Berkeley Music by George Gershwin "Embraceable You" - Ginger (Judy Garland) sings to the Cody College boys in thanks for her birthday party
Post studio era films
Took on a darker more serious tone and music became similarly darker and more "modern"
Psycho Music
chilly, disturbing, non-Hollywood sound to match Hitchcock's brutal style (shower scene: montage!) • dissonance • small & repetitious motifs instead of melodies • no real leitmotifs or themes recurring throughout the movie • modular rhythmic blocks that don't change, no transitions • rhythms either fast or slow, no middle ground • strings alone (counterpart to black & white format? strings usually associated with romance!)
Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975)
collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock on his classic films of the late '50s & early '60s (The Man Who Knew Too Much; North by Northwest; Psycho; Vertigo) Herrmann straddles the divide between Hollywood romance & new wave Had a "non-Hollywood (non-symphonic)" style of moody cutting, repetitious music
Casablanca (1942)
composer Max Steiner makes extensive use of "As Time Goes By" (1931 Broadway song by Herman Hupfeld) • represents earlier, happy love between Rick & Elsa • tune floats flexibly between diegetic & nondiegetic
Taxi Driver (1976)
dir. Martin Scorsese, music by Bernard Herrmann: symbols of urban decay; Herrmann uses film noir elements, including jazz (snare drum, saxophone)
Touch of Evil (1958)
dir. Orson Welles; music by Henry Mancini) • music: especially in Welles's own director's cut, a melange of Latin-American dance music & American jazz & rock • dance/jazz music accompanies two murders
Blade Runner (1982)
dir. Ridley Scott; music by Vangelis • based on dystopian science fiction of Philip K. Dick • music: multi-ethnic elements, including Asian instruments
Ben-Hur (1959)
dir. William Wyler, music by Miklós Rózsa - Rózsa's extensive score vital to the film's blockbuster success • in his music for biblical epics, Rózsa did research with the aim of "period" authenticity — his authentic musical techniques included modality (ancient scale-types) and parallel harmonies suggesting the Roman, Hebrew, and early Christian music of biblical times • Rózsa's elaborate system of leitmotifs: 'Christ,' 'redemption,' 'hate,' 'Esther,' 'friendship' • connotations: major 2nd - divinity, perfect 5th - human
The Godfather (1972)
directed Francis Ford Coppola, music by Nino Rota "[The Godfather was] the 70s' answer to Gone With The Wind." — Leonard Maltin The Godfather films are actually sparingly scored - underscoring is at a premiuma scene scored with sounds rather than music: Michael kills drug lord Sollozzo and police captain McCluskey in a restaurant
Breathless (À bout de souffle, 1960)
directed by Jean-Luc Godard, music by Martial Solalcinema verité aspect seen in the handheld cameras and jumpcuts; likewise, the music is heard from radios, and the nondiegetic music is often jazz
The Graduate (1967)
directed by Mike Nichols, music by Simon & Garfunkel) cinema verité aspect seen in quasi-improvised non-narrative aspects and lack of traditional nondiegetic underscoring music is brand-new popular songs!
Chinatown (1974)
directed by Roman Polanski, music by Jerry Goldsmith film noir tradition: dissonant harmonies, unusual solo instruments (4 pianos, 4 harps, trumpet, percussion), extended playing techniques (playing inside the piano)
post WWII Hollywood
enjoyed (a) a constant supply of writing and performing talent from Broadway, and a desire to compete with Broadway productions, and (b) the investment capital required to make film musicals more extravagant and lavish than would be possible in the theatre
theme song
he theme song had lyrics and was written specifically for the film, and usually played during the title sequence and/or end credits • increased studio interest in title songs and desire to make them hit records to be marketed separately • mania for "hit-themes" that peaked in late 50s & early 60s • practice of running the theme song under the credits
eclectic score
score with wide range of styles, typically rock & radical modernist concert music (Bernard Herrmann's music for Taxi Driver; Jerry Goldsmith's music for Chinatown)
on-screen
the source of the sound (or music) is present in the shot
"the Hollywood film musical"
though the film musical reflects the history of the stage musical, it has evolved its own distinctive settings and subjects (e.g., the rock-and-roll extravaganza, the backstage view of theatre life)films of the 1920s and 30s were expected to have two or three songs, while others that were not advertised as musicals might contain as much music as films that were
Blackboard Jungle (1955)
— film about teachers in a tense, interracial inner-city school (released at the time Elvis started recording and about the time the Supreme Court decided the epochal Brown vs. Board of Education decision)the movie made a huge hit out of Bill Haley's record of "Rock Around the Clock"
Dimitri Tiomkin (1894-1979)
• early film scores: Lost Horizon (1937), You Can't Take it with You (1938) • wrote theme song in western ballad style ("Do Not Forsake Me") for High Noon (1952; dir. Fred Zinnemann; music by Tiomkin)
sources for folk & folk-like American film music styles
• predominantly rural images (urban imagery = jazz) • Stephen Foster's songs ("Camptown Races") • American folk songs ("Old Paint") • composer Aaron Copland's musical topoi for rural America (ballets; film music, incl. Our Town, 1940)
David Raksin (1912-2004)
• wrote the theme tune for Otto Preminger's film Laura (1944); this had to be fitted with lyrics (by Johnny Mercer) after the fact so it could be sold on the popular song market • the tune recurs in various ways in the movie
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
based on play by Tennessee Williams; dir. Elia Kazan, "original music" by Alex North) set in New Orleans, birthplace of jazz, allowing that style to suggest the strong sexual tensions around Stanley
script of a musical
"the book": the narrative, including spoken lines creating the structure through which the songs interrelate
How to handle nondiagetic music
(1)Use nondiegetic scoring sparingly (2)Use popular or period songs to create nondiegetic music that can sound like source(diegetic) music (John Barry's music for Midnight Cowboy (1969), which also included top-10 songs by Nilsson; compilation score for Easy Rider (1969); Isaac Hayes's soul- & funk-infused score for Shaft (1971)) (3)Write avant-garde or otherwise strange nondiegetic music that gets away from traditional romantic nondiegetic styles (Jerry Goldsmith's music for Planet of the Apes, 1968 (4)Create soundtrack from a variety of pre-existing music (i.e., assemble an adapted score) (director Kubrick's assemblage of music for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) & The Shining(1980))
Issues attending use of popular music in soundtracks
(1)new, complicated relationship between source (diegetic) music & underscoring (nondiegetic music) (2)popular music conducive only to a single mood? (3)conveys "cultural codes" (Claudia Gorbman (4)relationship between the lyrics & the film (& to individual scenes in the film) (5)unification of the soundtrack (with "songs" rather than themes or leitmotifs) (6)dumbing-down effect (?)(7)marketing opportunities
Alienation effect
(Bertolt Brecht): disparity between style & ostensible dramatic emotion; involves destruction of many conventions of theatrical illusion
Miklós Rózsa
(b. Budapest, 1907 - d. LA,1995): prime example of Hollywood studio composer; Oscars for: Spellbound (1945) & A Double Life (1947) Rózsa moved to MGM in 1949, where he started a period of historical epics, including Ben-Hur(1959)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
(dir. Stanley Kubrick; adapted score of art music by Richard Strauss, Johann Strauss, Aram Khachaturian, & György Ligeti) for 2001, Kubrick discarded a composed scored by Alex North, and turned instead to his record collection • he used pre-existing art music pieces, & used them intact • Ingenue Review: "Kubrick allows the music merely to coexist with the visual elements"; "Music retains its mood-setting function, but remains detached from the drama" • these classically-scored scenes are like ballets within the film
Spellbound (1945)
(directed by Alfred Hitchcock, music by Miklós Rózsa) for the climactic "dream sequence" in Spellbound (starting 1:26:30), Hitchcock used Salvador Dalí for the sets and Rózsa used the theremin
Synthesizers in the 1970s
, types include: (1) modern; (2) traditional (imitating traditional instruments); (3) popular (rock element)synthesizer — creates & manipulates sounds from scratch, using oscillator, filter, and amplifier mechanisms
dramatic functions of songs
1. "I am" songs ("I Feel Pretty") 2. "I want" songs 3. Reprises 4. Emotional climax songs 5. Exposition songs 6. Conflict songs 7. Narration songs 8. Summary songs
"integrated" musical
1. The script has priority 2. The script transitions smoothly to music 3. Songs express the deepest thoughts and feelings of the characters at that moment while remaining in character 4. Reprises are used to show character development 5. Dance also starts to develop character and assume a narrative role within the musical
Peak of the Hollywood Musical
1945-55
Use of silence
1970s filmmakers becoming aware of the dramatic uses of sound and silence (as opposed to music) — in 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kubrick completely cuts out the sound at the film's only onscreen death (HAL's killing of astronaut Poole) — in The Godfather, Francis Ford Coppola "scores" Michael Corleone's first "hit" with subway noise and rapid spoken (untranslated!) Italian — in Blade Runner, Ridley Scott gives a chaotic noise-picture of post-apocalyptic Los Angeles, a sound-picture that fits better with Vangelis's synthesized music than it would have with an orchestral score
American Beauty (1999)
Lester fantasizes about Angela in American Beauty (1999): metadiegetic mise-en-scène, and metadiegetic music
Film Noir
New genre of the late 40s & early 50s - Themes of sexuality and moral ambiguity - Stories from depression-era "harboiled" crime fiction - low key black and white visual style with shadows and night scenes - The Maltese Falcon (1941), Double Indemnity (1944)
Biblical epics
Quo Vadis (1951), The Robe (1953), The Ten Commandments (1956), Ben-Hur (1959), King of Kings (1961) • pull-out-all-the-stops productions • more than 3 hours long • big casts of major stars • wide-screen color cinematography (CinemaScope) • uplifting messages
Nino Rota (1911-79)
a film score career of over 150 titles, including collaborations with directors Federico Fellini, Luchino Visconti, Franco Zeffirelli, King Vidor, and Francis Ford Coppola (for The Godfather Parts 1-2)
blockbuster
a film that sets new box office records with its high production costs, reach, and production budget. Blockbusters are large in scope, scale (thematically and visually); most importantly, they are entertaining.
Adapted Score
a score borrowing complete musical passages (or even entire movements) from a preexisting composition; the music should remain largely intact and recognizable, though it can be altered to suit the needs of the film (Scott Joplin's ragtime for The Sting; modernist composers & Mike Oldfield for The Exorcist)
song
a short vocal piece, accompanied or solo
Kubrick's The Shining (1980)
adapted score from modern art music by Penderecki, Ligeti, Bartók
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
dir. David Lean; music by Maurice Jarre - Lean specialized in epic stories where foreign landscapes figure importantly into the narrative; he followed Lawrence with Dr. Zhivago (1965), a love story playing out tragically against the Bolshevik revolution epic-blockbuster film styles abetted by development of CinemaScope: an anamorphic lens series used 1953-1967 to shoot widescreen movies; allowing up to a 2.66:1 aspect ratio, almost twice the width of previous formatshown: The Panavision 70 camera used for Lawrence of Arabia
On the Waterfront (1954)
dir. Elia Kazan, music by Leonard Bernstein Bernstein's music: adapts "american" nationalist style of Aaron Copland with dissonance & other stark, more modern aspects Jazz style, jazz instrumentation (saxophone)
The Sting (1973)
dir. George Roy Hill; music by Marvin Hamlisch, largely adapted from ragtime of Scott Joplin (1867-1917)) film makes Joplin's "The Entertainer" a top-10 hit