Laura P. - Pgs. 230 - 231

• Music itself is an abstract art, but can convey specific meaning when juxtaposed with film images.

• Some musicians and music lovers may complain that music in film takes away the ambiguity pairing it to specific ideas and emotions, such as the use of Ponchielli’s “Dance of the Hours” in Fantasia

• Pudovkin and Eisenstein believed that music should not just accompany the film: it should have its own integrity, while critics such as Paul Rotha believed music should even dominate the image on occasion.

• Mickeymousing – named after Disney’s early experiments with music and animation; it is a form of descriptive music; music is literally equivalent to the image (for every step a subject makes, a musical note accompanies it)

• Others believe the music should not be too good in order not to detract from the image.

• Most imaginative directors consider music to be of great importance, and use music from the greatest composers (of which there is long list of).

Films Referenced:

Fantasia (USA 1940) – Mentioned as an example of how film may sometimes take away ambiguity and evening meaning from music, such as the use of Ponchielli’s “Dance of the Hours” in its dancing hippos sequence.


Saturday Night Fever (USA 1977) – Used as an example of how music can set the film’s rhythm. In the film, the Bee Gees’ “Staying Alive” was the basis for the staging and editing, so that the film would be in tempo with the song.


Apocalypse Now (USA 1979) - In the sequence referred to from this film, American helicopters hover and drop napalm bombs on a jungle village, peasants flee for shelter, and American soldiers prepare to go surfing as Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” thunders on the soundtrack; creating surrealistic tone filled with irony.


Do the Right Thing (USA 1989) – This film explores the tensions between the black community of Brooklyn and the Italian-American proprietor of a pizza restaurant as each culture is characterized by music - African-American characters listen to soul, gospel and rap; while the Italian-American characters are characterized by Frank Sinatra ballads


Links:
Techniques used in film music

JASON (PG. 232-233)

• directors must know what they want from music dramatically
  • the composer must then translate the dramatic needs into music
    
• most composers work after they have seen the rough cut of the film
  • rough cut -- major footage before editor tightens slack between shots
• some composers don't begin until the film is completed except for the music
• directors of musicals usually work with composers in pre-production
  • all songs are recorded in advance in the studio
  • performers lip-sync while shooting
    
• music can serve as overture to suggest mood or spirit of film
  • westerns may feature folk tunes and religious hymns
  • Italian films have lyrical, highly emotional melodies

Films Referenced:

• Alexander Nevsky (Soviet Union, 1938) -- Sergei Eisenstein and his composer, Sergei Prokofiev, used a "vertical montage" method, or audiovisual score, placing pictures and diagrams of the scene parallel to the music notes. So, if the movement of the film moved up, so would the music. If the lines in a series of images moved from the lower left to the upper right, the notes on the musical staff would follow it.

• Tom Jones by John Addison had a very witty, rapid harpsichord piece that fit the eighteenth century period film.
  

Links:

• more on the "vertical montage"
  

Liz's part (pg 336-337)

• Can foreshadow

• Can control emotional shifts of a scene

• Can provide ironic contrast

(THERE IS NUDITY!!)
In the film Clockwork Orange the director,Stanley Kubrick, adds a scence of irony for the character sings the song "singing in the rain" while in brutalizes a man and begins to rape a woman.

• Characterization through musical motifs or lyrics

Film references

Amadeus (USA, 1984)















This movie is based on the rivalry between Mozart and Salieri. The use of music not only adds for background sound, but is also part of the narrative.


Sleepless in Seatle(USA, 1993)
this movie combined 1940's classics with contemporay artists creating a mix between traditional and contemporary.

Justina Wong (pg. 234- 235)
- certain kinds of music can suggest locales, classes or ethnic groups.
- many films feature lyrical or highly emotional melodies that would relect the heritage of that country
- music can be used as foreshadowing, especially when the dramatic context doesn't permit the director to prepare the audience for the event
For example- Hitchcock often used a casual sequence with "anxious" music to warn the audience
- sometimes the musical warnings are false alarms while at other times they show a frighting scene
- Modern atonal and dissonant music give a sense of anxiety in listeners and often have no melodic line and can even resemble random noises
- music can also cause emotional shifts within a scene
For example in The Red Badge of Courage, without music you would just see young soldiers running out to the battlefield, but to emphasize their patriotism, the scene was accompanied by Yankee fighting songs.
- music can provide and ironic contrast. the predominant mood of a scene can be nuetralized or reversed with contrasting music
In Bonnie and Clyde, the robbery scenes are accompanied by loud, spirited banjo music to give the scene a sense of fun and enjoyment

Characterization can be suggested through musical motifs.

Films Referenced:
The Pianist (Poland/France/Britain/Germany, 2002)
- Directed by Roman Polanski, this film isa biography of a pianist, Wladyslaw Szpilman. He was a prememinent interpreter of the music of the Polish composer Chopin. The soundtrack is mainly Chopin's piano music making the story poetic, wistful and melancholy.

GHASSAN (PG. 246-247)

• Music and sounds can alter meanings of words.
• If something is whispered, it would have a different meaning then if the same thing were yelled.
• "Because the film is also a mechanical medium, the sentence could be modified by a deliberate distortion in the sound recording". Meaning that an actor could do a voice over in a certain tone, but the director may edit this later on to achieve his goal in what he wanted the audience to understand
• "Depending on the vocal emphasis, the visual emphasis, and the accompanying soundtrack, this simple sentence could have dozens of different meanings in film".
• This means that if a sentence was said in a soft romantic tone with accompanying music, it would sound relaxed and soft. But if that same sentence was put with dramatic music with a dramatic and/or serious tone, the meaning of the sentence could be totally different.

FILMS REFERENCED
All Screwed Up (Italy, 1973 Directed by Lina Wertmuller)
Wertmuller's films are very funny due to the fact that the characters "frequently swear or express themselves in coarse language". Once this "coarse language" is translated it becomes not funny. This emphasise how much body actions and words can due to the audience. It can make them understand things in a funny or serious way, happy or sad way, etc.