Can film music ever be realistic? If so, how?
Lukas Kendall
> At various points in time, various film journals have bandied about
> terms loosely grouped around some concept of cinematic realism (neo-
> realism etc), given this, what place does film music have in a realist
> or naturalistic film? Surely it seems to subvert the whole idea of
> naturalism, i just wondered what the people in the newsgroup had to
> say about this?
Certainly you get sparser scores with realistic/naturalistic films--look
at many great (and not so great) films of the '70s, you'll see there's
verry little music prior to the Lucas/Spielberg stuff. And, consequently,
this is often regarded as some "deep dark period" in film-music history,
which is so superficial as to be absurd. But there are many great '70s
"naturalistic" films with very little music... look at Chinatown,
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Klute, even an "action" film like
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three. Even junk like The Poseidon Adventure
has a very short score--and Jaws isn't wall to wall either.
There's also the diegetic/non-diegetic point of view to the music in
these films. I guess if taking literally the only music in a naturalistic
film would be diegetic (source)--look at Touch of Evil, where you hear
Mancini's big band jazz everywhere, but always from a radio, a band,
or what not. Most of the music in Cuckoo's Nest is source.
As for non-diegetic "naturalistic" music, very often there's music which
gives the impression of no music--undulating orchestral backgrounds, chamber
ensembles, no big themes or bloated orchestra. Think of the attempted
suicide scene in The Mechanic, where Jan-Michael Vincent's girlfriend
slits her wrists and VIncent and Charles Bronson just sit there--Jerry
Fielding's score mixes odd meters and his usual complex harmonies for
a neverending, draining, dream-like feeling, which to me does nothing
but heighten the "realism" of this drawn-out, disturbing scene.
Naturalism is cool.
LK
LGrin
realistic. It's all manipulation of the senses. The "art crowd" that
frequently bandies on about realism and the blasphemous manipulation of
the medium by the great film musicians (Williams being the most attacked)
are full of shit and jealous of real talent.
Like editing, like mise-en-scene, like atmospheric lighting, like framing
of shots, music too is simply another tool for the filmmaker to *tell a
story*. It's no less unrealistic than a backlight on an actor's head that
you really don't notice but would never be there in real life. It's not
bad, it's not selling out, it's not shamelessly manipulating an audience
with music in order to cover up a story's/director's defects......it's
simply a way to enhance the experience, to further increase the
effectiveness of the film.
Leo