Mail Bag 9/27/99

by Lukas Kendall

I was away last weekend, so I had to load this column well ahead of time. As a result, hello Mail Bag! Most of these are in response to a recent essay by Dan Hopgood, "Why Film Music?"

From: "Pulliam, Ron, GSA-RPM" <RPULLIAM@co.alameda.ca.us>

<<This student suggested--in the aftermath of The Blair Witch Project--that the presence of music in film causes pictures to seem unrealistic and distorted. But what really intrigued me was that she debated that music simply generates emotion in unintelligent viewers that the filmmakers could not muster themselves with their works.>>

What we have here is an anomaly. "This student," as Mr. Hobgood refers her, is echoing the classicist's line about creativity being restricted in film music. She also makes what seems the most inane remark a sycophant can make: "...music simply generates emotion in unintelligent viewers...." This makes me wonder what she thinks music is meant to do. ALL MUSIC simply generates emotion...in unintelligent listeners and intelligent listeners alike. Or what does she know that the rest of us don't? Are there any non-musicians out there (i.e., most of us) who hear something different -- who don't get mental images? Are they taking note, perhaps, of time signatures? Are they counting the number of open fifths? Harmonic progressions?

I think not.

I challenge her -- through Mr. Hobgood -- to rationalize what great creative works apart from anything in the entertainment fields are being wrought today? Who are the great composers today? Where are these works? Are they recorded? What should we be listening for if not to be moved -- through our senses (all tied to emotions)?

I think Mr. Hobgood encountered the worst type of musician -- the snob who probably can't create but loves to pronounce disdain for anything she, herself, doesn't understand.

From: thomas <thomasc@nowtranslations.com>

"...she debated that music simply generates emotion in unintelligent viewers that the filmmakers could not muster themselves with their works."

I didn't know that I was THAT unintelligent. I thought I liked Herrmann, and the Newmans, and Goldsmith, and Barry (not to mention hacks like Prokofiev, Copland, Corigliano, Walton) because their music was so good and supported the films so well.

These "music makes it un-real" or "film music is a crutch" people will always be with us because music is the one element of film that A) they can't control intelligently (there, I said it) because they don't understand it and B) its the one aspect they're actually intimidated by. Isn't it common to make statements of bluster when one is bewildered or afraid?

All film, every single aspect of it, is artifice. I like to ask the anti-film music people the following: what about the cameras, the lighting, the sets, the special effects, the dialogue, the actors for crying-out-loud. Do they really think that when people see Shakespeare in Love that the viewers are convinced they're actually sitting in Elizabethan England instead of eating popcorn in a theatre? Do they believe they're Lost in Space or 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or On the Beach or the Usual Suspects?

I'm willing to bet that when this young film maker finds her scene "not working," she reaches for a bold, tasty dash of FILM MUSIC!

From: Thor Joachim Haga <t.j.haga@hfstud.uio.no>

Dan Hobgood puts forth an intrigiung topic when he speaks of the person questioning the relevance and true artistic purpose of music in films and theatre.

Being a student of theatre science, I have come to realize several differences between the usage of music in these two mediums. Whereas a stageplay relies heavily and is dependent on the presence of an audience and the TEMPORARY means of expression (i.e. "spur of the moment"), a movie might be viewed as a "richer" art form, capable of incorporating more art forms into one, and may be stretched beyond the spur of the moment, according to the director's wishes.

Enter music. A theatre performance might be accompanied by music, of course, but usually NOT on top of dialogue etc., but as a mean to convey a certain mood of a physical action or depiction of a scenery (not including opera, of course).

Film music, on the other hand, is often ever-present when a dramatic event needs enhancement, even on top of dialogue and sound F/X. Not only are films inferior to theatre in that they are two-dimensional and never physically "close" to an audience (as mentioned above), but they are also dependent on a series of subservient art forms to make them "complete". Music is one of these art forms. Remove that, and you are left with a pale vision, indeed.

Film music is, in other words, necessary, both to create a fictional/dramatic movie, and as an art form in itself, separated from the source...

From: STLATSHAW@aol.com

The U of Richmond student's stick-your-head-in-the-sand opinion regarding the inappropriateness of film music reminds me of early sound film producers in the 1930s. They insisted a film score (non-source music) would confuse audiences who'd wonder where the music came from.

It's no wonder that this same, historically uninformed generation of would-be filmmakers actually thinks BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is the penultimate example of the cinematic form. It ain't. It's a gimmick picture - this generation's BLOOD FEAST (1963-H. G. Lewis) without the payoffs. And I can promise you the filmmakers know it - they're laughing all the way to the bank.

From: Jason Comerford <jcomerford79@juno.com>

Think about this:

More often than not, a great film score comes not only as a result of musical innovation but the more tricky balance of pure sonic construction. Most of the composers working in the film industry today can usually be counted upon to provide something that's interesting musically. James Newton Howard is far from my favorite composer, but if there's anything he's a master at, it's melody and texture. (Too bad many of his scores seem to be of a piece.)

But the manipulation of sound itself - this is what differentiates the great composers. Or, at the least, the composers that have the insight to write a score that doesn't sound like a score. Fifty years of Steiner, Newman, Korngold, Young, Rozsa and the like have ingrained onto the public unconsciousness a preconception of the function of film music: to support or supplement the onscreen drama. For many of these composers working in a defined 19th-century idiom, the musical choices they made were appropriate for the time, not meant to take the test of time. "Serve the film" is the first function of film music; musical longevity comes after that.

But concert-hall innovations made in the past twenty-five years have resulted in a conception that music can be far, far more subtle - and thus, more effective to modern sensibilities. Less is more in today's world, and film composers seem, by large, to be slow to pick up on this. There are very few composers that have caught on, and learned how to manipulate sound and texture with the innovative skill of composers like Penderecki, Adams, Schoenberg, and Cage. Thomas Newman is a great example of how to do so much with so little - take a listen to "Flesh and Bone" or "The Rapture", or even "Welcome Home Roxy Carmichael". Brilliant stuff, but sounding nothing like a traditional film score, because the elements used are far removed from the traditional orchestral grouping.

Even music itself sometimes isn't neccessary. Take "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", a brilliant film whose "score" consists of a collection of skillfully arranged sound effects. It gets under your skin so insidiously because it doesn't have musical consistency or thematics - it relies on pure sonic manipulation to provide a sense of discomfort and unease. (Throw it over some of the best editing ever done for an American film and you've got a recipe for terror - after 25 years of bad horror flicks this is still the scariest movie I've ever seen.) "The Blair Witch Project" hearkens back to this ideal, but takes it a step further. Horror scoring is a fascinating subject that I could write forever about, but in these days it's pretty obvious that big, noisy orchestral music doesn't provide fear - the human imagination does. "Blair Witch" capitalizes on this idea, in an extremely smart way. Audiences have grown accustomed to "spooky music" accompanying "spooky scenes"; twenty years of predictable spotting and predictable scoring have led to ingrained ideas as to how horror music really works. By removing that key element of the horror films of the past twenty or so years, the fear can become far more substantial. It would be interesting to see of this idea could carry over into other genres - comedies, dramas, action movies.

Obviously, the inherent "unrealism" of a projected image can be somewhat disconcerting. Yes, it's a two-dimensional image, but as I said before, the imagination provides the third dimension, which is where the role of the film score lies. What many composers try to do is supplement this third dimension - and sometimes overlabor themselves to create a fourth. Of course there are films where the drama would be nonexistent without music. The list is long. But it's only long because it's filled with composers with both the dramatic and musical sense to not insult the audience's intelligence.

MailBag@filmscoremonthly.com