Film Music Ex Narratio

By Thor J. Haga

2. THREE EXTRA-NARRATIVE PLEASURES

Pleasure is of course a very vague concept. Philosophers since Plato have speculated if musical enjoyment stems from our intellectual capacity to recognize structures. The composer may thus play upon repetition and delay of musical fragments and, such as is the case in western, tonal music, satisfy the listener's desire for stability by returning to a tonal centre. A physiological theory locates pleasure in our sensory apparatus, in our nervous system. The musical rhythms, harmonies and melodies find their resonance in an unconscious recognition of sounds from a pre-oedipal period; in what Anzieu calls a "sonorous envelope." This is particularly the case in the provoking of emotions.

2.1 Film music and emotions

Russell Lack has claimed that music in itself "acts as the 'direct shaping voice' of emotion, simultaneously arousing and shaping feelings without the mediation of emotional objects" (Lack 1997: 285). The ancient greeks similarly claimed that although the ear could not be a reliable source to objective information (as the Kalinak quote above suggested), it gave -- through music, among other things -- direct and unmediated access to the soul, where the emotions were located.

The problem with this view is that emotions exist in some sort of "affectionate vacuum" without direction or dimension. So it is probably more constructive to talk about a morphology of emotions, as Susanne K. Langer does: "what music can actually reflect is only the morphology of feeling /Ö/ music is not self-expression, but formulation and representation of emotion" (Langer i Brown 1994: 26). Brown adds the concept of "unconsummated affect"; feelings in music remain unconsummated untill they enter into a dialectic with an external object: "The mainstream interaction between film and non-diegetic music depends on a dialectical opposition between the unconsummatedness of the musical symbol and the consumatedness of the cinematic object-events" (Brown 1994: 40).

Birger Langkjær similiarly tries to differentiate emotion in relation to film music. According to him, there are three elements in an emotional identification process: "Music as an expressive gestalt, the emotional state of the fictional character and the emotional state of the spectator" (Langkjær 1998: 52). These are further reflected in a tripartite hermeneutic process: sensing ý perception ý reception. Finally, the emotion is incorporated into a narrative context.

It is this last point that seems somewhat redundant. The emotion might need an object, albeit abstract, but does it need to be incorporated into a story (using Bremond's definition) to be communicated properly? It seems like Langkjær contradicts himself when he admits:
 

We talk about how a film is touching, horrific, fun, exciting or sad. We start by telling what it did to us, emotionally. Only at this point do we give a description of the type "it's aboutÖ.." In other words are the emotional components /Ö/ of the film a fundamental way to understand and characterize audiovisual fiction /Ö/ When we retell it, most of the film's concrete materiality has become a distant background for a string of few, but prominent scenarios and sharply defined emotional intensities (Langkjær 1998: 49)

Imagine that these "intensities" pop up, not as a consequence of the knowledge of a narrative event (the protagonist's rite-de-passage, for example), but flows out of the audiovisual amalgam as autonomous, iconic moments a la E.T.'s journey past the moon; in what Caryl Flinn labels "foregrounded affect"? Is it not possible, for example, to be utterly bored by a film, yet find satisfaction in certain "core scenes" (whether it's grief, angst or joy)? Maybe these fragments ressurect memories and emotions from one's own past rather than aspects of the story per se?

Annabel J. Cohen has explored the latter hypothesis: "although the film music serves narrative function [sic], it is also encoded in an information-processing channel devoted solely to music" (Cohen 2001: 265). She puts up a congruence-assosciationistic model, in which music, dialogue and visuals perform interprative processes through a complex interplay of short and long term memory. These processes are both autonomous and interdependent. Consequently, they provoke both an unidentified, but legitimate, "déjà vû-pleasure" and contribute to the emotional construction of a narration.

"Foregrounded affect" is particularly present in certain genres. Melodrama, for example, carries the concept banner (as the allusion to music in the name itself suggests). Caryl Flinn writes:
 

Melodrama /Ö/ has usually been characterized by the relative distinctiveness of its style from narrative themes and diegetic situations /Ö/ [it] foregrounds this affective function, making it noticeable and not "invisible", silent or unconscious as classicists would have it. (Flinn 1992: 133-39)

The "classicist" Royal S. Brown, on the other hand, labels it "non-diegetic excess."

Autonomous values of affection also pop up in what is known as 'spectacle' -- grandiose, "epic" genres a la science fiction, adventure or the historical drama. Even Gorbman admits that 'spectacle' "evokes a larger-than-life dimension which, rather than involving us in the narrative, places us in contemplation of it." (Gorbman 1987: 68). Note the problematic presence of a narrative even in the admission of an extra-narrative function! Her point, however, is legitimate: Wellknown music in films like these operate as a cultural common denominator and binds the audience together in a feeling of "commonality." Think of John Williams' neoromantic, leitmotif-based music to Star Wars. Levi-Strauss' parallell to myth also seems appropriate here:: "[Both] myth and music /Ö/ transcend articulate expression, while at the same time /Ö/ requiring a temporal dimension in which to unfold" (Levi-Strauss in Brown 1994: 72)

Perhaps it's legitimate to talk about feelings on at least two levels? The feelings that are injected into the story according to the turn of events, and the feelings that -- on a more abstract level -- unexpectedly pop up in single scenes as a result of a special relationship between visuals and music, but that necessarily don't have anything to do with the story? Either way, there should not be any reason to give one level a higher degree of legitimacy than the other.

2.2 Film music and atmosphere

Something that might seem less problematic than feelings, yet is indelibly attached to them, is the conceptualization of "atmosphere" (read: Gorbmans point 4a -- referential "cueing"). This is an aspect of the film art that is often mentioned en passant; as a simple, audiovisual designation of time and space. Roy Prendergast speaks of colorization: "In a broad sense, musical color may be taken to represent the exotic or sensous aspects of music, as distinct from musical structure, or line, which might be considered the intellectual side" (Prendergast 1977: 213). It sounds a bit simplistic, but is symptomatic for the missing theory on this field. Kalinak elaborates somewhat by saying that "mood music tapped the power of collective associations to create the time and place represented in the image /Ö/ music was called upon to create a mood sometimes only dimly suggested by the images [such as] suspense" (Kalinak 1992: 90).

One is, however, faced with at least one unanswered question. Kassabian asks:: "While it is mainly simple enough to describe the mood being expressed by an instance of music, the very notion of mood music raises a difficult question: whose mood is being expressed?" (Kassabian 2001: 59). The atmosphere might be tied to a character, a place or another form of subjectivity. How can the music then "guide" us to the correct interpretation of atmosphere? Although no one has done any extensive analyses, it seems to be consensus on the fact that atmosphere simply is a sum of those conventions we attach to various instruments and musical structures. Gorbman points out two such conventions: Orchestration and melody. In terms of orchestration, imagine associations of the type "tuba = comedy", "strings = love", "brass = heroism" etc. Melodic conventions include combinations like "open Americana intervals = Western", "Strauss = 19th century Vienna" and so forth. By breaking with these conventions, one creates appropriate "verfremdungs"-effects or innovative ways to experience the cinematic object (think of the use of screaming, unromantic strings in Psycho, for example).

One wants a somewhat more nuanced definition, however, in order to fully understand the extra-narrative quality of atmosphere. Birger Langkjær differentiates between feelings and moods thus:
 

When the music "concretifies" its meaning, it also focuses the engagement of the spectator witin the fiction and consequently alters his form of experience from "mood" to "feeling", from an enduring sensation of feeling (with constant intensity) to a more changeable, that might be more or less intense (Langkjær 1998: 55)

Langkjær's argumentation insinuates that the atmosphere/mood exists on a sort of pre-narrative level where we are touched, yet not necessarily narratively engaged. The Hollywood film utilizes this idea when it charges title sequences and establishing shots -- the atmospheric maternity wards -- with "foregrounded affect." Think of Hans Zimmer's soft minor-mode melody dressed in Lisa Gerard's arabic-sounding vocal in the opening of Gladiator [in this case, the musical soundscape is also out of geographic synch with the action, and attains an "expansive" effect in correlation with the Roman conquests]. Or Bronislau Kaper's heroic fanfare as the legendary ship leaves port in Mutiny on the Bounty, travelling with cymbal crashes as wave-mimicry. In both of these cases, one hopes that the static experience of atmosphere "bleeds" into a narrative engagement in the next scene.

The problem, however, is that the conjuring up of atmosphere does not have to remain static "filler", but rather an active, autonomous construction. Just as the fine arts have periodically strived for engrossment in pure moods to "socraticize" self-conscience, so too can film art, with its multi-medial capacity, construct atmospheric "tableaux" that are qualities in and of themselves. As the film example below testifies to, even the story might be submitted to an atmospheric priority without the film losing any kind of qualititative value.

2.3 Film music and symbolism

Perhaps the most complex field within which film music operates, is the ability to communicate a symbol or sign of some sort (read: Gorbman's point 4b -- connotative "cueing"). Complicated because one is unsure as to whether Metz' film semiology suffices:
 

No one semiology can interrelate the many different kinds of signifer on offer in the film. All that can be done is to look at individual instances of of cinema and try to decode the ways in which music has been deployed as an isolated case (Lack 1997: 291)

Lack obviously refers to the sore "film as language"-debate, and we are then once again haunted by problems of representation and the emphasis on conventions. Nevertheless, Peter Larsen takes Metz' "induction phenomenon" as a point-of-departure when he discusses the symbol-heavy montage. He extrapolates that there areÖ
 

Öalways two streams of induction going on in a film [back and forth -- ed. note] The result of these crossing streams is an experience of coherence in the total sequence, which comes to the fore as a connected chain of signifiers that carries a connected chain of signifieds /Ö/ When numerous chains of signifiers are co-ordinated, a charged field of meaning is established -- a field in which energies are constantly ejected (Larsen 1988: 20-27)

Although non-representational film music probably has problems fitting completely into a chain of sifgnifers like this, it contributes -- as we have seen -- to charge or provoke forth unidentified intensities that we automatically wish to interpret. When Larsen therefore speaks of the "lyrical-symbolical structuring" of the rock video, in which the main purpose is to "produce metaphorically condensed presentations of central thematics" (p. 40), it is tempting to ask why the same could not be applied to the feature film. Even Gorbman maintains that "music that is noticed, which calls attention to itself, swings away from the imaginary toward the symbolic" (Gorbman 1987: 7). One might add that the degree of vigilance for such symbolical, "foregrounded" music varies radically from spectator to spectator, and that the goal of the music is to constantly make us believe in a distilled world of signifieds -- that the creation of symbols is a continous process:
 

The non-diegetic musical score /Ö/, by helping transform the object-event into an affect-object-event, draws our attention away from the physical properties of the cinematic signifiers and, paradoxically, makes us believe in the reality of the signifieds (Brown 1997: 31)

But no matter where, when and to what extent symbolism makes its appearance, it is possible to deduce a recipe for the process, that -- like I've already touched upon -- finds its raw material in cultural, cinematic and musical conventions, respectively. However, since music cannot be a denotative sign system, even the connotative associations will be little more than well used clichés. The solution for prominent moments of symbolism consequently lies in either unorthodox combinations of the two systems of expression (for example visual/musical dissonance, irony) or, then, a string of consonant, unambigious conventions.

An example of the first is the iconic scene in Platoon, where Elias (Willem Dafoe), left behind on the battlefield, is chased ruthlessly by the Viet Cong. Pierced by bullets, he finally falls to his knees, arms raised towards the sky. The scene in itself is violent and unambigious, but receives an extra ironic-symbolical dimension through the inclusion of Samuel Barber's ubiquitous "adagio for strings." The piece, which has strong religious connotations, makes Elias appear as a Christ figure; through his suffering, he sacrifices himself "for humanity" even if everything seems pointless.

Opposite, there's the iconic scene in Star Wars, where Luke Skywalker gazes longingly at Tatooine's twin sunset, accompanied by John Williams' heart-breaking variations of the "Force" theme. The scene starts off with a pianissimo version of Luke's theme via solo flute, and segues into a brass crescendo of Obi Wan/"The Force"-theme as he reaches the top of the hill and gazes out at the beautiful landscape. The consonance in picture and music signals Luke's desire to leave the desert planet, but also -- more fundamentally -- his strong connection to the "Force."

Although the formerly criticized and perhaps somewhat vague parallell/contrast-dichotomy haunts the musicovisual construction of symbols in the filmic expression, these moments are carriers of the film's smallest units of meaning or the basic subtext. Therefore, they are in many ways pleasures in and of themselves, connected to -- as well as separated from -- the film's story.

To Be Concluded in the next Wednesday column...

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