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Posted: |
Jan 24, 2014 - 11:49 AM
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By: |
joan hue
(Member)
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Since we just lost Riz Ortolani, maybe this is a good time talk about his what I call his “ironic” score for Cannibal Holocaust and other scores that seem to provide a sense of irony when listening to the music that is synced to opposite visuals. I use “ironic” to mean music that "plays against” its scene.
(Maybe the term “ironic” is wrong. Maybe it should be “contrasts or juxtaposes”)
I rented Cannibal Holocaust because people on this board kept raving about the music. Oh my, was I ever in for a treat, and I mean that ironically. (Gee, the title should have been my first hint.) It opens with the camera panning over lovely jungles and rivers. Usually main title music provides settings or narrative hints about the movie. Main titles may have action music for action flicks like Bourne movies. Titles may have a historical sound for the period of the narrative. (Romantic sounds for a love story, alien sounds for sci fi movies, etc.) Cannibal Holocaust’s main title is lovely, sweet and underscores the gorgeous bucolic scenery of the camera. The music LULLED me into a sense of beauty and calm; and as we all know, the movie was extremely violent and gory, and I didn’t hear a hint of those narrative traits in the opening titles. I’m wondering why this opening title was scored like this? Why the portrayal of pastoral “idyllism” in the music when underneath the lovely umbrellas of the jungle lie unimaginable horrors? Is it to heighten the contrast between what “seems to be” versus what is? To enhance or heighten the revulsion? Does it have something to do with the white man’s interference into the different cultures? I’m just tossing out ideas. Your thoughts?
It might interesting to give other examples of “ironic” scoring where the music plays opposite of the visuals and discuss the enhancement value of such scoring. (I’m sure we’ve done this before…a long, long time ago in a faraway place that I can’t find.) I’m thinking of the Jeff Bridges movie FEARLESS. During the horrific plane crash where people are being sucked out of the plane, the director has the scene underscored with a lovely rather classical piece of music. (The title evades me right now.)There is no action music or horror music, just this lovely classical piece. Does such contrast intensify the horror and fear? I think it does because what I’m hearing AND seeing do not synch together. Are there other examples of this type of scoring?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIIe0VjAtDY
The above youtube is from the western A REASON TO LIVE, A REASON TO DIE scored by Ortolani. The lovely main these is heard at the 2:30 mark. Why such a lovely theme for an action western? I haven’t seen these movie, but music sure doesn’t sound like THE GLORY GUYS which has a macho, heroic theme that reflects the characters and narrative. Would love any information on this as I haven’t seen the ARTL,ARTD movie.
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Not quite sure if this is completely on-topic, joan, but I wonder if your beloved Elmer Bernstein and his "straight" scores for zany comedies fit the bill in any way. I suppose it could be "ironic" when he's playing up the ridiculous/ super-serious situations with such dramatic music. I'm sure goofy comic music wouldn't have worked at all.
Which brings me to a score and a film I think you know well, joan. FAR FROM HEAVEN. Now, I thought that was a very good movie, and the score is beautiful, but in a way Elmer Bernstein had dug his own grave in my opinion when it came to scoring certain scenes. I know it was all a throwback to the Douglas Sirk melodramas of the '50s, but there's one scene in particular (my memory's none too clear, so forgive any innacuracies) when Dennis Quaid's wife (?) finds him locked in an embrace with another... man. To demonstrate her shock and stupor, Bernstein throws in the dramatic chords - and with the looks of surprise on all the faces, belts unbuckled etc, it reminded me rather unfortunately of something out of AIRPLANE. That certainly wasn't Elmer's "fault", just a consequence of how he'd taken the straight-faced approach to extreme situations in the earlier comedies.
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Posted: |
Jan 25, 2014 - 2:09 PM
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By: |
DS
(Member)
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I wouldn't say that big, stinging, melodramatic scoring is "ironic," and in the case of "Far from Heaven" it was absolutely the stylistic direction the director gave. 1950s Hollywood scoring is its own thing entirely, I think. Something like "Peyton Place" is no different, and those films are so far removed from reality and in their own soapy, gorgeous realm that I take it all as style rather than irony.
I think a lot of Italian film music is an odd, ironic juxtaposition with the images. In most of the giallo films we have absolutely gorgeous, Romantic, orchestral music over an incredible amount of sleaze and violence (and in addition to the music, these films are gorgeously photographed, at times by people like Vittorio Storaro). I think any of Ortolani's "Mondo" films qualify too. In France, a lot of Godard scores are ironic as you watch the films, like "Pierrot le fou."
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I wouldn't say that big, stinging, melodramatic scoring is "ironic," and in the case of "Far from Heaven" it was absolutely the stylistic direction the director gave.
I think you may have misundertood my post, Dylan. Bernstein's score for FAR FROM HEAVEN is anything but ironic, but because it's a deliberate throwback to '50s scoring for melodramas it is in many ways pastiche - honest pastiche, without the wink in the eye. Trouble is he'd already utilized that approach (WITH a wink in the eye) for stuff like AIRPLANE, so it kind of backfired on him in a way. But only "in a way" (as in only film music geeks like me would give it a passing thought).
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Posted: |
Jan 26, 2014 - 10:36 AM
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By: |
Josh
(Member)
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Hi Joan!
Upon seeing this thread, I remembered that you'd mentioned the ironic aspect of Cannibal Holocaust's score in another thread a couple of years ago, so I lazily dug up my reply to you from that thread:
"The beauty of that main theme makes the horrors that come later all the more horrifying. As that lush, melodic theme plays over the opening sequence and the viewer gets a bird's eye view of soaring above the rainforest, it's saying, "Oh, look at the rainforest from above, so pristine and majestic and peaceful," but once you descend into the darkness below the canopy, the music follows suit, reflecting the horror and paranoia and vicious cruelty that the humans inflict upon each other (and, of course, upon the unfortunate animals that were actually killed on film). The movie is very difficult to watch; I haven't seen it in years.
But yes, this is one of my all-time favorite scores. I love every little bit of it, from the main theme to the sinister synthesizer "pew pews" (as David so aptly described them) to the agonizing, atonal walls of strings and the funkdafied grooviness of the party music. The album program is just perfect."
http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=91545&forumID=1&archive=0
I'll be back to post about other example of ironic scoring as they come to mind...
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The liner notes for Intrada's release of "Straw Dogs" discuss how Peckinpah asked Fielding to create a score that had a sense of irony to it. Fielding brilliantly pointed out that: "Now it's hard to say to someone, 'Now go downstairs and write me something ironic.' Irony is hard to capture in the abstract. It only exists in relation to something. [...] So I had to find out what irony meant to [Peckinpah] in musical terms."
I think it is a rather subtly ironic score, the opening heralds ultimately become darkly funny by the time the film ends, and the rest of the music scratches away against the picture to great effect.
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