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Posted: |
Mar 7, 2005 - 11:12 AM
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By: |
ahem
(Member)
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I'm going to have a 2-hour lecture on film music at another university next week (about film music's functions), so I need to prepare myself properly with a bunch of examples. Still, I'm baffled by my own inability to come up with good ones. Here's what I need:
1. A typical example of music underscoring dialogue in a classical Hollywood film (i.e. without the music drawing too much attention to itself). I was thinking Anthony Hopkins' final speech in AMISTAD, but perhaps that is too over-blown.
2. Music underscoring a character's point-of-view in a classical Hollywood film, for example his or her extreme focus on a certain item that only the music "explains" (I was thinking LAURA, but I haven't actually seen that film).
3. Music that BREAKS with the Hollywood mode, i.e. displays discontinuity, emotional contrast, goes against character identification etc. (I already have Godard's PIERROT LE FOU on the list)
Any suggestions, good people? Be aware that - perhaps except for #3 - these should be readily available films that I can borrow from the institute's media library.
1. Anything from Breakfast at Tiffany's.
2. Well of Souls from Indiana Jones/The UN visit music from North By Northwest
3. Singin in the Rain in Clockwork Orange
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So you want it to be from a movie that is not only independently made, but independantly released? Lionsgate is out of Canada. I don't really see the difference. There are plenty of independently made movies released by Hollywood.
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1. Someone mentioned THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR. Specifically the scene of dialouge between the mother and daughter...(Bernard Herrmann's music here is the Andante Cantabale from the album)and I cannot think of a better example of music underscoring dialouge than this.
2. The scene where Ray Milland walks down 3rd Avenue in New York looking for a pawn shop that's open to hock his typewriter (so he can buy more booze)in THE LOST WEEKEND music by Miklos Rozsa.
3. John Williams score to Robert Altman's IMAGES is totally against the grain, full of strange sounds with an oriental slant, and certainly not your typical psycho horror genre score either.
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Posted: |
Mar 14, 2005 - 9:26 AM
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By: |
Thor
(Member)
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I guess I owe it to you to say which examples I used.
Here's how I structured the lecture:
PART 1: Film music research - a historical context
PART 2: Classical film music functions
I based it on Claudia Gorbman's list in her "Unheard Melodies".
To illustrate "invisibility", I picked the tribal dance from KING KONG (1933)
To illustrate "inaudibility", or rather, how to score dialogue unobtrusively, I picked the scene where Jem tells Scout about the tree treasures in TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (thanks, Howard!)
To illustrate a character's point-of-view, as evident in the music, I picked Marion's escape from PSYCHO (thanks, JSDouglas!)
To illustrate continuity in montage sequences, I picked the "living the life"-montage from SCARFACE (1983)
To illustrate unity, I picked the Obi-Wan leitmotif from STAR WARS, first as the character is introduced in the desert, and then the last celebration scene, where the theme is expanded to signify the force of the good side in general.
PART 3: Breaks with the Hollywood mode
To illustrate rhythmic discontinuity, I picked the car-theft scene from PIERROT LE FOU.
To illustrate the use of silence, I picked the last park scene in BLOW UP.
PART 4: Semi-breaks in neo-classical film
To illustrate the emotional autonomy in neo-classical films, I picked the Flying scene from E.T.
To illustrate the mood-based autonomy in neo-classical film (through the merging of diegesis and non-diegesis), I picked the opening and "snake"-related scene from BLADE RUNNER
To illustrate the autonomous enjoyment of symbolism in neo-classical film, I picked the Ice Dance-scene and the Cookie factory scene from EDWARD SCISSORHANDS.
They were going to show INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE after the lecture, and I told them which things to look out for as far as the music was concerned (the opening train-scene, the grail theme, the scherzo for motorcycle and orchestra and the final tank sequence).
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***
)... would you be interested in transcribing the discussion for us?***