I first discovered my love of film music when I realized the movies I loved all had interesting music. I enjoy a good story for escape as much as anyone. But when it’s accompanied by music the experience becomes more alive. So before I add posts about the analytical and technical aspects of film music, I want to share my top ten reasons for loving film music.
10. Shameless emotional connection.
Music easily moves its listeners emotionally. But when music connects to powerful imagery and stories its impact is sweeping. The movie Platoon (1986), directed by Oliver Stone, illustrates the violence and cruelty of the Vietnam War. I openly wept in the theater, as did many others, when Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings underscores the battle scene for Sgt. Elias’s death. (In the linked clip the music starts at 1:30.) The slow tempo and minor key of the music are conventionally connected to emotions of sadness. But violent scenes paired with lush string music is startling and feels emotionally overwhelming.
Other films use Barber’s work, too. Prior to Platoon, David Lynch also chose to use Adagio for Strings in the last scene of The Elephant Man.
In great contrast to the above examples, the buoyant yodeling of Don Walser during the opening credits in Secondhand Lions left me feeling exhilarated. The Texas Swing number, “A Rolling Stone From Texas” foreshadows the adventurous spirit of the film’s coming of age tale.
9. Stimulating and creative combination of instrumental tone colors.
Earlier film scores tend to have a more homogenized tone color with orchestral strings. But one quality of modern music is to combine instruments in unique ways. The result creates an interesting tone color. And film music composer Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975) is a master of combining sounds to create something new. He uses alto flutes, bassoons, muted brass and vibraphone in the opening death montage in Citizen Kane for a dark and foreboding sound. As the title appears in silence, it goes to black and the music begins as if from pure darkness.
Herrmann’s use of percussion (xylophone, marimba, vibraphone, glockenspiel) and strings with harp in Fahrenheit 451 sounds suitably modern and quirky, befitting the reading free world created by Ray Bradbury.
In Beneath the 12-Mile Reef Herrmann uses nine harps to create a sonic world for the underwater scenes. Let’s not forget his percussive treatment of strings in the murder scenes of Psycho. And Herrmann seldom limited himself to traditional instruments in his scores.
Electronic Music Experiments
His experiments with electronic sounds include recording singing telephone lines for Mr. Scratch’s first scene in The Devil and Daniel Webster (All That Money Can Buy), using a treble and bass theremin in The Day the Earth Stood Still and serving as a sound consultant for the film The Birds. The Birds uses a mixtur-trautonium to supplement the bird sounds. Oskar Sala is the electronic music pioneer who created and played the sounds in this film.
Bernard Herrmann is not the only film composer to mix instruments in an unusual way and play with electronic sounds. But he is among the first to do this and has influenced many contemporary composers.
8. Discovering connections made through melodic borrowing and allusion.
Silent film scores are often compilations, pulled together from familiar popular melodies and light classical music to make connections with the viewers. But let’s consider director Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis from 1927. Metropolis is unique because it has an original score.
The composer, Gottfried Huppertz, uses the Dies Irae chant in Metropolis in the scene where the seven deadly sins come to life. (In this link to a full version of Metropolis the Dies Irae is heard at 1:07:59 as Freder is in the church.) The Latin chant Dies Irae describes the Day of Judgement. It makes a powerful association in the scene of Freder’s apocalyptic dream and represents his turmoil over the dystopian society his father has created. (This scene occurs at 1:33:27 in this link.)
In Max Steiner’s score for Gone with the Wind, he uses the American vernacular song “Dixie” for its long association with the American South to go with scenes about the start of the Civil War. In another melodic association, Steiner uses the military bugle call “Taps” in the underscore when Scarlett Ohara’s first husband dies.
And the film score for Casablanca is famous for its use of Herman Hupfeld’s song “As Time Goes By.” Max Steiner uses its melody pervasively in the underscoring from Ilsa’s first appearance. But the most significant use of melodic borrowing to intensify meaning is his use of the French national anthem “La Marseilles” to represent The Underground effort and the German patriotic anthem “Die Wacht am Rhein” to represent the Germans. The scene where this contrapuntal duet occurs in Rick’s may seem obvious in intent, but its artful use pulls even the current day viewer into the story.
7. Uncovering Additional Depth of Meaning and Irony with Popular Music
Directors that choose their own music as opposed to hiring a composer to create an original score, give up direct synchronicity between the score and the images. But they make up for that with deeper, sometimes hidden meanings found in the borrowed music. Using popular songs with lyrics to comment on the situation is a trait of Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson and a host of other contemporary directors.
Scorsese chooses music that reflects the times and lifestyles of his characters in Goodfellas. He only uses music that could have been heard at the time in the film’s storyline. Apart from establishing the time frame and setting, music can also comment on a film. An example of this is the use of Tony Bennet’s performance of “Rags to Riches” in the beginning of Goodfellas. It foreshadows Henry Hill’s motivations and outcome.
The website What-Song.com is helpful in researching music in a film score.
Tarantino’s famous use of the one-hit-wonder “Stuck in the Middle with You” by the group Stealers Wheel creates a multi-purpose music cue. (A cue is any section of music in a film.) This cue affects the viewer on many levels and it was a premeditated choice by Tarantino. Considering the title we can see the irony of its use in the scene. The injured undercover cop, Mr. Orange, has to make a life-or-death decision. Does he save the cop being tortured and ruin his cover? Or does he let the policeman die and preserve his undercover position? Additionally, the pop quality of the music seriously contrasts with the extreme cruelty and violence of the torture scene, creating a complicated reaction for the viewer.
In the excellent book Film Music: A Very Short Introduction, Kathryn Kalinak writes an interesting analysis of this scene.
6. Experiencing music in a new way.
In the new David Lynch series Twin Peaks: The Return he remixes the song American Women by the group Muddy Magnolias. Lynch drastically slows it to accompany the first scene of the return of the villainous spirit Bob in Dale Cooper’s body. For any Twin Peaks fans wondering when evil Bob would return, this music makes it very clear. You don’t even have to see the character to know what the music is describing. In all the strange and wonderful weirdness of this new series, the music helps us to understand what’s going on. For me, it is often enough to experience the music and experimental images together without deep analysis at first.
Anempathetic Music
Questions arise when music and imagery come together in an unexpected way. When that happens, my brain screams “Why is this cheerful music accompanying this violent scene? What’s up with that?” Thanks to French author, Michel Chion for explaining this phenomenon in his book Audio Vision: Sound on Screen. The term for the instance when the music continues on as if oblivious and indifferent to what occurs on-screen is anempathetic music.
One example of anempathetic music is in The Omen, scored by Jerry Goldsmith. After the nanny has committed suicide, the music box continues to play its merry melody, which creates a chilling effect. Another compelling example occurs in The Bad Seed, scored by Alex North. Sweet little Rhoda has set fire to the bed Leroy sleeps upon and locks him in the basement. Leroy is the maintenance man who has discovered Rhoda’s crimes. As he is screaming and burning, she continues to practice the song “Au Claire de la Lune” at the piano. (As an aside, her piano teacher needs to introduce her to the metronome!)
5. Immersion into the sonic world of the film
All films have a sonic world, but those that integrate the sonic world into the film are powerful. Period films that use the music of the time pull the viewer in for a complete experience. In Amadeus, the fun biopic about classical era composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, there are many scenes of rehearsals and opera performances. Most scenes use the music of Mozart in the underscoring, adapted by Sir Neville Mariner.
In the Masterclass course on Film Music Scoring, taught by Hans Zimmer, he discusses creating your own unique sonic palette to underscore a film. This sonic palette should tie into the film’s underlying theme. It should also support the imagery and story. For the film, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Zimmer incorporates the sound of gypsy violin in the score. The violin connects to Sherlock Holmes character, who plays the violin. And the Roma style music connects to a gypsy fortune-teller Sherlock Holmes consults.
A film does not necessarily need an original score to create a unique sonic world. And at other times, borrowed music co-exists with newly created music. There is a book edited by musicologist and film music writer James Wierzbicki entitled Music, Sound, and Filmmakers: Sonic Style in Cinema that features essays about directors who specifically design a sonic world for a film before shooting. Ingmar Bergman, Wes Anderson, Joel and Ethan Coen, Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch and Stanley Kubrik are among the directors discussed. Each of these directors has a recognizable style in part due to their treatments of music and sound.
4. Hearing classical music in new settings
Purists may feel that classical or concert music does not belong in a film score. But I think the use of classical music in films is interesting for several reasons. It can establish a setting and time frame for a period film. It makes viewers aware of classical music they might not otherwise bother to listen to. I suspect that when many people hear the opening chords from Richard Strauss’ Thus Spoke Zarathustra they first think of the opening of Stanley Kubrik’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Would Richard Strauss be bothered by its use in the film? Possibly. But I think it’s more likely that people who have seen the film would be interested in exploring its music.
The story of Kubrik’s rejection of Alex North’s original score is infamous, but Thus Spoke Zarathustra is still an inspired choice for the film. Philosopher Frederick Nietzsche has a novel of the same name that inspired Strauss’s tone poem. And both the novel and the film raise questions about the nature of existence. Kubrik also uses Johann Strauss’ Blue Danube Waltz for a space docking sequence. The music makes this graceful sequence seem like a ballet in space.
In The Kings Speech, composer Alexandre Desplat writes sparingly because of the film’s focus on dialogue. But the choice to use Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, second movement, as underscoring for the speech scene is brilliant. (The music starts at 2:16 in this clip.) The disconnected rhythm of the theme naturally matches the careful, halting pronunciation of the words. The narrow range of the melody parallels King George’s voice. And the serious tone of the music suits the scene. Furthermore, we must consider how Beethoven’s ideals of democracy and freedom tie in with the ideals of the Allies in World War II.
The second movement of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K. 622 partners beautifully with scenes of wilderness and skies in Out of Africa. Watch it – listen to it – the beauty of this combination needs no further words of explanation.
3. Hearing world music
Films are a wonderful way to experience world music. How many people would go out of their way to deeply listen to music of another culture? But put it in a film, and it can spark interest.
Tan Dun’s score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon uses native Chinese drums and flutes, but also traditional symphonic strings, such as the cello. It seems appropriate that the great cellist Yo-Yo Ma plays the cello solos for the score. 
The fight scenes are typically accompanied by Chinese drums and heighten the thrill of the action. (In this clip, the music begins at 2:30)
Wes Anderson’s film The Darjeeling Limited is about three brothers who are taking a spiritual journey across India. Anderson is a fan of the Bengali film director and composer Satyajit Ray. Ray’s music is well represented in The Darjeeling Limited. The score also incorporates the music of The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, and Peter Sarstedt.
And for those readers interested in pursuing world music in films, I recently came across this article about The Byron Bay Film Festival.
2. Films that celebrate music and deeply use music.
I really enjoy films that celebrate music. Not just musicals, wherein we expect music to play a large role. But narrative films that create a story that centers around music. The Swedish-French film Sound of Noise raises questions about the nature of music. It wasn’t until the twentieth-century that percussion music comes into its own with Varese’s composition Ionisation (c. 1929). In Sound of Noise, anarchist percussionists conceive of a composition performed in various places in a city and performed with non-musical tools.
In the 1990s British theatrical group Stomp created percussive choreographed performances with everyday objects. In the opening scene of the film Stomp Out Loud percussionists hang from scaffolding and bang out an intense beat on cans and tire rims.
Last year HBO featured a new series that was co-created by Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger, called Vinyl. The plot concerns a struggling record company in the early 1970s. There is a wide variety of 70s music and many historical characters of that time are featured. I was sorry to see it canceled after only one season.
A new film about film music composers is Score: A Film Music Documentary. Everything you want to know about this film is on their website.
1. Film Music Stimulates Interest and Discussion About Music
This is my personal list of reasons to love film music. I hope you will find more reasons to enjoy film music!
My first reason to love film music is that it exposes everyone to great music. It opens doors for conversation among people with diverse musical experience.
People that might not otherwise listen to symphonic music can still hear some wonderful music in films. In all honesty, I fear that many people do not care to listen to concert music. But, if a film has an inspired score, it perks up people’s interest in music. Then it offers an opportunity to talk about how music creates meaning in a film. Also, listening to familiar music in a different context gets people thinking. It stimulates a discussion about how the music supports the message of a film.
It’s just fun! And if I’m having fun with it, I hope my students and friends will, too!
Keep Music in Your Heart and Go Watch a Good Film!
Susan