Film Music: The Modern Version of 19th Century Program music

Forword:

When answering a viewpoint question in the examination, we have to spend enough time to think carefully about the main issue or argument of that question first. The following is the question about film music analysis in the AMusTCL examination. Student's answer seems to show that she does not understand the main issue of the question. As such, I attempt to rework her answer, refocusing on the crux of the argument and expanding its supporting evidences, so as to give a more satisfactory discussion.


Article:

 

AMusTCL Nov 2010 (c):

Film Music Question

 

Question:  Is film music the modern version of nineteenth-century Programme music? Select and discuss TWO        films from those listed below and refer to any others that are relevant in your consideration of the question.

 

Student version:

 

Nineteenth-century programme music evokes the listener a specific experience and conveying emotions, which is written base on non-music idea, images or events. It invites audience invoke the imaginative correlation with the music. Similarly, film music is music that accompanies a film, creating narrative space and gives more body and depth to the story and characters. In this essay, some examples will be discussed.

 

My editing:

 

        Nineteenth-century program music is famous for its expressivity to narrate a story, or to recall and evoke the relevant experiences and emotions based on the storyline and the extra-musical ideas that embedded in the programmatic description for the listeners. As such, program music claims its communicative legitimacy through the written text, or program, which, despite the musical sound per se, can offer a larger imaginative space for deeper interpretation. Similarly, the plot, the dialogues, and the moving images of a particular scene in the movie is also likened to such referential “program”, which is capable of offering abundant referential meanings to the corresponding music, creating an even broader narrative space to the audience. From this sense, the on-screen visual “program” of a film becomes an indispensable guidance to the understanding of the supporting music. As such, film music, to a certain extent, can be said to be the modern version of nineteenth-century program music. In this essay, I will explore three examples that support my claim stated above.

 

Student version:

 

Firstly, in the scene “Seeking a Lesson” of Crouching Tiger and Hidden Tiger, two narrative spaces are created. On one hand, Master Long is fighting with many swordsmen. The Chinese percussions strikes fast with rhythmic pattern, this highlights the fighting action. It evokes audience the imagination of Chinese “Kung Fu” and intensifies the tension of fighting action. On the other hand, the Chinese piccolo produces a relaxing folk tune music which plays against the fighting scene. The lyrical, slow tempo and dance-like music emits an artistic atmosphere. It synchronizes to the poem reciting and sword waving by Master Long. This elevates a fighting action to the Art of Sword Dance of traditional Chinese art.  Thus, the music in this scene tells more than the music itself and gives more body to the story.

 

My editing:

 

       Firstly, in the scene “Seeking a Lesson” of Crouching Tiger and Hidden Tiger, the on-screen visual program, the plot, tells audiences about how Jen skillfully plays her artistic “game of sword dancing”, so as to “discipline” a mob of fierce, trouble-making swordmen in the eatery. If we want to understand why the underlying music is displayed in two layers of sound – one is moving rapidly under the support of the Chinese ethnic percussive ensemble, and the other one is singing in comparatively slower tempo by Chinese piccolo – we have to consider the “programmatic” reference on the screen. Indeed, the on-screen moving images and dialogues, such as Jen's sword fighting and reciting poem, seem to cry out in two narrative voices for these two musical layers. On the one hand, the power and strengthen of the sword fighting skill can be experienced from the fast moving Chinese percussion repeated in constant rhythmic pattern intensify the pace and strength of the fight. On the other hand, Jen 's dexterity and elegant gestures are exhibited through the music of the slow-moving Chinese piccolo folk tune. Such musical effect can likely elicit a sense of relax, effortless spirits in audiences, showing Jen’s mastery of the art of sword fighting. Interestingly, this dance-like tune, accompanying with Jen’s recitation of a traditional 8-line poem, seems to creates an imagined dancing stage, on which only Jen the artistic dancer is swinging freely to and fro like a bird hovering in the sky.

 

In fact, to many who know Chinese traditional culture, reciting poem is an intellectual activity which is usually found in the social gatherings of ancient literati. These people view sword dancing and poem reciting is a welcoming entertainment. As such, using slow-wind but fast-percussion ensemble of the folk musical style of northwestern China in this scene is a wonderful setting to express how skillful Jen is in sword fighting, and therefore, she can easily give a “lesson” to the swordmen and teaches them what is meant by art of sword fighting.  Although the audiences may think that the music is expressing a fierce fighting on the surface, however, by referencing the visual program reference, their understandings may be greatly adjusted. If no “program” is provided on-screen for reference, we may misunderstand the underlying ideas of the music, even of the scene. From this view, film music as a modern version of program music is undeniable.

The above reworking version (a part of the original essay) is only a suggestion that may help student to understand how to cope with the main issue and how to organize and present the points in a reasoning manner.


David Leung (theorydavid)
2014-10-16    (published)

Analysis of the Music Used in "Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon" -- Reworking on the Summary

Foreword:

The following writing is not a complete article with appropriate argument. It is originally written by a student who attempts to summarize what she has learnt from the film music analysis lessons.


Although the draft contains many grammatical errors and some ideas cannot be clearly explained, the writing direction and ideas are quite good in nature.  It is worth to rework on this incomplete writing, though there is absent of the argument.


In fact, analyzing musical sound and transforming it into words is not that easy as one think. The formal analysis, which involves using many jargon-like symbols and signs, is not sufficient enough for such writing to general readers. The following reworking essay can, perhaps, provide a valuable reference for readers who not only want to write musical analysis, but also want to understand the musical meaning of some particular scenes.



Article:

Summary

Music used in the film “Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon”

Main focus on fighting scenes:
 

The scene of “Catching thief” speaks of the first fight occurred between Shu Lien and Jen since Jen has stolen Wudon master Li’s precious sword. In order to intensifying the fighting violence, a pair of Chinese drums is employed to create a series of fast moving percussive sounds. As the level of excitement is raised, the tempo and volume of the drum ostinato increase simultaneously until reaching the climax. At this moment, audience’s emotion is also pushed up to the zenith. Such frenzy is achieved by means of the percussive drum, which is able to create a contrapuntal two-part texture to multiply the hit points of two fighters' actions. In addition, the familiar percussive sonority of Chinese drum, to many audiences, is easily associated with the activities held by traditional Chinese martial art school, such as lion dancing, or free-fighting competition. Tan Dun’s idiosyncratic use of such timbre purports not only to express his wanting to parallel music with the fighting mood of the scene, but also his ambition to exhibit an oriental characteristic of traditional Chinese Kung Fu to the locals as well as the foreigners.
 

In the scene of “Dark Cloud”, Jen’s comb is robbed by Lo and she is eager to get it back. So she chases Lo and fights with him without noticing that this fight has already ignited her candle of love, which is suppressed in her inner heart for many years. Here, the music is designed in two layers of sound of distinct styles. The first sound layer makes use of the traditional native instrument, yun, to produce a lively, pleasant, and exotic folk dancing tune. The second one is a layer of rhythmic sound played by hand drums and other percussive ensemble as the accompaniment moving in steadily pulsation. To audience, the use of two sound layers is rich in expressive meanings. On the one hand, a rapid detached sound is created by the drums to enhance the power and violence of the fighting, creating many hit points to intensify the fast moving images. On the other hand, a sense of romantic feeling emanates from the dancing tune, which is composed by using the Xian Jiang folk scale to highlight a special feature, the augmented 2^nd intervallic flow, in order to soften the vigorous excitement of the fight. In addition, the native plucking instrument, yun, is also capable of producing a quite unfamiliar timbral color, seemingly to inform audience that this love affair between Jen (high social status as aristocracy of mainland) and Lo (low social status as bandit of ethnic minority) is an unequal exotic love. Indeed the minority dance tune consists of the both metrical regularity and spontaneous flexibility, aiming to support certain lively and vividly gestures in the folk dance. Since dancing always reminds audience of a cheerful and happy occasion in many traditional festival activities, such as social gathering for youth to search for lovers or celebration of harvest, of the ethnic minority, the tune used here can fantastically romanticize the scene, transforming covertly the hostile tension to a lovely tender occasion, in which the two lovers can pour out their mutual admirations to each other without using a single word.
 

In the scene of “Seeking a lesson”, the composer has adopted a traditional folk musical style of Northwest China – music of slow-blowing wind with fast-striking percussions for instrumental ensemble. Jen exhibits her artful sword fighting skill to give a lesson to a large group of provocative swordmen in the restaurant. Here, the meaning of using the traditional folk pattern to accompany the scene is similar to that of the scene discussed above. Two opposite layers of sound produced by the ethnic folk ensemble, again, are able to express a musical pun to the audiences. On the one hand, the striking percussive layer highlights the fighting actions, enlivening audience’s tensions to the moment of frenzy. On the other hand, the comparatively slow-moving Chinese piccolo solo tune displays a glamorous image replete with free, relax, yet artful, gestures. At this very instant, the warrior Jen has seemingly been transformed to both of a graceful dancer and a sagacious poet: bouncing to and fro and flaunting her elegant figure at the one time, reciting lines of a beautiful poem and waving her sword dexterously like a butterfly fluttering and dancing amid the ferocious swordmen at the other. It is definitely an appealing traditional Chinese art of sword dance performance. Here, for this fighting scene, director Li On tends to elucidate a message to audience that Jen’s mastery of sword fighting art is likened to the entertaining subjects in an ancient literati gathering, which always contains poem reciting and sword dancing to enliven the party. To those literati, these intellectual “games” are so easy, so artistic.
 

The final discussion centers on the scene about Li fighting against Jen in the bamboo bush. Interestingly, the music is designed in sectional form of a ternary like A,  B, and A Sections. While the  ethnic wind instrument bawu playing the theme song melody of “Love Before Time”, which is quite independent of the moving images and moods, the A-melodic music accompaniment in B section  implies certain the Buddha philosophical meaning to the scene. Music of these two sections narrate a voice replete with  meanings. In A section, besides the thematic melody of "Love Before Time" is played by bawu, the supporting wind accompaniment plays some glissandi occasionally in slow tempo, going hand in hand with the moving strings of the repeated notes pattern, the ostinato. The accompaniment seems going non-directionally. Without a clear and specific goal, the music now creates an effect just matching with the two fighters rapidly swinging to and fro on the top of the bamboo trees without putting a foot on the firm ground. This A-melodic setting accompaniment  forms the B section continually after the main theme song finishes it first murmuring of the fate of Li and Jen's encountering. In fact, fighting in the bamboo bush pervades both of the religious and symbolic meanings. Since bamboo tree, according to the “Zen” philosophy, always symbolizes, an “enlightenment”, or “awakening” from the “secular mediocrity” to the “transcendental Buddha”, Li chooses to fight with Jen inside the bamboo bush aims to give her a moral lesson, or in the other word, to “awaken” her from going astray back to the right way through the Way of Sword. Music used here contributes to soften the violence of the fighting, bringing much sublime Buddha philosophical message to audience. In addition, the thematic bawu melody of “Love Before Time” murmurs in A section is used not for supporting the fighting. Instead, it aims to create a musical voice seemingly to narrate a different story to the audience. If the non-directional string glissandi in the B section is voicing the idea of “Zen – Awakening” to audience, the familiar tune of the theme song “Love Before Time” will undeniably speak in the second voice to notice the audience that this “awakening” lesson is doomed to be a failure, since it is not in the right time and the right place. Master Li’s arduous attempts cannot affect the wild, arrogant girl. His showing of love toward Jen as his Wudon disciple is futile.

Finished

 

David Leung (theorydavid)

2014-10-10 (published)

AMusTCL Film Music 試題的迷思 - Voicing in the "Other" Voice

前言: 
 

The students' results of the film music question in the last May AMus examination were not satisfactory. Many complained severly that the question was very tricky.That the question looks easy in the surface when the students encounter with it at the first moment, in my opinion, is the underestimation of their realization of what is meant by "innovative and new". Indeed, the examination results reveal the fact that this question is proved to be more difficult than the student preliminarily expect. The following discussion is not focused on seeking a perfect definition or answer for what is artistic "innovative" and "new" for film art. But, rather, it only reflects my contemplation of a moot issue about artistic creation and aesthetic appreciation for film musical art, which has obsessed me for a long time.

正文:

To define what is meant by "innovative and new" is as slippery as explaining what is art. However, in the broaden sense, we usually commend a product, say, a smart phone, is innovative or new because of its multi-functional capability. This generalization of the term is not unreasonable, even not unconceiveable. To many customers, a phone that is not only for chatting but also for working as a personal computer or music player is already a new and innovative design. You cannot imagine how a phone could work in such a way in thirty years ago. Similarly, every scene of a film speaks of its story and plots in a voice through images, dialogues, and actions on the screen. But a passage of music, however succinct, can always add a unique extra-voice to that particular scene, forming a multiple web of voices narrating simultaneously. In such case, music definitely can convey more and richer meanings, leaving a vaster and deeper dimension for further contemplation. If the first voice is enhanced directly by the images on the screen, the music narrating behind can be regarded as the second voice.



In many movies, the former first voice constitutes the fundamental core for the understanding of the plots, going hand in hand with the musical second voice to enhance the moods, the characters, as well as their actions and emotions in the scene. In some occasions, however, this easily neglected musical voice moves against the moods and actions, or at least voicing independently from the dramatic context of that particular scene. In such momentary instance, the music is creating an "other" or "new" voice, expressing a new  level of meaning to the audience. Is there any subliminal messages concealed behind the scene? At this time, the "other" voice is creating an expectancy of the forthcoming plots for the audience to speculate. How can this expectation be realized in the later scene? Such an emotional suspense is one of the sources of artistic pleasure. As such, the meaning of the "other" voice is often a trigger for aesthetic contemplation.

 

Regarding a cliche function of music in a film, say, leit motive (leading motive), a term coined by Richard Wagner for his music dramas in the 19th century, is never failed to appear in many audiences' minds. All film music composers exploit the uses of leit motive. Indeed, the basic function of a leit motive is for unifying the story-line of a film. Every single event is cohered each other when the leit motive is recognized by the audience. However, leit motive used in a film per se is not innovative enough for the creation of film art. We need to step forward to a deeper level by investigating its musical meaning, understanding why it is transformed, and how it elevates the aesthetic meaning of a particular scene to the higher state. The artistic innovation for film art, I believe, is originated from the understanding of the meaning of this musical "other" voice.
 

 

 

It needless to repeat the effectiveness of leit motive. The power of music can also easily be experienced when the music is used to create a unique voice in a particular moment. One of the exemplars of using transformed leit motives in such an innovative way may be found in Casablanca (北菲諜影, 1942): the reunion scene. The scene before this one acts in many respects as a prologue to the reunion scene: the evening after their arrival in the city, Ilsa and Laszlo go to Rick’s café; after a while Laszlo walks to the bar to talk with a man, and Ilsa tells a waiter to ask Rick’s friend, Sam, also the Jazz pianist of the café, to come over to her table. Sam arrives and she asks him to play “As Time Goes By.” From this point, the audience hears that motivic melody four times in a row: sung (hummed) by Ilsa, then played and sung by Sam; then heard twice in the nondiegetic orchestra, first as the slow-motion reaction music in the oboe (transformed), and then as a slightly distorted (transformed) waltz when Ilsa refers to Paris in the conversation. Each time the tune is varied in some ways – not only in orchestration and tempo but also in its stylistic and aesthetic significations.

The first appearance of this now-famous melody in the film is through Ilsa’s self-humming, and brief wordless singing: instantly it becomes the love theme as it is literally embodied in her while the audience sees her in the close up. Here, the interaction of music with images  on the screen all together in the particular instant aims to convey a new meaning to the audience. Since the song, a lyrical tune dispersed with droplets of somber memory, is hummed by Ilsa, it is both of her point of view music, which can conjure her unforgettable, however painful, memory up, and of a diegetic music voicing to her herself and Sam in the café. Sam’s repeating it reluctantly but fluently tells audiences that this leit melody has an undisclosed history, a seemingly ‘perfect, good thing’ associated with it in the recollections of Ilsa’s and Sam. Is it a love affair of Ilsa with someone else? The audience is supposed to know nothing at this moment. The love  story about Ilsa and Rick has not yet been disclosed to the audience. The director employs the technique of flashback for Rick's recollection in the forthcoming scene to re-tell the deepest, yet poignant, romantic love story happened in the past.  While the first voice is narrating a general meeting of two old friends in a café, the hidden "other" voice of this self-humming diegetic melody undoubtedly creates a broader space for audiences' numerous speculations.

 

The suggestion of the undisclosed love affair in Ilsa's humming is powerfully realized her “point of view” recalling voice that immediately follows a stinger chord, working as a musical punctuation pronouncing in loud volume by tutti orchestra, to dramatize the moment of the sudden encounter register in the minds of Rick and Ilsa. The bombarding chord signals the audience that Ilsa is awakened from her deep immersion of the recollection. Again, using a distinctive instrumental timbre, the oboe, for the return of the transformed melody -- "As Time Goes By" -- is an appropriate choice. In fact, the oboe voice is capable of eliciting a feeling of missing, perhaps a even more anguish recall of her unwillingly separation from the ‘distant’ beloved, in Ilsa’s inner heart, as she is so missing of this unrequited love. When being compared with the other woodwind timbres in orchestra, oboe sound is always regarded unique, characterized and heterogeneous in nature because of its double reed color. Together with the slow moving pace, this exotic oboe tune seems narrating to the audience that the immeasurable sorrow of Ilsa is deep rooted in her far off memorable past. Here, the old, already faded out 19th Century Romantic sentiment of longing and yearning is relived again through the innovative use of such a poetic, yet slightly distorted (transformed), leit motive. 

 

Finally, the audience learns where the whole memorable history can be localized – in Paris (through dialogue), as Ilsa makes a reference to the city and the audience hears “As Time Goes By” in waltz, however greater distorted, form. It has been widely known that dance of waltz is beautiful in nature and can easily be associated with a delightful context. But now it is transformed, or  more directly, distorted, in a certain level, seemingly voicing something unusual happened in Paris. The leit melodic theme is distorted in such a way that not only the melodic notes are chromatically inflected, creating a somewhat out-of-tune melody, but also several massive sound blocks are intruded to the originally eloquent tune, bringing the audience a disconcerting feeling. Indeed, the audience can realize later that this distorted (transformed) leit motive speaks of a miserable story between Ilsa and Rick meeting in Paris, which is a tearful but memorable place for both of the lovers. In fact, Paris was the place where Ilsa tasted her both the happiest and bitterest moments with Rick in her life.



Compared with the voice crying out from the uneasy, embarrassed conversation among Ilsa, Rick and others, the eerie second voice ("As Time Goes By") murmuring behind seems more important for one to reveal the subliminal message between Ilsa and Rick. Are they previously known to each other? Is Rick the protagonist of Ilsa's recollection? If that so, does such a distorted tune aim to herald a message that the love between Rick and Ilsa doomed to be a failure? Is their falling in love only a ‘distorted’, yet beautiful, illusive memorable dream even in the beginning of their first acquaintance? Here, this "other" voice of the now-famous love theme has already disclosed Ilsa’s sorrowful but unforgettable story  to some extent to the audience.


 

While the music in a movie mostly operates together with the characters, their actions and dialogues as the first voice to carry out the basic plots, there is music, at times, works against the scene, creating a second narrative space to speak in an "other voice." The use of music as such is capable of deepening the aesthetic and artistic dimensions of the narrative context of a film. Thus, musical voice is always open up to multiple readings, creating an expectancy of the forthcoming plots for the audience. As I believe, one of the factors to determine whether the music in a particular scene of a film is innovative or new largely depends on the interpretation of how such a musical voice narrates in the "other" voice.

 

全文完

David Leung (theorydavid)

2014-09-18 (published)

Film Music Criticism: Croaching tiger, Hidden Dragon

Foreword:

The previous essay of the film scoring analysis of Croaching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is revised for reference.



Article:

Film Music Criticism: The Croaching Tiger and Hidden Dragon

 

    Music is the heart of a film. A film without music is just like a man without a heart, only a body of no feelings. From this sense, if the film only contains story-line carried out by characters’ dialogues, though it works, it hardly touches audiences’ hearts. Indeed, music is essential to trigger audience’s feelings and emotions, creating the overall atmosphere ready for them to immerse into an alien world of imagination.

 

    Try to imagine the popular film in the 70s, “Jaws”. If this film has not used the driving two-note percussive motive to anticipate the approach of the huge white shark, or the film “Star Wars” without the now-famous noble trumpet fanfare theme to represent the princess’s lofty and majestic disposition, would the audience be so exciting and shocking? The top-selling of film soundtracks in the commercial market always evidences the important role of music in a film. Instead of the top-selling billboard that reflects the commercial value of the music in a film, its artistic value can be largely lies on the attribute of expressivity. Film music likens to the program music of western music in the 19th century. Program music can be story telling, attempting to describe a scene, a person, a subject, creating a related mood and atmosphere through sonic images. Similarly, Film music also can easily steps in an audience's soul so as to express what neither pictures nor words can, creating a new meaning to the audience. Furthermore, music adds extra-dimension to a given scene, not only to emphasize but also to provide more body and depth to the story, to the characters, to the dialogues, and to the actions. To demonstrate the power of music in a film, let us discuss  three scenes in The Crouching Tiger and Hidden Dragon.

 

    In most action films, such as martial art film or Kung Fu film, the music always parallels and underscores actions. For example, in the scenario of ‘Catching the thief’, the plot is about the night fight between Jen and Shu Lien. Jen, because of her wild arrogance, she steals the precious antique sword which belongs to Li Mu Bai, the famous swordman of Wudong. Shu Lien attempts to catch her. The fighting occurs after Shu chases her for a period of time. Tan Dun, the composer, skillfully employs percussive sonority to create an exciting atmosphere by employing Chinese traditional percussions in this fighting scene. Doubtless a pair of Chinese drums can easily conjure audience up an imagination of a battlefield with the violent fight, since drum is always used in the real battlefield, so as to give signal to, and raise the valor of soldiers. Hollywood film music composers are without exception to exploit this handy, ready-made timbre, in many of the film scorings.

 

    In the scene of ‘Catching Thief’, the two Chinese drums are used to enhance the both characters’ vigorous chasing on the roof. Shu Lien tries her best to catch Jen to get back the Li’s sword. By employing the musical devices of repeated rhythmic pattern (ostinato) and accelerando to speed up the tempo, the climax of this chasing scene is gradually built up. Furthermore, a pair of Chinese drums creates a contrapuntal texture so as to increase the intensity of the actions of two fighters. Hit points are multiplied because of the vivid percussive sonority. The pace of the fighting is thus intensified. And the audiences can easily be caught up with the lively actions and the violence of the fighting that made by the contrapuntal hit points of the heavy beating drums. However, is the violent mood the only purpose that Tan Dun wanted to create in this scene? Not really. Times Magazine once said that this ‘flying-running’ fighting was a fantastic exemplar of a Ballet dance, somewhat a Chinese style. Undoubtedly, Tan Dun successfully imbues the fighting percussive music with the noble, yet graceful, elements that the dance music should have possessed. Accompanying with the slow motion, the two fighters' elegant gestures of “flying’ and “chasing” on the rooftop just looks like a pair of dancers swinging to and fro, and up and down, on the dancing stage. In the climax of the fighting scene, the volume is gradually increased, locking the audiences in a hysterical abyss, seemingly to transport them to participate to the fighting world, as it were, letting them to share the glory of win and the loss of failure with the fighters. To be sure, without music, nothing can be experienced indeed.

 
    The scenario about how Jen loves at first sight with ‘Dark Cloud' is also worth of considering. In this scene, the somewhat exotic style of music is played by yun, a Chinese ethnic plucked instrument, supported by the western strings at the background. This is a typical example of how music can locate a geographical location. The plot is about the leader of the gang of robbers, Lo, an local Xian Jiang whose nickname is called ‘Black Cloud’, comes to rob Jen’s troupe in the journey to Xian Jiang, an area of minority ethnic group. After Lo has taken Jen’s comb, Jen chases Lo, endeavoring to get it back. It is Jen’s arrogance and self-centered personality that forced her to do so. When Jen is fighting with Lo, the lively Xian Jiang dancing folk music enters. The fast tempo Xian Jiang dancing tune played by yun not only intensifies the pace of their fighting, but also creates an aura of Xian Jiang territory. The fighting between Lo and Jen, in this sense, is thus romanticized, seemingly to utter to audience that a romantic love story replete with exotic feeling just begins. The exotic feeling of the tune largely relies on the use of Arabic scale, or the Xian Jiang scale, which contains a distinctive feature of augmented second interval. Undoubtedly, the dance rhythm, together with the exotic style melody disperses the exotic, however romantic, aura. Afterward, while Jen stayed in the house of Lo for rest, the low-tone, quasi-murmuring cello stealthily steps in. The cello thematic melody easily reminds audience of the song ‘Love Before Time’, which elicits the endless sorrow of love, since their love of each other is not in the right place, as well as not in the right time. True, the romantic love, however ‘genuine’, is doomed to be a tragedy since Lo and Jen belong to different social status and backgrounds. No matter how deep is their loves, such ‘distance’, social status gap, still cannot be filled. The use of thematic song melody here not only enhances the coherence of the story-line, but also tells the audience that this ‘unequal’ love between Lo and Jen, which is emphasized by the conflicts aroused from Jen’s personal arrogance, as well as her deep longing for liberty, against with a generation of strict moral standard, is destined to be a tragedy, even in the very beginning as they firstly met.

 

     One of a remarkable example that uses music playing against actions can be found in the scene about Li fighting Jen in the bamboo bush. In this scene, the swordman master Li is eager to convert Jen’s wild temperament by his skillful martial art. He is likely to accept Jen as his disciple of Wudong. So Li fight with Jen in order to give her a moral lesson. As they are “flying-running” on the top of the bamboo trees, the theme song murmured by cello enters alternately with a group of discursive glissando wind gestures. Such evocative wind gesture seems to be made from the reed-like artificial timbres, recurring irregularly in a strict repeated pattern, and searching for a rest but it fails. Unlike the fighting between Shu Lin and Jen in the previous scene, the music, at this moment, cannot match the fighting actions perfectly. The glissando reed-like gesture, together with the slow tempo of the moving ostinato strings, functions to enhance the ‘flying-fighting’ of Li and Jen on the tree top moving under the support of the slow motion shot. The overall effect is that the violent fighting between them has been transformed into an elegant ballet with two figures dancing to and fro on the bamboo trees, however, dispersing drop by drop of melancholy. The brutal excitement, thus, is softened because of the music, which is so sparse, tender with a little restless and agitated. Under the aegis of the supporting music, everything in this particular scene, no matter it is the visual images or the aural perception, is romanticised, so unattainable, so distant, and so uncertain that deeply interlocks audiences' hearts. Furthermore, the occasional murmuring thematic cello of 'Love Before Time' seems to tell audience that whether it is the teaching lessons given by Li to Jen, or the unwilling regrets of Jen in her unsatisfied life, the future of Jen is destined to be dark and gloom without bright sunshine. When Jen jumps into the river, the volume of music increases, again, intensifying the feelings and the restless agitated emotions of Jen. Her wildness and arrogance have not yet been surmounted. She continues to step to the road of no return.

    From the above analysis, it is clear that music written for film is not merely an accompaniment to the film, just for the purpose of bringing a nice melody for audience. On the contrary, music sounded behind each moving images requires composers' unlimited imaginations and ingenuity, adding immeasurable artistic value to the film. This value inextricably links to music's own expressive power. New meaning of each scene is generated because of this expressive power. Therefore, film alone cannot exists as a form of art without music. As a form of elite art, just like the traditional classical art music, film music can be regarded as an individual genre worthy of further scholarship in the advance academic horizon.

 

Finished.....
David Leung (theorydavid)

2013-03-10 (revisied)

Music Is and Always Must Be A Vital Part of Film Art

Foreword:

The more I teach the film music analysis in AMus course, the more I find student's poor English in their answers of the paper question. Undoubtedly, the standard of English of the present Hong Kong students is increasingly worse than the previous generations. Perhaps, this is why I use one of the questions in the past paper as the issue to write the following essay. This writing is not a model answer but an essay, reflecting my viewpoints on the use of leit motives in two scenes of the Lord of the Ring II. As such, it is good for students to treat this essay as a reference, rather than a model answer for the examination.

Article:

Firstly, I would like to introduce part of a student's writing for the Novemeber 2011 AMus Examination question. Readers can grasp a rough idea of the English standard of the present university student.

Student's writing:

One of a remarkable example of  “Music against action” can be found in the scene about “Treat to Hornburg”. The scene is about the Rohan army could not keep the enemy outside Helm’s deep, and retreating to the keep, enemies were everywhere,  Haldir was ambushed while protecting his last retreating troops. The scene slowed down when Haldir took the first hit. Then the camera changed to his Point of view in slow motion while he fell and looking at his dead fellow, suggesting his own death. There was no music in the battle, building up an agitating feel for audience due to they won’t know what to expect. The enlogy of medieval solo female singing came in when Haldir receive the lethal hit, mourning the lamentation of Haldir. The enlogy was sing in recitative style, including melisma, along with the slow tempo to support the slow motion shot, expressing the endless sorrow which deeply interlock audience’s heart. Music against action is widely used in expressing death, for example, in the Hong Kong movie “Internal affair 1in the scene of Anothny Wong felling from the roof of the building to a car, Tony Leung was shocked and the enlogy sang by solo female in medieval style representing his inner emotion. The used melody and style is alluding to funeral music, telling audience the death of Anthony Wong is a huge impact to Tony Leung as his true identity will never be recover.

 

My essay:

 

“Music is and always must be a vital part of film art.”

                          Discuss this statement. (AMusTCL Nov. 2011)
 

Music is an inseparable part of film art. If there is only dialogue in the film, audiences may understand the story, but may not be able to experience the drama of the plots, or to grasp the true meaning behind. In addition, music can create a proper atmosphere, which cannot be expressed by the characters’ dialogues alone, in accordance with the scene. As such, music is a useful tool to equip audience to prepare for, as it were, anticipating and experiencing the enchantments created from the particular scene, and even to share part in this fantastic imagined world. This is how a successful film penetrates into the deepest side of the audiences’ hearts, stirring up their emotions. If music is absent from the moving images, the film art is said to be incomplete.

For example, in the scene of the “Riders of Rohan” of The Lord of the Ring II, the leit motive of ‘fellowship bond’, which is a recurring melodic unit functioning to represent the union fellowship formed by Aragon, Lagolas, and Gimili, is used to act not only as an essential coherent element to the series of similar battle related scenes (fighting in battlefields), but also as a sparkling catalyst aiming to stirring up the audiences’ emotional response to the fellowship union’s courageous, yet heroic spirits shown in the times of danger. In this scene, our three heroes attempt to rescue the two hobbits, Merry and Pippin, from the custody of the fierce Uruk-hal, a brutal mob of half-beast, half-man. They chase the enemy behind, climbing up the steep mountains and hills, running across the ample plains and rivers.  Facing hundreds and thousands of wild beast barbarians without fearing to put their lives in jeopardy, our three heroes show incredible valor and boldness that above any ordinary man can possess.  At this very moment, audiences never fail to be caught up in the series of escalating crisis under the sonic support of the leit motive, which establishes the overall mood of the bravery, yet daring, of our heroes' fearlessness of death, filling up every theatrical spaces. 

To the more or less, the magic power of the ‘fellowship bond” motive is originated from its complex mixture of multifarious timbres. It is created by the usual battlefield timbres of horns and trumpets (horn call), sometimes going along with the wordless choir (vowels only) singing in an unusual style under the ageis of agitated strings in the background.This strange timbre, with a little exotic, is heard as if coming from a pious religious music such as the Mass or Passion. The effect is that the music sounds somewhat like a narrator occasionally dramatizing the heroic story to the audiences. The diffusive ‘distant’ sonority not only creates to audiences a sense of ‘being alienated’, but also seem to force them to wander off from the reality to the imagined world of the scenario, fighting together with the three heroes, sharing their tears, their laughter, their exultation, their anxiety, and even their desperation. Whenever our heroes face the similar predicaments, this overwhelming leit motive (fellowship bond) never fails to linger unnoticeably. Try to imagine, if the film is absent from the support of music, not only every dramatic battle may become mundane, but also every related scenarios may lose the coherence. Conceivably, audience will hardly follow up the story-line and feel indifferent to the dramas.

     Another exemplar of using leit motive to replace the dialogues of the characters, bringing a full meaning of the scene to audience, is in the final scene of Ring II. The motive is a pastoral style folk tune played with shepherd pan-flute, half improvisatory, half cantabile, floating above the tender strings, which is firstly heard in the Lord of the Ring I - The Fellowship of the Ring. In the beginning scene, while Frodo (hobbit) is sitting on the greenish meadow and reading book pleasantly, this haunting “Frodo Fellowship” motive appears and disperses an aura of serenity, so placid, so peaceful. However, the peacefulness of Frodo, all human of Middle Earth in particular, is not lasting long, since all creatures in the Middle Earth are doomed to face the coming greatest tribulation. Frodo, though unwillingly, is forced to bear the seemingly impossible mission—destroying the evil ring by throwing it into the Mount of Mordor. He starts his journey with his full companions, fights side by side with them, and even watches one of them dead. In the final scene of Ring I, Frodo intends to leave Sam and takes the boat to set off the mission alone, for the purpose of avoiding the further blood shedding of his faithful friends. However, without giving up his companion, Sam, even though he cannot swim, struggles to follow Frodo. Before sinking down to the river bed, Frodo rescues Sam to the boat. Replete with all hearty thanks, even tears, Frodo gazes at Sam wordlessly. All dialogues become excessive at this very touching , yet placid moment. The serene “Frodo Fellowship” pan-flute folk tune recurs, expressing the profound affection of both Frodo and Sam, recalling audience of their unshakable friendship. Without music, audience may understand the story but will hardly be moved.

Similar use of this “Frodo Fellowship” motive can be found in The Lord of the Ring II when the scene is describing Frodo’s deep affection of his intimate fellow companions, Sam in particular, and the remembrance of his lovely homeland. As we have pointed out in the previous discussion, the re-appearance of the “Frodo fellowship” leit motive in the final scene is remarkable among all other occasions. Here, Frodo is eager to give up his mission because he feels that he is too small, too weak, too fragile to accomplish the formidable mission, especially at the time he almost loses his life after the Night-rider’s attack. Sam, the faithful servant as well as the true friend, genuinely encourages Frodo to face boldly all daunting challenges and menaces that lie ahead, and to carry on this seemingly unfeasible, but meaningful mission. Sam uses the continual existence of the great heroes in all great tales as the illustration to reason with Frodo. He emphasizes that those heroes, in the history, might have chance to turn back but they did not. The reason is that they are holding on something worthy of fighting for. When Frodo asks Sam what this is, Sam gazes tenderly at Frodo without giving a single word. Again, the recurring leit motive functions amazingly as it did in Ring I. To audiences, the answer is clear, albeit without  any verbal expression. The comforting, yet peaceful, pan-flute folk tune (Frodo Fellowship motive) seems to undertone that the ‘thing’ worth fighting for is the precious brotherly affection among Frodo and his fellowship companions, and of course, the deep love of his homeland – Shire. In this very moment, music speaks of all things.

From the above discussion, it is clear that music is a vital part of film art. Numerous examples can demonstrate this. Music is the spirit whereas the film story is the body. Music is capable of expressing all meanings, replacing the function of dialogues in the most important moment. Furthermore, the recurring leit motive enhances the coherence of the story line, connecting each similar scene, and preparing an atmosphere for the audience ready to immerse into the movie world. This is how the effective film music works, evoking audiences’ emotions and touch the deepest side of their hearts. As such, music never fails to add immeasurable artistic value to the film, always completing film as a form of art to the fullest.

 

Finished

David Leung (theorydavid)
2013-03-08 (Published)