Harmonies Unveiled:
The Underrated Power of Music and Sound in Cinematic Narratives
On its own, music is powerful enough to tell many stories. Perhaps it is my background as a musician that leads me to believe that a great soundtrack has the capability to convert a mediocre film into a decent one and a great film into a timeless one, but it seems almost impossible to me that any viewer can reject the importance and influence of sound and music in film, even when they are unaware of its full impact. Yet in A New Laocoön: Artistic Composites and the Talking Film, Arnheim muses, “A dark red wine can have the same expression as the dark sound of a violoncello, but no formal connection can be established between the red and the sound as purely perceptual phenomena.” If Arnheim wished to dispute the tangibility of sound perception from a cognitive science perspective, he committed a fatal flaw in that through this argument, many instances of visual symbolism, such as color, lose any semblance of “formal” meaning as well. And besides that, there is much evidence that music undeniably sets the tone for a film just as effectively if not more than visuals. Take the opening scene of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless—a meaningless black screen that derives substance from the musical motif played alongside it. Musical motifs themselves, such as Madeleine’s theme in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, are powerful tools that can represent or reveal the deeper meaning behind a character or narrative. Furthermore, music and sound can elevate visual experience, which is exemplified by Gene Kelly’s Singin’ in the Rain. Music and sound are not only crucial elements in most films, but they serve many roles including driving the narrative forward, directing our perception and perspective of the film’s events, as well as establishing the story’s tone and conveying meaning. By the conclusion of this analysis, it will become evident that although music and sound are often ignored or even discredited when studying cinema, their central role in film can influence and elevate the perception, interpretation, and appreciation of the events onscreen on the same or at a higher level than visuals.
“We experience sound through what we see on the screen,” John Belton claims in Film Sound: Theory and Practice. “It is an extension or completion (or even denial) of the images…” Belton’s dismissive approach to the perception of sound, which he states as acquiring a “secondary status” to the perception of the image may seem logical on the surface, particularly during the era of silent films. Notwithstanding that musicians and even orchestras were employed at screenings to enhance the theatrical experience as a whole, the explosive success of talkies and the death of silent films suggests that viewers intrinsically felt the absence of sound and its necessity in order to satisfy a sense of reality on screen. Sound, and music especially, can play a prominent role in driving the momentum of a story. Moments that would otherwise hold little meaning or drag the pacing can be accelerated or even become highlights of the film as a result of music. In Singin’ in the Rain, newspaper headlines spiral onscreen to represent the magnitude of talkies sweeping the film industry. We perceive this magnitude not by the mere repetition of the visuals of the various headlines, but by the ascending harmonic figure played by boisterous brass, which also acts to propel the momentum of the narrative despite the redundancy of the visuals. Musical numbers such as Broadway Melody allow the characters to “show” rather than “tell” the story in an engaging way, whereas Beautiful Girl and Moses act as transitions between pivotal scenes. Meanwhile, the mood of the music can also influence our perception of the narrative. Featured during the manhunt after the detectives confront Patricia in Breathless, the track Poursuite by legendary jazz pianist Martial Solal showcases snatches of lightning-fast chromatic passages that are never given the chance to flesh out due to the interruption of bongo rolls, which creates the audible sensation of “breathlessness.” Patricia accepts Michel’s situation
and crimes with an unexpectedly nonchalant air, but the nerve-wracking speed of the music reveals Michel’s true anxieties and intensifies the tension building toward the film’s climax.
Though music plays a significant role in pushing the narrative of a film forward, it can also set the tone of a film or alter our perception of the visual events onscreen. Right off the bat, Breathless opens with Michel’s atonal, swing-jazz motif that exudes a mysterious, sexy vibe which he dedicates himself to embodying. The next time it returns is while Michel is driving through the French countryside. At first, he turns on the radio, which plays a jovial tune as he spots two women hitchhiking and playfully considers “charging them a kiss per mile”. The radio abruptly fades out when he deems them dogs and turns his attention away. It is almost difficult to distinguish whether the return of the motif is diegetic or non-diegetic when he discovers the gun in the glovebox. If anything, all of the music could be playing in his own head (and ours by extension, just like when he talks aloud or looks into the camera at us). Either way, this musical motif transforms him into a cool, dangerous persona even more effectively than his Bogart-inspired habits do, contrasting to the reality of his life as a short-sighted car thief, thus altering our perception of his onscreen personality.
There is a term in music called leitmotif that is defined by Oxford dictionaries as “a recurrent theme throughout a musical or literary composition, associated with a particular person, idea, or situation.” In Breathless, Patricia’s leitmotif is presented right after Michel kills the police officer and returns to Paris, long before she makes an actual appearance. Subconsciously, the music prepares us for her arrival. However, the most notable usage of leitmotifs to convey subtextual meaning can be found in Vertigo. The opening title sequence which uses hypnotizing, swirling visuals to represent Scottie’s vertigo is elevated by the circling harmonic sequences based on the unsettling whole-tone scale—and just when the music pulls toward some kind of resolution, it crashes down in dissonant cluster chords reminiscent of the film’s pervasive theme of falling—falling in love, falling off buildings, both with disastrous outcomes. But Madeleine’s leitmotif illuminates how music can not only reveal deeper meaning but surpass visual symbolism entirely (such as her signature hairstyle or flower bouquet). Nowhere, however, is the usage of leitmotif more symbolic than in the sequence after Madeleine’s death when Scottie revisits the locations where he trailed her during his investigation. On four occasions, he believes he sees her, only to discover that they are merely phantasms of her character. All four times, the music speaks the truth before the visuals reveal it. On the first occasion, Madeleine’s leitmotif plays while Scottie loiters outside her apartment. However, when he spots a woman in the distance that he believes to be her, the music cuts out, signifying that it is not Madeleine. Next, Scottie visits the restaurant he first saw her in, where the leitmotif returns in repeating fragments like a broken record of the past that he cannot move on from. The second apparition of Madeleine approaches him, and the music swells with hope, even landing on the first harmony of her leitmotif—but what follows is a haphazard, incorrect resolution, mirroring how Scottie has once again mistaken a stranger for Madeleine. In the gallery, the viewer (and thus Scottie) can already tell from afar that the woman sitting in front of Carlotta’s portrait is not Madeleine, so we hear only half-hearted snatches of her leitmotif. But finally, and most crucially, when Scottie spots Judy on the street, the girl he believes to share only an uncanny resemblance to Madeleine, we are presented with the full, unadulterated glory of her leitmotif—revealing the truth beneath all of the deceptions and disguises. Thus, Hitchcock employs the power of music in Vertigo to elevate the meaning of the film to a level that transcends its visual qualities.
Sound and music create an atmosphere that completely alters our perception of a film. Imagine, for instance, if Bruce Baillie’s All My Life were accompanied by the soundtrack of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in place of Ella Fitzgerald’s serene vocals. Despite the same visuals, our interpretation of the film’s meaning would be completely altered, which suggests that in some cases, contrary to the beliefs of Belton, sound and music can primarily account for more than visuals in regards to the overall perception of film. In Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, the lack of soundtrack forces us to be acutely aware of the poignancy of the silences—every awkward pause, every hesitation between the characters, every suspension of time where they cannot bring themselves to speak what they wish to say. As viewers, we should never underestimate or downgrade music and sound in cinema as “secondary” to or “incomplete” without visuals, but as a powerful and fundamental element of our overall perception and appreciation of film as an art form.
Bibliography
“A New Laocoön: Artistic Composites and the Talking Film.” Film as Art, by Rudolf Arnheim, University of California Press, 2009, p. 203.
“Technology and Aesthetics of Film Sound.” Film Sound: Theory and Practice, by Elisabeth Weis and John Belton, Columbia University Press, 1985, pp. 63–66.
“Leitmotif.” The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable Online (2 ed.), 2006, https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780198609810.001.0001/acref-97801986 09810-e-4053. Accessed 5 December 2020.