Music in film: it establishes setting; it creates atmosphere; it calls attention to elements; it reinforces or predicts the future; it gives meaning to a character's actions or translates their thoughts; and it creates feeling of love, hate, guilt, etc.When creators make a film the aspect is to create visual content for the audience to enjoy. Modern films have been offering more of a contrast between scene’s regarding how a part of the movie makes you feel the music provided usually makes one have more of a emotional approach towards the film.
The Silent Era(1890s – 1929): Silent films were put together because directors felt “ in life there is no music which accompanies our day and punctuates the ebbs and flows of our dialogue with the world”(Fischoff 1). How music is placed into films to fit the correct time or when a character is upset and the music pours out emotion through the audience's ears. After watching the documentary on the movie “score” showing how the composers created the music and gave a strong response towards the scenes of the movie. “ Not only are dramatic effects heightened by the addition of music and, frequently, sound effects, but in many instances the faces, voices, and even the personalities of the players are experientially altered. Music adds something we might call heightened realism or supra-reality. It is a form of theatrical, filmic reality, different from our normal reality”(Fischoff 2). The quote talks about how music adds more of an effect in movies, creating a type of emotion into the character's view or struggle. Making it feel like the audience and understand what the character is going through.
The Golden age of film scoring (1930 – 1950s): When directors and composers started working together, they added music in when there was silence. Example: When directors showed the villain, music would change to more of a heavy/ angry chord progression. In Star Wars Darth Vader or anyone from the galactic empire shows up the “imperial march” would be played. And when the hero shows up their would be an uplifting anthem to portray the good that the hero would be doing. Like when Superman appears all eyes on him giving attention to him either saving the day or keeping the peace. When the director adds a chase scene, in the movie “The Matrix Reloaded”, "Mona Lisa Overdrive" starts off as a lush orchestral piece with shrieking strings straight out of Ennio Morricone’s “A Silhouette of Doom” and a vibrating trip-hop synth bass — all of that accompanying Morpheus and Trinity’s slow-speed pursuit out of the city”(Blauvelt). The high volume music gives the audience a feel for a more intense feeling.
Music and Memory: showed that background music has a very deep effect on the keeping of filmed events. The ways of doing things of smaller part and predicting the future produce different effects on memory (Sui Tan). Smaller part helps attentional ways, improving keeping of the filmed event by showing important elements in the scene through the related to ideas that are brought to mind through the meaning of music (Roger Kendall). In 1991 Boltz, Shulkind, and Kantra also did research on music memory, “revealed that events in film accompanied by music eliciting positive affect scored higher on memory tasks than those with negative affect” (Fischoff 22). When the audience starts to listen to the music in the background and the scene is either playing something really happy or really sad, people start to feel more towards the film. This also intakes by seeing and listening it could bring back positive or negative memories that one once associated with (Fischoff).
One movie that I especially admire is the soundtrack in “Up” the disney movie, Composer Michael Giacchino: the song that really brings out the worst and best in people, only being four and a half minutes long and having no dialogue and just showing the story of how Carl and Ellie met and what their life was all about. Living through the good and bad days, and the music makes a massive impact in the scene altogether. How the notes rise and fall, without the beautiful background music the scene wouldn’t be as powerful. With the imagery it puts on the table from the different mood changes it brings, making the audience feel the crucial moments.The Married life scene shows the seventy years of Carl and Ellie’s life and honestly every time I watch Up, that scene always makes me tear up. Making Composer Michael Giacchino win five awards in 2010 for his soundtrack in Up.
After looking into the history of music in film made me realize how special music makes the film, Without ever noticing how most chase scenes actually create more of a depth in the movie. Through the way the Composer makes the music flow so perfectly. Music has a big impact in many ways definitely not just in movies. Music and memory shows how the correct song can change how a member of the audience or any viewer feels toward the film. Music bring joy and sadness in many people’s hearts and I do believe films might have been better silently but putting in an amazing soundtrack brings the film to a whole new level.