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| Image courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony |
Over the past 100 years, the use of
music in film has greatly influenced the advancement of music in popular culture,
as well as the roles of composers and orchestras. By showcasing orchestral and instrumental
music to the public, creating a synthesis of the visual and musical arts, and
creating an entire industry of music for film, this genre has changed the way
we think of music and its role in our everyday lives. From the live-accompaniment piano music of
the silent film era to the powerful orchestral scores of today, music has
shaped the history and influence of film, as well as popular culture.
The beginnings of music in film
starts with the beginnings of film itself, as well as its rise in popularity.
During the birth and evolution of the early films of the late 19th and early
20th Centuries, the rise and evolution of recorded music was also occurring. Because of this, filmmakers had access to
recordings of already existing music that they could use in order to add more
drama and depth to their films. In 1915,
for example, D.W. Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation used recordings
of several romantic and classical orchestral music, such as Rossini's William
Tell Overture and Wagner's The Ring Cycle. Another way music was provided for films was
by live accompaniment. During the rise
of the silent film, many theaters would provide music for films by having live
accompaniment on piano, organ, violin, or a small chamber ensemble. This was used not only to add more depth and
entertainment to the films, but also to mask the noise of the early film
projectors. (Chihara). At the turn of
the 20th Century, other forms of entertainment, such as broadway musicals and
vaudeville, were on the rise in popularity.
These other forms of entertainment also heavily influenced the shape and
direction of film music, leading to musicals and broadway songs being used for
the screen as well.
One major turning point in the
history of film music was the rise of the talking motion picture, or
"talkie". In 1927, The Jazz
Singer, starring entertainer Al Jolson, was one of the first popular films
to also use sound. The use of music and
song delighted audiences and led to the rise in popularity of motion pictures
with sound, and by 1930, almost all Hollywood films being produced were
"talkies". Because of this,
the demand for film music, especially original film music, was at the highest it
has been in its history. This also led
to the end of live accompaniment being used in theaters. At the height of the Silent Era in the
1920’s, almost all theaters were using some form of live accompaniment,
creating a business and steady job for many musicians across the country, with
some larger theaters even hiring entire orchestras. Because of the use of recorded music, the
film music industry now shifted to the recording studio, hiring musicians,
conductors, and composers. Now, instead
of the music being used as a sort of background to set the general mood of the
film, music was being written for what was directly happening on screen. One of the first filmmakers to do this was Charlie
Chaplin, who composed the music for the majority of his films, such as City
Lights (1931). (Scaruffi).
Many of the composers that were
hired in Hollywood were European immigrants, leaving their home countries from
the political turmoil during the 1930s in search of more promising
careers. These composers took with them
their European compositional ideas with them, being influenced by romantic
composers such as Wagner, Tchaikovsky, and Brahms. One of these composers, Max Steiner, changed
the influence and relationship between a film and its music with his score for King
Kong (1933). (Drannon). Influenced by Wagner’s concept of
“leitmotifs”, where each theme represents a specific plot point or character,
Steiner used this technique by writing specific melodies and themes for the
main characters in the film. This
revolutionized the concept of film music, from being simply a part of the
background to directly influencing or emphasizing the moods, concepts, or
themes represented in the story of the film.
This idea continued to influence film composers and still does to this
day. This expansion and rise of film
music from around 1933 to 1956 is known today as the "Golden Age" of
film music, where the score to a film was becoming almost as important as the
film itself.
Through the 1940s, the film score
became a crucial and significant part of filmmaking, with large symphony
orchestras being used, as well as other ensembles, such as the choral ensemble,
piano, or arrangement of strings.
Because of the influence of World War II, many composers were influenced
by writing nationalistic themes, such as Max Steiner’s score for Casablanca
(1942) quoting the French national anthem.
(Paterson). Other composers who
were known outside the world of film music, such as Dmitri Shostakovich and
Sergei Prokofiev, would write film scores.
During the 1930s and 40s, there was a trend of composers who wrote
outside of film becoming more and more attracted to writing film scores. Prokofiev’s score for Alexander Nevsky,
for example, was an enormous work, using similar techniques that Max Steiner
used in his scores, while also incorporating Russian national elements and
themes. This serge of classical
composers infiltrating film music led to even more complexity in the composition
of the film score itself, as well as the significance it had in influencing the
film it was based on.
Other musical concepts during the
1940s and 50s were also introduced. The
influence of expressionism, originally conceptualized by Arnold Schoenberg, had
a great deal of influence in the scores of films that dealt with heavy
emotions, such as horror films or dramas.
Composers like Bernard Hermann would use this concept as well as other
avant-garde musical concepts in his scores for his films that he worked on with
famous director Alfred Hitchcock, such as Vertigo, North by Northwest, and
probably his most famous score, Psycho.
The influence of jazz also came into play, with the film A
Streetcar Named Desire as one of the first films to use the jazz style in
its score, instead of the usual use of a full orchestra. (Quint).
Throughout the 1950s and 60s, the
orchestrations of scores for movies were becoming more varied, using unusual
instruments, styles, and techniques. The
use of jazz became more and more popular, with films like Anatomy of a
Murder using original compositions for the film by Duke Ellington and his
Orchestra. The use of songs also became
important, with composer Henry Mancini becoming an important pioneer in the
popularity of the original song from a film.
Writing original songs like Moon River from Breakfast at
Tiffany's and The Pink Panther theme, these songs became incredibly
popular. This use of an original song
for a film became another important aspect of a film, not only in the genre of
the film musical, but elsewhere. The
1970s and 80s pioneered the use of a film soundtrack, which used already
existing popular songs and used them to emphasize certain moods and ideas in
the story of a film. The best example of
this would be the use of Simple Mind's "Don't You (Forget About Me)"
in the film The Breakfast Club, where the content of the song's lyrics
reflects the plot of the film.
In the film music today, there are a
wide variety of ways that music is used in film. There are many outlets for orchestrating a film
score now, from the classic use of a full orchestra to the simple use of a
guitar or synthesizer. In today's music,
we also see a direct connection between a film's composer and its director. The best example of this would be the great
composer John Williams and his scores for the movies of Steven Spielberg. For the past 40 years, both the director and
the composer have worked together on their films to get the most emotion and
excitement out of each other, with Spielberg using Williams' orchestrations and
compositions to their full effect. Films
like Jaws, Jurassic Park, and the Indiana Jones trilogy have had
some of the most memorable film scores because of the cooperation between its
director and composer. (Twyman). This relationship has directly affected
filmmakers in working with specific composers, such as Christopher Nolan
working with Hans Zimmer and Tim Burton working with Danny Elfman.
In film today, music is such an
integral part of a film that there are many times that it goes unnoticed. The use of music, or lack thereof, can
heighten or dull the mood, emphasize a plot point, or even scare the
viewer. In today's world of film
composition, composers are being sought after in almost every background of
music. No longer are classically trained
composers writing film scores, with composers from jazz or rock backgrounds
adding to the emotions of a film. Trent
Reznor, for example, has made the transition from his rock group Nine Inch
Nails to composing scores for several recent films, such as The Social
Network and Gone Girl. Film
music can also come from every genre of music, from the avant-garde to the
popular "Top 40" hits currently on the radio. (Kahn). To quote director Matthew Vaughn,
"the music is half of the film".
(Vaughn).
There are some interesting
psychological aspects of film music that filmgoers have come to understand over
the past 100 years or so. The music of a
film can directly change the mood of the event that is taking place on
screen. (Fischoff). Non-diegetic sound, or sound that takes place
outside the world of the events taking place on screen, is what we understand
as film music. This music cannot be
heard by the characters in the movie, but is used to heighten or emphasize the
feelings of the characters or events taking place, directly being heard by and
affecting the viewer. Diegetic music can
also be used to affect the mood or tone of a film, which is music that can be
heard by the characters and takes place within the world of the film. In Alfred Hitchcock's film Rear Window, for
example, no external film score is used, and all of the music and sounds that
is heard are sounds that are coming from the world of the film. This lack of extra music that many viewers
are used to creates a heightened sense of tension and anxiety throughout the
entire film, without any non-diegetic music to show the viewer what to expect
and when to expect it. Furthermore, the
lack of music can also affect the mood of a specific scene in a film. In another Alfred Hitchcock movie, Psycho,
the famous scene in the shower starts with no extra music, then immediately
starts the famous screeching of strings once the main character of the movie is
murdered. This use of lack of music to
crescendo of non-diegetic music throws off the viewer completely, heightening
the sense of terror and shock that the main character feels during that
scene.
For the past century, the use of
film music has become a world of its own.
Nowadays, music can be found to heighten the mood of almost every single
aspect of media, from to video games, television shows, and even
commercials. Film music has created an
entire expectation of film, producing an incalculable amount of music that can
be enjoyable and listenable on its own.
In many instances, there are songs that we hear on the radio that we can
immediately associate with as being from a specific movie. The history of film music has greatly
affected the history and influence of all music in the past 100 years, creating
moods and musical concepts that may not exist otherwise, creating a world of
new musical ideas.
Bibliography
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Dickinson, Kay, ed. Movie Music, The
Film Reader. New York City, NY: Routledge, 2003. 207.
Drannon, Andrew. "The Evolution of Film Music."
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Fischoff, Stuart. "The Evolution of Music in Film and
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Kahn, Ashley. "The Evolution of Movie
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Quint, Jacy. "Pop Culture and the Evolution of Music in
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Twyman, Whitney. "Film Appreciation - A Brief History of
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Accessed February 24, 2015. http://www.twyman-whitney.com/film/essentials/music-history.html.
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