Manuel Rivero Mariana Zinna
To continue talking about things we tend to overlook when we watch a movie, today I would like to refer to the role of music in films. We usually think that music, even if quite outstanding, works as just something that goes with the images we see in the screen. Actually, music plays a much more important role in films than we may realise at first. Just think about your favourite movie scene. Done it? Well, now just try to focus on the soundtrack, and you will realise that if you changed that particular sound, the scene would be totally different. True, isn’t it?
Music does not only complement the image. In fact, it is one of the main ingredients in the making of a movie. Because music tells you a story, it shows you the way the movie goes. It`s impossible to forget theme songs like the "Star Wars" soundtrack, or “The Lord of the Rings” or "Psycho" with those scary strings screaming.
Music gives films an identity, and makes the spectator experience particular emotions.
If we watch a scene with a major scale melody in the background, we will probably feel fine. Major scales are used for nice moments and happy feelings. However, if we listen to a minor scale, we will usually get the feeling that something is wrong, or sad. We are exposed to this repeated pairing of sound and emotional meaning from the time our ears are functioning (in the womb!) so it is no wonder that we leap to emotional assumptions based on experience. In films, music does change everything; for example, if we twice play a scene of two people running to each other, one with a major scale in the background and the other in a minor scale, it won’t be the same scene. That's the importance of music in the movies. Music can generate very powerful emotions in the spectator; and maybe, we do not quite know why we are feeling that way, but we feel it.
There are a lot of tricks that can be played with music; and film producers use them to cause more impact in the audience. For example in Pixar movies -as in many others- they use a song for a happy scene between two characters, and then, they use the same song again to portray a sad moment with the same characters. The audience, unknowingly, associates the melody with the relationship between the characters, and so the emotion in a sad moment is stronger.
As you can see, there are numerous artistic tools at a filmmaker’s disposal to convey specific emotions and certainly music is a very powerful one. It is almost magical to see how both; cinema and music, can perfectly work together to produce something inside us.
example of how
music can change everything!
Totally!