We have come a long way in aesthetic terms from the days in which the musical accompaniment of a film consisted primarily of a pianist or organist sitting in the theater and taking cues on what to play by watching the silenced action on the screen. And yet, in other and probably more important ways, we have come no real distance at all, for music now (as it did since the very first movie) helps to determine the overall emotional impact of a film. This paper examines the film scores from two recent productions, "Scarface" and "Road to Perdition".
Overall, the musical score for a film helps knit together all of the different technical elements of a film as well as all of the different thematic elements:
Picture and track, to a certain degree, have a composition of their own but when combined they form a new entity. Thus the track becomes not only a harmonious complement but an integral inseperable part of the picture as well. Picture and track are so closely fused together that each one functions through the other. There is no separation of I see in the image and I hear on the track. Instead, there is the I feel, I experience, through the grand total of picture and track combined. (Flinn, 46)
Jack of All Trades and Master As Well
The musical score for a movie performs at least a half-score of dozen distinct roles. Each of those will be assessed here for both of the movie scores, the "Scarface" score by Giorgio Moroder and the score by Tom Newman for "Road to Perdition".
The first function of the score is simply to connect the individual elements of the music (the motifs, themes, harmonies and colors to the non-musical elements of the film - to the characters, the events and places, the physical objects that make up the worlds of the characters and to the overall motifs and themes in the film. The score also serves to connect the viewer to the characters and to the visceral feeling of the viewing the film itself. Music draw...