Films and Musical Scores

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

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he most common functions of a score is to parallel the action of the film, also known as underscoring. Instead of the composer taking the general route of composing a suite of music that would represent the mood of an entire scene, he/she would maintain a frame by frame musical match to the visuals. Not all current composers are well trained in music theory, so they take advantage of the fact that paralleling the visuals is a weak function in that musically, it gives the viewer what is already known by watching. Its only job is to tell a viewer what he already sees; development of commentary on the scene is unnecessary (http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/features/functions.asp). In other words, the music serves an essentially mimetic function, mimicking what we see on the screen rather than creating an additional and at least slightly alternative vision that we can then blend with the ideas that are presented to us visually. Both composers use the score to create a sense of unity and continuity. This is especially true in "Road to Perdition" in which the harmonics of the music - both the score itself and the introduced songs - tend to blend together. There is in this score the same sense that one has when one looks at a watercolo

Category: Arts - F