The Conversation

In 1974 Francis Ford Coppola directed two films. Widely considered one of his greatest achievements, Coppola made The Godfather Part II in the same year as The Conversation. But the music for these two films were very different. For The Conversation, Coppola enlisted David Shire. In his score, Shire either uses solo piano or small jazz combos to create the sounds used. In addition to those instruments, Shire manipulates sounds electronically.

At the very beginning, during the street performances, there's a peculiar sound that I recognize as musique concrete or electronic manipulation of a recorded acoustic sound. Although it's a very enigmatic sound, it seems have to do with the electronic surveillance. As we get to the close-up of the scene, the camera pans left and right, and as it pans, we hear the specific instruments highlighted as they are shown in the street ensemble. I could imagine that Coppola actually moved the boom to match the panning of the camera somehow, as if the camera were one of those directional satellite microphones panning. Later on the electroacoustic music comes back, this time it is apparent that Shire is adding some type of delay filter to the voices of the characters that are being bugged. In the sequence as Gene Hackman's character Harry returns home from work, Shire first shares the title theme, which uses a similar lament to The Hours. Is this foreshadowing of a death to come? Seeing as this is the third connection to the lament from Dido and Aeneas, this motive has clearly become one of the most iconic and important musical illustrations throughout the past three hundred years. As with Laura, I would consider this movie to be monothematic. Throughout the film, different arrangements of the main tune are presented, and although this may not have been the only theme, there were others especially in the electronics, it is extremely prominent.

One of the most interesting scenes of the movie to me aurally was Harry's dream sequence. Some of these sounds paralleled the music from the first time that Harry went to drop the surveillance tapes at the office. The whole scene was derived of electronic sounds and manipulations of the piano.  Shire's soundscape almost seems to sonically create the fog in the dream. At the end it sounds as though Shire was plucking one of the low strings of the piano, of course with added effects to it. These more unrecognizable sounds enhanced the murder shot. All of these electronic sounds were, with the exception of some early science fiction movies, largely unheard of in film.

Citizen Kane

AFI has now twice hailed this movie as the greatest of all time on their top one hundred movies list. Numerous other lists include it as their number one as well. One of the reasons for this, is that it essentially ushered in the "auteur" style of directing. Auteur, French for artist, is the theory that a director should immerse himself in all the aspects of the film making process. Citizen Kane was unprecedented in that Orson Welles was given final cut over his first film with RKO Pictures. In the 1930's Welles could do no wrong. He had just gained his notoriety by voicing a famous and infamous reading of War of the Worlds on the radio in 1938, at just twenty three years old. For his music, he enlisted the young Bernard Herrmann, with whom he had worked at CBS. Herrmann was just 30 years old when Citizen Kane premiered in 1941, and this also happened to be his first film score. While he did not win an Oscar for his music in Citizen Kane he did end up winning that year for another movie for which he wrote music, The Devil and Daniel Webster. This would end up being his only Oscar win and since has been overshadowed by his other films such as Citizen Kane, Vertigo, Psycho, and North by Northwest. 

Throughout the opening sequences, Herrman litters isomorphism and synchresis between the music and the voiceover narration in his score. These montage sequences feel as though they are a radio obituary for Kane, which seems like a nod to Welles' radio broadcasting history. Like The Hours, the narrative is nonlinear with cut scenes interjected more and more before the end of the movie. As Citizen Kane was one of the first films to include a nonlinear narrative, the music provides a much needed crutch in helping the watcher-listeners to follow the film. For example, there was, in contrast with the other films of the era, more of a melodrama format in the music. Most films had up to that point included music throughout, but Herrmann would often cut out the music during dialogue.

From the very beginning of the movie, as wells takes us through Charles Foster Kane's Xanadu estate, we are given the lush harmonic language for which Herrman would become known. This scene includes Herrmann's first cinematic leitmotiv (ti, do, la, mi). Chromaticism is interwoven into the voice leading of the instruments, possibly indicating to the audience that death is looming. While not particularly similar to The Hours lament, chromaticism in general has been a symbol of death at least since Dido and Aeneas and probably before it as well. As the narrator begins to describe the Xanadu's namesake, Herrman clearly uses boiler plate cultural referents in his musical gestures (e.g. hitting a large tam tam) to indicate that the narrator was referring to an ancient city of the Mongolian Empire. Flatting scale degree six of a major key to create an augmented second in the melodic lines is a similar technique and as discussed earlier was used by Elmer Bernstein in Sunset Boulevard, made nine years later. While these techniques Herrmann uses may seem cliché (and considering Herrmann's past in radio, they may have even been cliché in 1941), but his style has been emulated so often in subsequent films that it is difficult not to acknowledge their and Herrmann's importance to film music.

The Hours

Philip Glass will be coming to Luther College in Decorah, Iowa this year, which is where I'll be finishing my undergrad this May, so it's only fitting, since Glass has written music for several films, to watch a Glass film. The Hours is a dreary story of the lives of three women as they struggle through depression. The leading ladies all gave stellar performances, and I think that the music, along with Virginia Woolfe's Mrs. Dalloway, connected these girls perfectly.

The orchestration is filled with effective doublings. Often times, the piano provides punctuation to the string arpeggiation. Harp and Celeste also helped accentuate and articulate some attacks in the strings. One of the most interesting choices made by Glass was his decision to keep the music anempathetic through the changes in time period. This made sense especially when there were sequences of all three girls, where the director was trying to draw parallels between the women's lives. It did on the other hand make the film more difficult to follow because sometimes the shifts would be seamless. The opening title sequence sets the pace for the rest of the film, where Nicole Kidman puts her head in the sink to wash and it segues into Meryl Streep washing her face. Sometimes these changes would feel spontaneous, but I feel as though the whole movie is a big montage of everyday life and everyday sorrow, and I think that matches the part of Glass' music that seems somewhat ritualistic at times.

Unlike a lot of musicians and listeners, I do not have strong opinions about or reactions to Glass' music. I definitely acknowledge his importance in the classical music world, and I also acknowledge his recycling of materials and ideas, The Hours being no exception by any means. Seething lamentations, spinning arpeggios, and repeated cycles of four chords are all embedded in the score. Amidst all of what seems to be banality, Glass will surprise us.

In the music during the opening title sequence we hear a chromatic lament (descending) motive, a nod to "Dido's Lament" from Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. It is clear to me that this would be some type of punning in the music, with the plot of the movie acting as a sort of lamentation on these women's lives, but I think that there's more than meets the ear here. Glass includes some colorful progressions here with an A Major, second inversion chord leading to Ab Major, second inversion and D Major, first inversion in the right hand. This reminds me of his most famous lament, Metamorphosis 1 in e minor. In this piece, Glass plays through a typical four chord lament, but the last chord brings a surprise as the top voice moves down a half step to get to A#. Glass pulls another motive from the Metamorphosis song set (Metamorphosis 2) later in the movie, in the scene where Richie jumps from the window, where he oscillates between C and A in the middle of the piano. The octave melody on top also directly mimics the melody at the beginning of Metamorphosis 2.

Throwing all of the intraopus intercontextuality aside, as I have discussed in earlier posts, I believe that point of the score is to add value to the overall product without detracting from it. This is something that Glass does well for The Hours in particular. I think that his score musically personifies especially well the last quote of the movie from Virginia Woolf, "Dear Leonard. To look life in the face, always, to look life in the face and to know it for what it is. At last to know it, to love it for what it is, and then, to put it away. Leonard, always the years between us, always the years. Always the love. Always the hours." In the same way that Wolf explains her idea of life, Glass' music to me is something that we should listen to, appreciate the moment within the music, and then let it end. The score sounds just like his last name would indicate, like liquid glass.

L.A. Confidential

Often dubbed a "neo-noir" film, L.A. Confidential has all of the components. It has the romance, the crime, Hollywood, and the 1950's. The music was done by Jerry Goldsmith, another one of the biggest names in film scoring. One of the first differences that I noticed with this film was that it was the first of the films discussed thus far to use previously created tracks by other artists. I think that this choice of combining a score with separate song tracks has become more popular in the past twenty years or so. This year, Danny Elfman wrote the score for American Hustle, but there is also 70's music to give the movie a more realistic feel and to serve as cultural referents- one of the more obvious examples of that being when Jennifer Lawrence sings Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die". A compilation of different artists can also contribute new songs to films. One of the most memorable film compilation soundtracks for me is the Space Jam soundtrack featuring popular songs made directly for the movie such as R. Kelly's "I Believe I Can Fly". In L.A. Confidential we hear songs ranging from classic Christmas tunes to "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive" and Sinatra singing "The Lady Is a Tramp". The festive music is important in giving some sonic additive value to emphasize the time of year. It strengthens context, and similarly to American Hustle, the period music helps provide cultural referents and gives the movie realistic historical context.

The Goldsmith score on the other hand, seems to help more with the tension, advancement of the plot, and the drama. One technique that I heard Goldsmith often do was use the loud attacking riffs in the low range of the piano to add to the suspense and provide a sharp, abrasive touch to the violent timpani strikes. This is evident in the "Bloody Christmas scene where the officers get violent with some hispanic The main recurring theme throughout the film, "The Victor" paints this vivid, aged picture in my head of a protagonist dealing with the incongruencies between morality and justice. The theme also has some similarities to me with the Madeline theme from Vertigo in that Goldsmith uses Wagnerian suspension and unexpected resolution to advance the melody. Although I do think that these musical clichés are somewhat unoriginal, his score is still very effective in its portrayal of the story, which I think is most important. Ultimately, writing a film score must be a collaborative effort, and its function, most of the time, should outweigh its form.

The Mission

Ennio Morricone wrote the music for The Mission in 1986. The unnerving story of a South American Jesuit mission for the indigenous people, Morricone had quite the task ahead of himself when given the film. Because it was a religious-based film, Morricone decided to use vocal music with liturgical text. It was also a film depicting the native people of South America, and Morricone accounted for this by writing the vocal music for what seemed like a native Guaraní choir. There was also some Catalan text featured in one of the main theme of the Guaraní people, "Vita Nostra".

A memorable choice for me was Morricone's use of voices. Obviously, he could have enlisted some very pristine voices, but he decided to make the sound raw, and it accentuates the vulnerability of the Guaraní people. In a way, I feel as though this unrefined choral sound helps the audience sympathize to the Guaraní people. Children singing with poor intonation invokes feelings of cuteness in most people, and by making the Ave Maria sound like an actual children's choir with minimal training, Morricone also brings a feeling of realism to the movie based on a true story- realism even though the Spaniards are played by British and American actors. During the choral theme of the Guaraní people, Morricone doesn't seem worried to hide individual voices. In the choir somewhere there was a soprano who wasn't afraid to show her warbles to the world.

The instrumentation that Morricone uses was another unique choice. Depending on where the setting was, what was being discussed in the script, or who was on screen, the audience would typically receive or not receive certain instruments. For instance, the "Brothers" theme, first heard as Rodrigo instructs Felipe on his riding, features a Spanish guitar in the accompaniment. Anther example of this is the beginning of the film when Cardinal Altamirano describes the nature of the Guaraní people and the missions that protect them, with pan flutes and other flutes playing in the background portraying the indigenous people of South America. Those same flutes are present as Felipe brings back the captured Guaraní back to town. To me, the most interesting thing about these flutes is that in both of those scenes they mostly oscillate between F# and G. This same half-step motive is evident in the Vita Nostra theme. I'm not sure if this was an intentional choice, but it seems likely to me that Morricone would be aware of this.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

An unavoidable figure while discussing film music, John Williams is probably the most recognizable name in film music today. His tunes both pervade and transcend the film industry. Just about every living american born before 2000 can recognize at least one theme that John Williams has written, and the tunefulness of the title theme from Close Encounters is no exception. The five-note figure of re, mi, do, do, sol is repeated constantly throughout the film and has the ability to stick with any musical or nonmusical audience member, but in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Williams often deviates a bit from that convention.

One of the unique characteristics this score offers is the use of voices to create a celestial sound. Often, Williams chooses to write high soprano tone clusters on vocalise rather than use words and rhythms. This helps make the human voice provide more of a coloristic effect, rather than it being the focal point of the piece. Despite this being a unique timbre in Williams' repertoire thus far in his career, this was not the first time that choral music had been used in this way for an extra-terrestrial, science-fiction movie.

Stanley Kubrick famously rejected the score created by Alex North for 2001: a Space Odyssey in favor of using concert music from Johann and Ricard Strauss, Aram Kachaturian, and then lesser-known György Ligeti. The music from Ligeti played an interesting role because since 2001 the three main pieces that were used from him have become some of Ligeti's most well-known works. One of those pieces is the Kyrie from his Requiem. It's been a while since I've seen the film, but I believe that the most prominent use of this excerpt is near the beginning when the Great Apes discover the monolith and as a result develop tools. Similarly, at the beginning of Close Encounters we hear Ligeti-isms used by John Williams. Williams writes similar micropolyphonic* textures and large, dissonant tone clusters (both hallmarks of Ligeti's music) to build tension into a triumphant C Major chord that sounds as if it were literally stolen directly from Also Sprach Zarathustra (the title theme from 2001). Unlike most of John William's other scores that I have heard, much of the incidental music in Close Encounters of the Third Kind has a sense of space to the sound. It can be heard as one single entity, and this was another signature of György Ligeti.

It was rumored that Ligeti did not appreciate having his music featured alongside the Strausses, but thank goodness that Stanley Kubrick included these pieces because they helped 2001: a Space Odyssey become the catalyst to the now typical science-fiction blockbuster film. Without this movie to set the stage, John Williams might have therefore lost about half of his film portfolio (Close Encounters, ET, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, etc.). At the very least, John Williams wouldn't have had such rich musical material as inspiration for his cosmic orchestral sounds heard in Close Encounters. Below, I have attached the excerpt from Ligeti's Kyrie used in 2001 along with the entirety of his Lux Aeterna, which was also sampled in 2001.

*Micropolyphony as described by music critic Alex Ross in his book The Rest is Noise: "In the nineteen-sixties, György Ligeti developed a technique of assembling large masses of sound from multiple layers of minute contrapuntal activity, with many different instruments playing the same material at different speeds."

To Kill a Mockingbird

In 1962 Elmer Bernstein wrote the music for To Kill a Mockingbird. To me this is a pivotal stylistic change in film music. The sounds that Bernstein creates are much more intimate than heard in the movies discussed earlier. We also hear a much more prominent piano than has been heard before. The piano is often at the forefront of the orchestration featuring tender melodic lines, creating a nostalgic aura with clearly recognizable instruments to layperson listeners. This score, more than any of the other scores discussed thus far, doesn't alienate the nonmusical audience with quick harmonic rhythm and  gaudy instrumentation. The recognizable, often simple sounds evoke the innocence of childhood and the symbol of the mockingbird (the bird that does no harm and merely sings).

I mentioned that the music features a ton of harmonic stasis, and the title theme is a perfect example of that, having a drone underneath a lydian melody that settles back into the relative ionian major scale that we're used to hearing as the accompaniment begins to move, albeit slowly while keeping a sense of simplicity. Although Bernstein tries to elicit simplicity, he does explore modulation of the title theme. The beginning of the movie travels from no sharp to three sharp to four sharp key signatures, and one of the most interesting transformations of the thematic music happens when the kids sneak up to Boo Radley's house and Jem peeks into the window. It's not an exact melodic transformation, and it may even be a bit of a stretch, but I think that it is a development from the theme because maintains the same metric and rhythmic concepts that are used in the original material. The vibes carry the arpeggiated drone that is much like the harp at the beginning of the movie, and the piano has a similar contour, only this time Bernstein uses an octatonic scale rather than the lydian mode.

The simplicity of Bernstein's music can also be attributed to the music of Copland, who chose to use Copland's music as inspiration since it was the most well-known music during the time in which Mockingbird is set. The music of Aaron Copland in the 1930's and 1940's is often described as "Americana". He often inserted recognizable American folk tunes into his work, spurred on by Alan Lomax's collection and canonization of folk tunes in the late-30's under the funding of the Library of Congress. Copland strived to create music for the masses and not just the educated elite. "Fanfare for the Common Man", arguably his most famous work, is fairly self-explanatory in that regard. Bernstein both directly and indirectly emulated Copland for Mockingbird. Near the beginning of the movie, when the Jem rolls Scout down the street in the tire, the music sounds as if it could have been directly taken from the hoe-down at the end of Rodeo. His use of perfect intervals in the melodies and his careful use of doublings to thin out the orchestra are an uncanny tribute to Copland.

This film score, for me, feels as though it is a large departure from the previous archetype Germanic tradition that stemmed from the Wagnerian use of leitmotivs.