Film Music #1

Film Music class is so fascinating. Wednesday’s lecture made me realize that after this class is over, I’m going to start analyzing everything! The film The Battleship Potemkin was a very interesting film. I would have thought the music was background always but I learned that it is foreground when there aren’t any words. The music is telling the story instead of the actors speaking or having subtitles. This movie made me feel uncomfortable the whole time because of the irresolution of the music. Visually, I thought this movie was created so well. It fascinated me how well the composer wrote the music and knew how to move the audience as well.

Although Dr. Berry always talked about Wagner, I didn’t really understand why he was so great. To me, Wagner’s music is so vulgar and loud. It is almost obnoxious. But now I see what a great composer he was. He really was a Beethoven and a Shakespeare. It is amazing how fast the film industry grew and how important music is in the film industry. The Jazz Singer was quite interesting. It started out almost like an opera with an overture. It’s amazing how film was heavily influenced by operas. The music in The Jazz Singer started to have more roles as sound was added to the subtitles. Although background and foreground were always there, source music became established. It seems as sound is coming in, there is more creative ideas and innovative ways to play with the music in films.

Singing in the Rain was just fantastic. You can see on the necks of the singers that they are really singing. This movie played around with source and foreground. Background music was mostly to accompany the singers as they sang or danced. The scene where the music director is dancing and singing, “Make them laugh” (?) had a lot of source music. Just like how they tried to make the trumpet noise in The Battleship Potemkin sound exactly as if the trumpet player was playing. When the music director in Singing in the Rain fell on his hip, the music would have a drum go boom. Source music seemed to me more in use in this movie to make the comic parts more effective. During the sentimental moments, the actors were either singing or there would be a music background. Most of the time, the music for the sentimental parts had more melody and lyricism. The rhythm was more simple than complicated. It was a really good contrast. The music had more sound and complicated rhythm when there was action and lyrical during the sentimental moments.