On Music & Film: The Start of a Study on Soundtracks

(photo via www.inalonelyplacefilm.com)

So few times in movies or TV is there pure silence. When the music stops, the sounds cease, the silence of a movie feels startlingly real and draws us from our comfortable position in the audience, zeroed in on the screen, to a sudden awareness of our surroundings. It feels awkward and uncomfortable. We shift in our seats and hear the air conditioning running through the movie theater. If it’s horror playing with our senses, we brace ourselves for the jump-scare. Or if we’re at home, we suddenly become all-too-aware of our reflection in our laptop screen. Instead of losing ourselves in the scenes, we find ourselves disconcertingly in the present.

In between dialogue, rather than deal with the authentic and awkward silences of real life, directors instead pepper in curated soundtracks to supplement each scene. Aside from gorgeous cinematography and scripted lines, the most distinct barrier between what we experience on the screen and what we experience in our lives is the addition of movie music.

Every song, every unnatural sound added in during the editing process was added to the film with purpose. Filmmakers don’t just employ music to fill in the spaces between dialogue, but take advantage of music’s emotional power to heighten the connection between the audience and the ‘silver screen’. The blossoming of violins when two characters finally kiss suggests the swelling of feeling you, too, are meant to feel. The jarring cacophony of a thriller soundtrack coaxes your discomfort, the familiar pop song of a teen movie transports you to your youth.

But, other than just conveying emotion, music can often help films obtain an iconic status. Sure, the movies we know and love could live on in our hearts with or without their soundtracks, but they wouldn’t persist in our lives, get stuck in our heads, infiltrate the media and be frequently reproduced in the same way as one encapsulating song would. After all, what is Titanic (1997) without Céline Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On”? What is Ghostbusters (1984) without Ray Parker Jr singing, “I ain’t afraid of no ghost!”?

Now this is a music site, so of course we won’t be zeroed in on the silence, no matter how stunning and effective it can be and no matter how much it is being utilized in recent films. Rather, in upcoming articles I will tune in on the soundtracks that shape TV and film, songs so central to the heart of a scene that they can’t be separated from the identity of the movie as a whole. Expect articles ranging from a focused analyzation of the role of Nick Cave and The Bad Seed’s “Red Right Hand” in the popular BBC series Peaky Blinders (2013 -- ), to a look at Neil Young’s improvised soundtrack on the black and white film Dead Man (1996) starring Johnny Depp.