The Evolution & Art of the Soundtrack

One aspect of film we have just barely touched on in this class is musical accompaniment in film and how it has developed over time.  I feel about soundtracks the way Suzanne feels about editing. The soundtrack has always been my favorite aspect of film, and I think the artistic expression conveyed by music in this medium is often overlooked, or at least taken for granted. I love the way just the right song can change the mood of a scene, and so often we are not even conscious of what is affecting us.

I also love the creativity that is used when blending soundtracks with certain scenes. I remember, several years ago, watching a film at an independent film festival in Flagstaff. I don’t recall the name of the film, or even the plotline. I only remember a single scene, of a woman lying on a couch, with headphones on. There is a soundtrack playing, and for all we know, the music is purely non-diegetic. But when the woman takes the headphones off, the music stops abruptly. It’s not until that point that the audience realizes they were listening to the same music that the woman was listening to. I thought this was such a simple, yet elegant touch, and it allowed us to get “inside the head” so to speak, of the character.    

Music accompanied even the earliest silent films, albeit “performed live, ranging from a large orchestra in major theatres down to continuous piano in smaller halls” (http://encyclopedia.stateuniversity.com/pages/20102/silent-film.html). When we watched Buster Keaton’s The General (1926) in class early this semester, I was able to share in a bit of the delight that those first audiences must have felt when they heard the sound effects created by the instruments during Keaton’s physical comedy routines. I thought this precursor to Foley artists was a clever addition to an already comedically brilliant and artistically innovative film.        

Danny Elfman

Randy Newman

Hans Zimmer

When we talk of auteurs, I believe there are a few contemporary film music composers who belong in this category. Artists such as Hans Zimmer, Danny Elfman and Randy Newman are almost immediately identifiable by their scores. It is a wonder where Disney would be without the German-born Hans Zimmer, who has at least eight films slated to release in 2011-2012. Zimmer has a vast repertoire of credits (over 100 titles) under his belt, composing for blockbusters such as Backdraft (1991), Thelma & Louise (1991), Toys (1992), The Lion King (1994), and Gladiator (2000). Randy Newman has been equally, if not more valuable to Pixar as Zimmer has to its parent company. Newman’s “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” has become probably one of the best known themes for an animated movie. Newman also composed the soundtracks for Cars (2006), Monsters, Inc. (2001) and A Bug’s Life (1998). Danny Elfman has composed for all but five of the films Tim Burton has directed and/or produced. However, as synonymous as Elfman is with Burton, he has scored dozens of other films, from Emilio Estevez’s Bonny and Clyde-inspired Wisdom (1986) to the Spiderman trilogy.   

I can't end a conversation about soundtracks without brining up the film August Rush (2007), with an original score by Mark Mancina. The soundtrack is uncharacteristically inspiring for a composer who has mostly specialized in action films (Shooter [2007], Con Air [1997], Speed [1994]). I have included the final scene of the film, that uses a diegetic score simultaneously as mood music. (Keep in mind, if you have not seen this film, this is the final scene, and so this is definitely a spoiler.)

Indiscriminant sex in the ‘60s & ‘70s – Imagine that!

Since last week I alluded to the subtle references to sexuality in films like It Happened One Night, I thought this week it would be only appropriate to discuss the sexual revolution brought about by what is known as the American New Wave. With the coming of New Hollywood, the proverbial beds were pushed together and the “walls of Jericho” were blown to smithereens. 

Prior to last night’s class, I must admit, I was a Graduate “virgin.” Dustin Hoffman’s nervous, insecure demeanor in his performance as Benjamin Braddock was a fitting representation of the time period. Hollywood was just breaking into the realities of sex, testing the waters and seeing what would appeal to viewers. Audiences at that time were craving more – more shock, more entertainment, more realism, and more of a human connection – for their money. Hoffman’s character was “a little worried about his future,” just as the film industry was a little worried about theirs. And, in both cases, drastic steps had to be taken.   

  

 Perusing a list of quintessential “New Hollywood” films, it doesn’t take long to notice that many of them were focused very specifically, and sometimes exclusively, on sex. Two years after The Graduate (1967), with its brief glimpses of Anne Bancroft’s nude body and that exceedingly uncomfortable scene in the strip club, the limits were pushed yet farther with Midnight Cowboy (1969), again starring Dustin Hoffman, this time as John Voight’s unlikely pimp. Midnight Cowboy was originally given an “X” rating, but that was changed to an “R” in 1971. Also in ’69, the movie Bob & Carol & Ted Alice (sort of a precursor to The Big Chill [1983]) broached the topic of swinging and partner swapping. The movie poster for this film was, once again, a reflection of the times. “Consider the possibilities,” read the tagline. That could have been the motto for the American New Wave.        

 

The Last Picture Show (1971), shot in black and white, was Cybill Shepherd’s film debut, and included both male and female full frontal nudity. Even more impressed on my memory than this, though, is the sound of the bed-springs creaking during one of the more awkward sex scenes. Because of the context of the scene, that sound was like nails on a chalk board. This was not the glamorized on-screen lovemaking as we are so accustomed to today. Instead, Peter Bogdanavich gives the viewer a taste of the real ineptness and physical pain of a first-time sexual encounter.    

Two films released in 1971, Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange and Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs (again starring Dustin Hoffman), contained very graphic and controversial rape scenes. The following year, Deliverance (1972) was released with its now famous male rape scene.  

Since this era of thematic experimentation, the waves seem to have calmed a bit. While we still see the occasional controversial film hit the big screen, as in Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut [1999] or Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain [2005], audiences are not as easily shocked, and it would seem that, at this point, the envelope could not be pushed much farther without deteriorating into pornography. 

Bridging a 34-year gap, Larry McMurtry wrote the screenplay for both The Last Picture Show and Brokeback Mountain.

It Happened One Night

This past weekend, I watched It Happened One Night (1934) with my husband, who I must say is quite the “chick flick” aficionado. At least a couple times a week, I’ll come home from work, and find a Hugh Grant or Matthew McConaughey movie in the DVD player. (That is, of course, when our two-year-old hasn’t been watching Narnia, Bedtime Stories, or, his current favorite, Cars.) After watching the film in class this semester, I decided to introduce him to one of the very first “chick flicks,” starring a youngish Clark Gable, and the Betty Boop-faced Claudette Colbert. Both actors, then in their early thirties, gave a classic performance in this screwball – or as Netflix calls it, “opposites attract” – comedy.

  

As someone who grew up watching classic films, the unique grammar of Golden Age cinema rarely fazes me. However, watching this movie with my husband, who has had very little exposure to films of this era, gave me a new appreciation for the way in which storytelling has changed over the decades. The first thing my husband noticed was that the film starts very abruptly, with the scene with Claudette Colbert on her father’s ship. The viewer, instead of being given an explicit back-story, is expected to figure out what’s going on based on very few clues. In the same way, there is never a clear explanation as to who the guys are that are standing outside the phone booth where Clark Gable is arguing with his soon-to-be-former employer. We can assume, from Gable’s intoxicated state, that these are his drinking buddies from the bar, or maybe co-workers from the newspaper. But who knows? They might just be a group of passersby who overhead his phone conversation and got caught up in the drama. It was probably decided that these details were not relevant to the plotline, and so an explanation was not necessary. Besides all this, there is also very little in the way of character development, as we often see in contemporary films.

In many of our contemporary romantic comedies, elements of the screwball comedy can be found - the repartee in Fool’s Gold (2008), the strong, independent females in films such as Two Weeks Notice (2002)  and (500) Days of Summer (2009). (In It Happened One Night, we see a new breed of assertive females, from Colbert’s character to the woman sending Gable’s telegram. However, the actual treatment of women in films did not seem to have improved much at this point. We see Colbert’s father slap her, and Gable telling her to shut up – which she does.)

As for the plot of this particular film, the idea of using deception to drive a story has been practiced innumerable times since It Happened One Night. The modern film that I believe most closely parallels this one is Hitch (2005), in which Eva Mendes plays a gossip columnist who is covertly writing a story on one of Will Smith’s clients and his celebrity crush. Smith plays “Hitch,” who helps men learn how to pick up women and sustain a relationship through the first three dates. The “hitch,” so to speak, is that neither Smith nor Mendes know the whole truth about the other’s identity or motive, so when a relationship begins to develop between them, it is partially under false pretenses. More than half way through the film, when Mendes discovers who Smith really is, she feels betrayed and proceeds to plot her revenge on Smith. Of course, as is so often the case in this genre, the misunderstanding is resolved, and by the end of the film, Smith and Mendes are officially a couple.

What I find particular interesting and unique about It Happened One Night, is that the element of deception between the two leading characters is dismissed very early in the story. Within 15 minutes of film time, Gable lets on that he knows Colbert’s true identity, and another ten minutes later, Colbert comes to the realization that he is a reporter. From that point on, the story is dependent on other comedic elements for its humor and plot developments. This is in stark contrast to so many modern romantic comedies (Failure to Launch [2006], While You Were Sleeping [1995]) that carry the deception all the way through the film, using that as the catalyst of the “rising action”  element of the story, which is often the scene in which the characters blow up at one another and one or both storm off – often to an airport to board a plane headed to the other side of the country.

Another aspect of It Happened One Night (and other films of this time period) that stands out in comparison to modern films is that sex is treated very delicately, and only spoken of using innuendoes, such as, “The walls of Jericho are coming down!” In today’s films, we often see and hear as much as the censors will permit, while retaining a PG-13 rating.

The "sexiest" scene in It Happened One Night.

But despite its differences, keeping to true “chick flick” style, our unlikely couple beat the odds and end up together, Colbert becoming maybe the first ever “Runaway Bride.”

Now available for pre-order at Toys 'r' Us

It’s times like this that I’m especially glad I have a son…

Did I mention they sing? Oh yeah.

Thought to Be Lost Forever, 10 American Silent Films Come Home

Thought to Be Lost Forever, 10 American Silent Films Come Home

Friends don't let friends spray tan



Robin Williams in Old Dogs



George "First Bite" Hamilton



The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

The American film remake that I chose for this blog is The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), which is a remake of the German film Münchhausen (1943). I found these films of particular interest because of the history behind the German version of the film. Münchhausen was filmed during World War II, when Joseph Goebbels was, under the Reich Film Chamber, “the sole authority on what could and could not be shown on the screen” (Dixon & Foster, pg. 153). In addition to the many propaganda films shot at this time, Goebbels also had an interest in genres such as comedy and fantasy, of which Münchhausen is a prime example (Dixon & Foster, pg. 154). Still, as any film shows signposts of the era in which it is made, I made an educated guess that Münchhausen might include some interesting tipoffs that it was made under the influence of the Nazi regime. I’ll be the first to admit that I do not have the best grasp of world history, and so I’m sure there may have been many indicators that I missed. However, a big one that I did see was a very cringe-worthy moment, indeed. There is a scene near the beginning of the film in which the baron wipes the mud from his hand across the side of his servant’s face. The character of the servant, Johann, is a black man, although it appeared to me that he was actually a white actor wearing vaudeville-type "blackface" makeup. (This would make sense, since I’m sure the Nazis weren’t too keen on using actual black actors.) The fact that the baron wipes the mud across Johann’s face, without hesitation, and without significant reaction from Johann, implies a couple of things about the race relations of that period. It is clear, that even though the baron is speaking to Johann as he would one of his peers, he still somehow views him as less than a person and more a piece of machinery. Johann’s lack of a response to this obvious insult also tells us that he is quite accustomed to this sort of treatment, and may not even mind. This becomes even clearer as he turns to polish the banister, and we see his content, smiling face, as if it is plastic – again, like a machine – with the baron’s fingerprints across his cheek. Obviously, this kind of racism was not present in the 1988 version of the film, nor was the original film’s objectivity of and violence against women that I won’t even go into here.

Münchhausen is replete with special effects and creative ideas that I’m sure were quite impressive in 1943. And it’s not even the baron himself that is magical, but the world itself is a place where the impossible becomes reality. A tonic for instantly growing hair, coats that attack and bark like dogs, a horn that plays itself, a ring that makes the wearer invisible for one hour, and a musket that allows the marksman to see and fire to what seem like infinite distances are just some of the amazing objects that can be found in this 17th century world. Actually, apart from the fact that the baron manages successfully to ride a cannonball and has a wish granted by the sheik that he will stay youthful until he chooses to grow old (a very discerning wish, I thought), he himself is really quite unremarkable. The baron reminds me of Batman, in the sense that, without his money and toys, he would just be an ordinary man. In Terry Gilliam’s remake, however, the baron is swallowed by a giant sea-monster, takes a trip to the moon, dances with Venus and escapes from the Grim Reaper, just to name a few of his adventures. I think this tells us one important thing about American audiences and their attention span. To me, the 1988 version is much more action-packed and fast-paced, whereas the German film goes more in-depth into relationships (those that the baron had with his, for lack of a better term, “women” [including Catherine the Great], as well as his friend, Christian), and ends with the baron’s own conclusion that relationships – not adventures – are what are really most fulfilling in life. This is in contrast to the end of Gilliam’s version, in which the baron rides off into the sunset, not with a woman, but with his horse alone.

Post-War Cinema

Postwar film saw many changes, and most were driven by a newly jaded America and Europe. Movies after World War II were starkly realistic, and at times even more pessimistic than that. To quote A Short History of Film, “Crime films became more bullet ridden, westerns more violent, and action thrillers added a new streak of sadism, to appeal to an audience that no longer believed in the Capraesque vision of small-town American life” (Dixon & Foster, pg. 167). It seems that we can attribute much of today’s violence in the movies to the neorealism movement. However, not all that came out of the postwar era was bad. In fact, one of my favorite lines from our text so far refers to director Vittorio De Sica’s refusal “to give the audience the artificial luxury of a happy ending” (pg. 169) in the 1948 film The Bicycle Thief. Some of my personal all-time favorite films defy what I like to call “the Hollywood ending.” Films like City of Angels, The Mist, The Butterfly Effect, The Road, (500) Days of Summer, pretty much any Robin Williams movie prior to 2006, and anything Johnny Depp did before he became a sell-out (oh yeah, I went there) give us that look at the world in a raw, un-sugarcoated way. Even if some of the premises of these films are a bit fantastical, the ways in which the plot unfolds and is handled by the characters is realistic, and for that reason, I think, more relatable. These films also do not give us those warm fuzzy feelings that, over time, become false expectations as we are indoctrinated into the culture of “happily ever after” endings.


Film noir was a reflection of two predominant social attitudes prevalent in postwar America. The first was the climate of mistrust and deception that came from the ambivalence surrounding the war and its outcome. Gender roles and the perception of women had also changed, and were illustrated in the genre with the use of strong, independent female characters (pgs. 174-176). Social problem films dealt with real-life issues such as alcoholism, life in prisons and mental institutions, anti-Semitism and racism (pg. 177).

During this time, technology was also moving along, and the film industry suddenly had competition, in the form of television. In order to contend, filmmakers began looking for new approaches to wow their audiences. New innovations such as CinemaScope, 3-D and Cinerama were introduced, but were only short-lived fads in the end (although 3-D keeps rearing its ugly head every few years, and IMAX, which is nothing but a refined version of Cinerama, is reasonably popular as a novelty medium). What really stuck around were color films, which had become nearly standard fare by the mid ‘60s, still lagging behind color television by over a decade.

Other changes and advances that occurred in postwar film were less technological and social movements than they were legal rulings. In 1947, the Supreme Court did away with the practice of block booking, essentially making “B” movies obsolete. Five years later, the Supreme Court’s “Miracle” Decision gave film as an art form the protection of the First Amendment (pgs. 171-172).

One of the happiest scenese in The Bicycle Theif... But still bittersweet...

Fritz Lang

Influenced by artists, authors and theorists, (Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, Caspar David Friedrich, Friedrich Nietzsche and Sigmund Freud), Fritz Lang, born in Vienna in 1890, had aspirations to be an artist. However, that did not bode well with his father, and so he enlisted in the Austrian Army during WWI. In 1916, he was severely wounded, and two years later he was sent home, shell-shocked. After his military career, he returned to art, but in a different form.

Lang began directing films in 1919, the first of which was Halbblut (The Half-Breed), which unfortunately “has been lost due to neglect and nitrate decomposition” (Dixon & Foster, pg 81). With Die Spinnen (The Spiders, 1919), he was finding his style, but sticking with the safe action-adventure genre of the period. It would not be until1921 and the allegorical film, Die Müde Tod (Destiny) that he would start to break away from the mainstream. This film began Lang’s groundbreaking work in exploring entirely new genres, such as the idea of the “super-criminal” in Doktor Mabuse, Der Spieler (Dr Mabuse, the Gambler, 1922) and the “psycho-killer” in M (1931), his first sound film. Of course, Lang’s sci-fi masterpiece, Metropolis, which has been called the last of the German expressionist films, is one of his most influential, with homages and inspirations of that film showing up in everything from Frankenstein (James Whale, 1931) to Star Wars (Gerorge Lucas, 1977) to Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982). He has also been credited with influencing the work of directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Luis Buñuel and Orson Welles.

In 1933, after finishing Das Testament des Doktor Mabuse (The Last Will of Dr Mabuse), he was called in to talk with Reichsminister Dr. Joseph Goebbels, and was simultaneously offered the position of studio head of the new Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft (UFA) production company and told that the film he had just completed would be pulled from circulation, due to its “subversive content” (Dixon & Foster, pg. 83). This was thanks to his then-wife and Nazi sympathizer Thea Von Harbou (screenwriter on Destiny, Metropolis and M), who turned him in. With the Nazi’s newfound interest in him, Lang left everything behind and fled the country (according to Lang, that very day), citing, in part, his own Jewish heritage (on his mother’s side). Not surprisingly, Von Harbou remained in Berlin, divorcing Lang and becoming a “screenwriter and… director in service to Hitler’s Germany” (Dixon & Foster, pg 83).

After a brief detour in France, Lang moved on to Hollywood, and seemed to move out of his more melancholic period. In America, his films (for MGM) became slightly more optimistic and less mythical, centering on characters that the viewer could relate to and attracting such star power as Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, Glenn Ford, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Bennett, Barbara Stanwyck, Tyrone Power, and Edward G. Robinson. In Hollywood he explored countless genres, including some, such as film noir, westerns, and musicals, which were new to his repertoire. But his departure from Hollywood was a bitter one, with his last two American films serving as political statements against the establishment.

Lang returned to Germany and his Nietzsche-esque style in 1958, once the Nazi threat was over, though he was never quite the same. His last film was Die Tausand Augen von Doktor Mabuse (The Thousand Eyes of Dr Mabuse, 1960). In 1976, he planned to make a film about the hippie culture, but, sadly that plan never came to fruition. Lang died in 1976 in Beverly Hills, leaving behind a legacy in film that is impossible to dismiss.



Fritz Lang & Thea von Harbou



Sources:

http://www.blogger.com/goog_522908566

http://www.blogger.com/goog_522908566

www.imdb.com/name/nm0000485/bio

Dixon, Wheeler Winston, and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster. A Short History of Film. Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick NJ, 2008. Print.