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