The interrelationship of image, music and narrative in film
‘The sound film will come into its own only when it is able to achieve a union at that narrow point between visual and musical expression, in such a way that these aspects explain and complete each other to the same degree. This synthesis will be the birth of a singular art, of addressing itself and at the same time, and with equal force, the two senses.' (Arthur Honegger: 1931)If the shot is ‘the brick which built the film' (Bordwell et al: 1985:60) then music is the cement that fixed it in place. For the ‘moment we recognize to what degree film music shapes our perceptions of a narrative, we can no longer consider it incidental or innocent' (Gorbman: 1987: 11). Film, to fully exercise its creative potential, requires a process of interaction between image, sound, narrative and audience, who participate in the process of construction. In narrative film, the score has always been considered a supplementary form, to other more ‘essential' filmic ingredients, such as image and dialogue. This is understandable, given that a film without music is entirely practicable, but in removing the image it ceases to be a ‘film'. As Gorbman points out in her influential investigation into narrative film;
‘In a film, where narrative is the excuse for, the cement of, and the raison d'etre of the film's existence, we opt to focus attention on the narrative and visual realities on the screen before us...We forsake contemplating that abstract arrangement and rearrangement of sound which is music, because it is non-representational and non-narrative and does not inhabit the perceptual foreground of the narrative film.' (Gorbman: 1987: 12).
The study of less direct ‘abstract arrangements' that don't always perceptibly assist in the formation of other filmic features would actually strengthen the awareness of music's inter-relationship with image and narrative, rather than music's presumed subordinated relationship with image and narrative. Music is not merely an additional extra in film, but together with image forms a unified partnership in the creation of narrative.
The 1890's marked the arrival of projected film. The silent era that followed shows a gradual development of the interrelationship and interdependency of music, image and narrative. With the birth of film editing and multi-shot films at the turn of the century, film was capable of sustaining a narrative and was beginning to be considered as an art form. The thirty years of silent film that followed saw music in a mainly functional role, initially with piano improvisation being used to drown out the sound of the projector and to avoid the unnerving silence of an otherwise soundless world (Brown: 1994: 12). In his book Overtones and Undertones, Royal S. Brown attempts to ‘account for the very marriage of film music - why they got together at all' and ‘offers another formulation that is indisputable: music provides a foundation in affect for narrative cinema.' (Gorbman in Hill et al: 1998: 44-45). It seems that, from the birth of film the relationship between music and picture in narrative film has been crucial to the progress and mounting admiration for film. Most notably, with the rise of purpose-built cinemas able to accommodate an orchestra, is the tendency for silent and very early sound film to use a patchwork of pre-existing 19th century music to match the narrative meanings. Birth of a Nation (1915), for example, and later Dracula (1932) both use a concoction of Tchaikovsky, Schubert's and Wagner's music in order to mime the symphonic style for commercial and artistic purposes.
Perhaps the most notable use of music in combination with the cutting and composition of image in the silent era is Sergei Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin (1925). Meisel's music in The Battleship Potemkin is revolutionary in its effective montage effect, it's dramatic juxtaposition of sound with image and it's pictorial rhythm. In the 1920's the idea was emerging that a collection of images couldn't simply be put together randomly with music: an effective match of music and picture was needed, so to efficiently convey the intended narrative. ‘Sergei Eisenstein had pointed to music as one of the elements in montage construction. And whether a certain montage of elements is intended or not... their corroboration will generate meaning' and form a ‘combinatoire of expression' (Gorbman: 1987: 15- 16). Working alongside the film director, Meisel and Eisenstein worked on these principles of montage, of cutting and juxtaposing rhythm (in image and music) to create an awe-inspiring effect. Meisel was perhaps the first composer to achieve such a dramatic relationship between music and the cutting of film abandoning the notion that music was purely a functional addition to film by stressing the idea of bringing together musical-pictorial rhythm.
These early examples show that a strong relationship between music, image and narrative was being solidified to form the assertion that music was, and still is, an essential component of film. The silent era established various ways of providing music for the moving picture, having established that it was essential functionally and expressively, for breathing life onto the screen. As Brown points out, ‘One can look at the affect generated by the musical-visual-narrative interaction within the same perspective. On the most general level, it can be said that music provides a foundation in affect for narrative cinema's visual images, with plot, situation and character prompting the particular directions this affective foundation takes.' (Brown: 1994: 26).
‘By the end of the 1920's new technology permitted sound to be recorded directly onto the celluloid strip carrying the visual image,... and by the early 1930's sound could be dubbed after shooting, therefore opening up enormous creative potential.' (New Grove Dictionary from http://www.csubak.edu/). Key composers of the classical Hollywood film score in the 1930's and 1940's, including most notably European composers Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, took advantage of these technological developments. The film scores of Steiner and Wolfgang epitomise the conventions and techniques of classical American film scoring, having both originally composed ‘serious' classical music in Europe before moving to Hollywood during the advent of the sound period.
The classical Hollywood film score of the 1930's and 1940's was, like the film more widely, driven towards the goal of the invisible discourse. Hollywood produced a linear world, where there's always a beginning, a middle and end. Arguably, music is used to underscore and reinforce this sense of meaningful movement from equilibrium- disequilibrium- equilibrium suggested by structuralist theorist, Todorov. Classical editing presupposes a unified scenic space (unlike the narratives in the synthetic language of Soviet montage), and implies a model that is defined by its restrictions (for example, duration, cinematography, editing, sound recording and mixing). As film is such a constructed medium, it was thought that through classical decoupage, a scenic space could be rendered in such a way that it gives the illusion that it's ‘natural' and unmediated. The goal of the ‘transparent' or ‘invisible' discourse technique was to give the illusion of filmic continuity, to efface traces of editing through continuity editing. The underscoring of music, to deliver a sense of coherence and continuity, supported such continuity editing methods of rendering an ‘indiscernible thread' (Bordwell et al: 1985: CHAPTER 16).
In her book, Unheard Melodies on narrative film music, Claudia Gorbman offers the key principles of composition, mixing and editing in classical film music, which are shaped by the principles of continuity and invisibility (Gorbman: 1987: 70- 98). These principles show the direct relations between image, music and the goal of narrative construction in early Hollywood film, and the principles can be illustrated by looking at their interplay in King Kong (1933: scored by Max Steiner) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938: scored by Erich Wolfgang Korngold).
Gorbman proposes the principle that music can act as a Signifier of emotion underscoring and anchoring the image-track: the irrational, dream-like states and the loss of control are signified within the music in classical cinema (Gorbman: 1987: 79). In King Kong the music reappears eighteen minutes after the main titles: it reappears finally with a fade-in to the shot of the ship approaching mist-enshrouded Skull Island. A harp in the lower register sounds a ‘tonally vague' (Gorbman: 1987:79) repetitious motif over sustained strings and thus the music is associated with the representation of the irrational, the world of giant apes and the underside of reason. The music matches the fear and anxiety of the characters, and on coming irrational experiences that face them; the foggy image, the ominous music and the emotions of the characters are all inter-linked. The quality of the music at this point, it may be noted, is evocative of the rising and falling of a boat on water: the ascending and descending harp becomes mesmerising, and secures the visual quality of the scene. The love scene between Ann and Jack, further illustrates Gorbman's principle of music as Signifier of Emotion. The verbal cue from Driscoll, "Say, I guess I love you' is accompanied by music typically connoting romance and love: high cantabile strings and a heavenly harp accompaniment, serve to signify and anchor the on-screen emotion of love between the protagonists.
Narrative cueing or ‘parallelism' (Kalinak: 1992: 26) is a further principle compiled by Gorbman. It suggests that music can interact with image in a local illustrative way, via what is known as ‘mickey-mousing', whereby physical on-screen actions are mimicked directly by the music. Steiner is notorious for this form of composition, and plentiful examples can be seen in King Kong. During the scene where the film crew first meet the Chief of Skull Island, the music is heard to replicate and mimic the steps of the Chief as he walks toward Denham. As the Chief steps downward there is a notable scalic descent in the lower brass, which, put to a click track (developed for cartoon music by 1930 to ensure precision and synchronization between music and image), mimic the Chiefs steps exactly. As Kalinak notices, the quality of the music in these instances is reflected graphically in its very notation (Kalinak: 1992: 16), and a good example of this in King Kong, is the appearance of the dinosaur from the water, when the crewmembers are on a boat trying to rescue Ann from King Kong. As the creature lifts its head from the water an ascending chordal accompaniment is heard, and perhaps predictably, as the creatures head lowers into the water again, a descending chordal accompaniment is heard in the musical score: the physical and visual action of the creature is replicated both in the sound of the music and graphically on the score itself.
The main film scoring techniques of the classical period were musical illustration through the imitation of image, as I have shown already in Max Steiner's work and the use of the ‘leitmotif' which I will illustrate using Korngold's work in The Adventures of Robin Hood. A ‘leitmotif' (literally translated as a ‘leading motive') is a musical term, referring to a recurring musical fragment that represents a certain character, situation, object or idea: the leitmotif prefigures dramatic happenings in both an aural and visual way, giving connotative value to a series or combination of musical material. The repetition of musical material, that ‘although music in itself is non-representational, the repeated occurrence of a musical motif in conjunction with representational elements in a film (images, speech) can cause the music to carry representational meaning as well.' (Gorbman: 1987: 27). At every point, then, the leitmotif is used to enhance the visual performance on-screen and Korngold forged such motivic procedures in his film scores, in order that the musical processes mirror the narrative systems.
Gorbman's proposed principles of Narrative Cueing suggests that the leitmotif produces a unified work through repeated musical material, and can be used to provide narrative cues or establish setting and character. For example, in Robin Hood, each character has a musical theme usually accompanies their visual on-screen presence. For example, Robin has a very proud and exultant motif which, due to its easily manageable musical size, is perhaps the most prevalent in the film. It is first heard only three minutes into the film, as he arrives victoriously with sidekick Will Scarlet, on horseback. And again, nine minutes into the film, at the verbal cue "Open the door", we hear his slightly altered theme pre-empting his entry into the castle with a dead deer on his shoulders. The audience can predict his victorious entrance even before we hear him speak, or see him coming, due to the narrative cue given by his specific musical theme. Later in the film, the leitmotif reappears in a different way: we see a montage of shots in which villainous Normans are struck down with arrows. The fleeting ‘Robin' music is heard every time an arrow hits its target, this time not to anticipate Robin's arrival, but to connote that the arrow was struck by his instruction. The music, therefore, is helping the viewer to fill in the gaps of the narrative: ‘The narrative film is so made as to encourage the spectator to execute story-constructing activities. The film presents cues, patterns and gaps that shape the viewer's application of schemata and the testing of hypotheses.' (Bordwell: 1985: 33). Music supplies both ambiguity and also fills in the ‘gaps' or the ‘lacunae', depending on the narrative context, and this can be done via the leitmotif. Music aids in the spectators concretisation of the film, the spectator therefore is involved and invested in the narrative.
Narrative cueing can also refer to themes presented and finally resolved: for instance the theme that I will call ‘Robin Hood and his men' is the first music we hear, in the opening titles, is heard at the conclusion of the film and at structural moments during the film. It is characterised by a rousing, march-like, triumphant quality whilst concurrently maintaining a light-hearted edge. It is played as Robin begins his enlistment of men to fight with the Normans (e.g. Little John and Friar Tuck), and thereafter is heard when the whole congregation of Robin's men are in preparation for, or are in, a conflict to eventually overthrow Prince John. It is representative of loyalty, companionship, and of course, the fight against evil. It should be noted, in this context, that the film was made in 1937, with war pending in Europe, therefore there is a sense in which the film attempts to fight a war against evil: an essential feature of film narrative is its ability to create cultural narratives, and to feed into the cultural order. The representation of ‘goodies' and ‘badies' is essential to the cultural narrative in which the film is located, and the elements of image (the Norman's are often seen wearing darker colours) and music (the Normans are musically supported by moodier, less-melodic and more ominous music) help in this cultural process.
The opening ‘Robin Hood and his men' musical theme is followed by a regal ‘fanfare' theme It is used to connote the presence of royalty, prompts the realisation of the contamination of the current royal court and usually cues courtly congregations and events. The musical theme is most often played by brass, which are also seen on-screen (e.g. the archery tournament, which opens with a low angle shot of the buglers). The interaction of music and image, through the tangled web of cross diegetic and non- diegetic music is therefore direct and completely interrelated: the image has a complete dependency on the score to provide a fanfare-like theme in order to make visual and filmic sense.
As Kalinak argues, ‘Narrative is not constructed by visual means alone. By this I mean that music works as part of the process that transmits narrative information to the spectator, that it functions as a narrative agent.' (Kalinak: 1992: 30). Connotative music such as the leitmotif, then, interprets narrative events and anchors the meaning of the image: we are presented mid way through the action of the film, with a suspicious scene involving the plotting of Guy of Gisbourne and Prince John. The scene image, with its ominous looking dark shadows is underscored by a tonally vague, low register orchestral sound to cue the suspicions of the audience and to anchor the characterisation of the two scheming Normans. By deliberate contrast, the succeeding scene involving Will Scarlet and Robin strolling jovially through Sherwood Forest, is underscored by light-hearted, pastoral and tuneful music, and shows the Technicolor world in all its vibrant glory. The two scenes are purposefully juxtaposed: in the music and image combined, here we are offered the binary opposites of good and evil, which are played out in the narrative. A ‘number of commentators, influenced by Levi-Strauss, have argued that the linear sequence of events is merely the manifest content and that the more important latent content only emerges when, as expressed by Sheila Johnston, ‘key elements are isolated from the body of the narrative and rearranged into a new (achronological) matrix of binary oppositions.' (Lapsley et al: 1988: 133), and film music helps to highlight such a breakdown of binaries.
Since the 1930's and 1940's, and the days of Steiner and Korngold, dramatic changes have been made to what is acceptable as a film score. John Williams posed, in the late 1970's to the present day, the greatest ‘force in returning the classical score to its late-romantic roots and adapting the symphony orchestra of Steiner and Korngold for the modern recording studio' (Kalinak: 1992: 188), with other notable composers including Danny Elfman. However, in more recent times (starting with the first compilation in 1969 for Easy Rider), the pop score has been one of the most prevalent choices for the underscoring of film. Largely compilations of pre-existing pop songs, they are regularly criticised by film music experts as ‘spoiling the integrity of composed scores' (Gorbman in Hill 1998: 45), and being driven by commercialism. Whether this be the case or not, because our ‘experience of music in film is shaped by both its constitution as music and its function as an aural accompaniment to visual images' (Kalinak: 1992: 14), one must analyse them in terms of a ‘dual discourse' (Kalinak: 1992: 14), rather than independent blocks of eventual narrative construction: the form the music takes on is perhaps, in some contexts, inconsequential, whilst the combination of image and music remains the focus of interest.
‘Music and image collaborate in the filmic process. The farther music and image drift from a kind of mutual dependency, the more potential there is for the disruption or even destruction of the cinematic illusion.' (Kalinak: 1992: 15). But perhaps this is what some filmmakers now strive to do, as a break from the ‘invisible' classical Hollywood cinema? I argue that Quentin Tarantino attempts to escape the ‘rules' of Hollywood cinema, and traditional Hollywood scoring, in his film Pulp Fiction.
‘While watching a film, the spectator takes as one goal the arranging of events in temporal sequence. Our prior commerce with narrative and the everyday world allows us to expect that events will occur in some determinate order, and in most films specific cues encourage us to treat each distinct action as following previously presented ones.' (Bordwell: 1985: 33) But what happens when this natural order is manipulated, inverted or obscured? And does the music and image correspond with such an overturn of determinate order? ‘Generally, the spectator comes to the film already tuned, prepared to focus energies toward story construction and to apply sets of schemata derived from context and prior experience. This effort toward meaning involves effort toward unity. Comprehending a narrative requires assigning it some coherence', and Tarantino does not make this an easy task in Pulp Fiction, and nor does the image nor the music that he prescribes to accompany the jumbled narrative construction (Bordwell: 1985: 34). Pulp Fiction plays around with the narrative linearity, attempting simultaneously to achieve a sort of non-linear-linearity, by producing parallel linear narratives that loop back on themselves and that are not fundamentally driven by the closure in the way conventional Hollywood films typically strive for.
The soundtrack to Pulp Fiction supports and enhances the unconventional narrative progression. It uses a patchwork of pre-existing twentieth century popular music as its musical basis, turning categorically away from the Hollywood tradition of the especially composed classical score. The individual tracks are in themselves linear, yet juxtaposed into a musical sequence they don't logically cohere to linear development: the music Tarantino uses is employed to reflect the fragmented nature of the narrative and of the film as a whole. As individual tracks taken out of the filmic context, the music is not alienating nor confusing, but when used in sequence to underscore the image, they share no common musical material, no musical coherence and there's no harmonic pull to drive toward conclusion: the resultant effect is the imitation of narrative structure within the musical structure.
But interestingly, Pulp Fiction doesn't drift too far from the traditions of the classical Hollywood score: though no stylistic unity exists in the music, character development is. Character development is essential in this film due to the complex interweaving of characters, and forms a fundamental part of the narrative structure and vice versa. The music used to reinforce this relationship has the same treatment as seen in King Kong and The Adventures of Robin Hood. Immediately after the opening titles, Jungle Boogie by Kool and the Gang is played emphasising that the characters on-screen are cool, jive-talking dudes. In addition, the film also adheres to some of the qualities of the "inaudibility" principle used widely in classical Hollywood scoring: the music, whether diegetic or non-diegetic, fades substantially when the dialogue enters thereby still giving primary focus to the verbal cues (for example, the scene when Vincent Vega arrives at Mia's house, Dusty Springfield is played). This is a typical Hollywood technique, within a film that desperately tries to take an ironic look at Hollywood conventions in the attempt to overturn them and create the sort of film that may be considered (paradoxically) art-house-Hollywood.
Pop music is also interesting in its relation to the star system: pop idols bring their own narrative construction to a film, in a way very different to the studio-employed composer of the early Hollywood era. There's a cultural weight attached, that otherwise would be missing. In the scene where Mia Wallace and Vincent Vega are in the fifties diner, ‘Jack Rabbit Slims', there is an interesting use of inter-textuality used to intensify the formation of narrative and character development. John Travolta is seen to enter a dancing competition (dancing to You Never Can Tell by Chuck Berry), and this refers back ironically to his seventies hit Saturday Night Fever (1977), thus adding an inter-filmic, polysemic layering to the scene, to the character and to the film at large.
Addressing all film broadly, it is the case that if you ‘Change the score on the soundtrack, and the image-track can be transformed' (Gorbman: 1987: 30). This may be a great generalisation, however, given the creative potential, the variations of its use in combination with image, and its widespread customary usage I believe that it ‘is time to take up the work of film music: to recognise its centrality in the filmic experience and to make it fully a part of the ways in which we think about film.' (Kalinak: 1992: 39). Few would argue the centrality of the image in narrative construction, and indeed the pair work simultaneously to create, develop and associate motifs (both visual and musical) that enter into the film's overall formal system. It is clear that the inter-relationship between music and image has evolved dramatically from the days of functional piano improvisation. It now has a much more active role in filmmaking and is combined with image in a way that positively advances the narrative (or purposefully hinders the advancement), enhancing the general viewing experience. But while narrative, constructed by musical, visual and verbal forces, is crucial for making sense of the construction of film, it is possibly of equal use to the media industries. Narratives are often central to the marketing strategies the media industries deploy for advertising their products to audiences: film posters in cinema foyers and bus shelters, big and little screen film trailers and other tied in advertisements, are constructions which the media use to provoke the curiosity of the audience in the attempt to secure high audience ratings. Whether for commercial purposes or not, the film and its score clearly requires much creative input, thought and technical consideration, as well as a constant awareness of the collaboration with image and narrative. Yet film composers are rarely given the recognition they deserve. The ‘singular art', as proposed by Honegger, may be within reach, but we fail to recognise the efforts of those who strive to attain it.
The interrelationship of image, music and narrative in film
By Laura Callaghan
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