100 Modern Soundtracks (Screen Guides) [2004 ed.] 1844570134, 9781844570133

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100

MODERN

SOU^SDTRACKS m-\

SCREEN GUIDES

Philip

Brophy

00 Modern Soundtracks

100

MODERN SOUNDTRACKS .4^ •*'

BFI Screen Guides •-*>'

»^

-r-'

•^

>«f

•tsr

c *•

Philip

Brophy

^

'"

J**:.

^h

Publishing

First

published

in

2004 by the

British Film Institute

21 Stephen Street, London

The

British Film Institute

WIT

ILN

promotes greater understanding and appreciation

access to, film and moving image culture

©

Philip

in

of,

and

the UK.

Brophy 2004

Cover design: Paul Wright

Cover image: The Conversation

(Francis Ford

Coppola, 1974,

©

Paramount

Corporation) Series design:

Set by

Printed

in

the

British Library

A

Ketchup/couch

Fakenham Photosetting

UK

ISBN

Fakenham, Norfolk

Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

catalogue record for

ISBN

Ltd,

by The Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wiltshire

1-84457-014-2 1-84457-013-4

this

book

(pbk) (hbk)

is

available

from the

British Library

Pictures

Contents

Acknowledgments

ix

Introduction

1

Akira, Katsuhiro

American

Otomo, 1988

Graffiti,

George

17

Lucas,

20

1973

Angel Dust {Enjeru dasuto), Sogo

Ishii,

1995

22

Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola, 1979

24

Arashi ga oka {Onimaru), Yoshihige Yoshida, 1988

27

The Ballad of Narayama {Naramaya

bustiiko),

Keisuke Kinoshita, 1958

29

Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, Russ Meyer, 1979 The

Birds, Alfred Hitchcock,

Bitter Rice {Riso amaro), Giuseppi

32

34

1963

De

Santis,

1950

36

Blade Runner, Ridley Scott, 1982

38

Blood Simple,

42

Blue,

Joel

Coen, 1983

Derek Jarman,

1

44

993

Blue Steel, Kathryn Bigelow,

1

990

Boogie Nights, Paul Thomas Anderson, 1997

46 49

1974

51

Carnival of Souls, Herk Harvey, 1962

53

Car Wash, Michael Schultz, 1976

56

California Split, Robert Altman,

Cast Away, Robert Zemeckis,

58

Orson Welles, 1941

60

Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick, 1971

63

Citizen Kane,

A

2000

BFI

SCREEN GUIDES

Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Special Edition),

Steven Spielberg,

1

977

Colors, Dennis Hopper,

65

1987

67

The Colour of Paradise {Rang-e khoda), Majid

Majidi,

1999

The Colour of Pomegranates {Sayat Nova), Sergei Paradjanov, 1969 Contact, Robert Zemeckis, 1997

.72

76

The Convent (0 Convento), Manoel De

Oliveira,

The Conversation, Francis Ford Coppola,

1

1998

974

78

80

1996

83

Heddy Honigmann, 1999

85

Crash, David Cronenberg, Crazy,

70 .

Days of Wine and Roses. Blake Edwards, 1962

87

Dead Man,

90

Jim Jarmusch,

995

1

Distant Thunder {Ashani Sanket), Satyajit Ray, 1973

92

Do

the Right Thing, Spike Lee,

94

Dr

Dolittle, Betty

Escape from

The

Thomas,

New

York,

1

989

998

John Carpenter, 1981 1971

Exorcist, William Friedkin,

Face/Off. John

1

Woo, 1997

97

99 101

103

Fantasia - The Sorcerer's Apprentice, James Algar, 1940

106

Forbidden Planet. Fred Macleod Wilcox, 1954

108

Gate of Flesh {Nikutai no mon), Seijun Suzuki, 1968

110

Godzilla - King of Monsters {Kaiju o Gojira), Inoshiro Honda,

1954

113

Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese, 1990

115

Guided Muscle, Charles M. Jones, 1955

117

Gummo, Harmony

119

Hail

Mary

{Je

Korine,

vous salue, Marie), Jean-Luc Godard, 1985

The Haunting, Jan De Bont, Heat, Michael

1997

1

999

Mann, 1995

123

125 128

Hour of the Wolf {Vargtimmen), Ingmar Bergman, 1968

130

House by the

1950

132

1975

135

River, Fritz Lang,

India Song, Marguerite Duras,

The Innocents, Jack Clayton, 1961

138

100

MODERN SOUNDTRACKS

The Insect

Woman

{Nippon konchuki), Shoei Imamura, 1963

on Your Grave {Day of

/

Spit

/

Stand Alone {Seal contra

tlie

Woman), Mier

tous),

Zarchi,

1

Gaspar Noe, 1998

Kaidan {Kwaidan), Masaki Kobayashi, 1964

978

140 1

42

144 146

The Keep, Michael Mann, 1983

149

Koyaanisqatsi, Godfrey Reggio, 1982

151

Last Year at

Marienbad {L'Annee derniere a Marlenbad),

Alain Resnais,

1959

153

Lost Highway, David Lynch,

M,

1

997

1

Magnolia, Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999

The

Man Who

Lies {L

Homme

Alain Robbe-Grillet,

Metropolis,

Fritz

1968

re). Pier

a Time in the

Sergio Leone,

160

qui ment),

163

Lang, 1927 and 1983

Oedipus Rex {Edipo

Once Upon

1

165

Paolo Pasolini, 1967

West {Cera una

volta

167

il

west),

969 1988

Patty Hearst, Paul Schrader,

The Pawnbroker, Sidney Lumet, 1965 The Pittsburgh

56

158

Fntz Lang, 1931

Trilogy,

Playtime, Jacques Tati,

1

J.

Schaffner,

72

177

1968

179

967

181

Delmer Daves, 1945

Pride of the Marines,

70

1

174

Stan Brakhage, 1972

Planet of the Apes, Franklin

1

184

Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock, 1960

186

Punch-Drunk Love, Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002

188

Querelle, Rainer

Resident

Evil,

Werner Fassbinder, 1982

Paul

W.

S.

Rosetta, Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne,

Rumble

Fish, Francis

Scarface, Brian

193

1999

Ford Coppola, 1983

The Samurai {Le Samourai), Jean-Pierre Satyricon, Federico

191

Anderson, 2002

Fellini,

De Palma,

Melville,

195

197

1967

199

1969

202

983

204

1

Scorpio Rising, Kenneth Anger, 1968

206

BFI

SCREEN GUIDES

Seduced and Abandoned {Sedotta e abbandonata), Pietro Gernni,

Shaft,

Gordon

1

964

Parks

208 1971

Jr,

211

The Shining, Stanley Kubrick, 1980

Some The

213

Kind of Wonderful, Howard Deutch,

Spirit

of the Beehive

Victor Erice,

{El espirltu

987

215

colmena),

218

Stand By Me. Rob Reiner,

1979 1

Suspiria, Dario Argento,

for the Devil

Teenage Rebellion, Norman

227

Plus One), Jean-Luc Godard,

1

968

1

T.

1

234

Herman, Richard

Lester,

1967

Agnes Varda, 1985

Violated Angels {Okasareta hakui), Koji

Wakamatsu, 1967

of the Dragon {Meng Long Guojiang), Bruce Lee, 1972

Index

238

244 246

Videodrome, David Cronenberg, 1983

Way

236

242

982

toit ni loi),

... .229

232

976

{Feng yue) Chen Kaige, 1996

Tron, Steve Lisberger,

Vagabonde {Sans

225

999

1988

Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese,

Moon

222 1

1977

{One

Talk Radio, Oliver Stone,

220

986

The Straight Story, David Lynch,

Temptress

la

1973

Stalker, Andrei Tarkovsky,

Sympathy

de

1

248 250

253

Acknowledgments

Thanks go a-literate

to:

Andrew

book; Adrian

Lockett for commissioning this thoroughly

Les Walkling for allowing

years at

RMIT Media

me

film

sound and music; Rod Bishop and

to develop

Arts, plus

my

my

Soundtrack courses over the

hyperactive take-no-shit students; Paul

Schutze and Alessio Cavallaro for enabling publishing of Herrington at The Wire for allowing Film Music' series; Keith Gallasch

allowing

who

me

me

my

work; Tony

to develop the 'Secret History of

and Virgina Baxter

to develop the 'Cinesonic' series;

all

at Real

Time

for

the amazing guests

attended the Cinesonic international conferences on film scores and

sound design, plus my key Scott Goodings, directors films

encouragement

continual and ongoing

IVlartin for

and feedback on my writing on

who

Monica

staff

Zetlin,

have allowed

and projects -

me

- Megan Spencer,

Adam to put

Lizzette Atkins,

Emma

Bortignon,

Milburn; and producers and

my

ideas into practice on their

Rod Bishop, David Cox, Marie

Craven, John Cruthers, Fiona Eagger, Tanya

Hill,

Vince Giarrusso, Ana

Kokkinos, Aida Innocente, Daniel Scharf, liana Schulman, Sarah Zadeh,

Lynne

B.

Williams,

Monica

Zetlin.

Introduction

Chimera cinema Welcome

to a

soundtrack.

vital

component

of the cinematic experience: the

An awkward realm where grand symphonies

overhead helicopters

panoramic spectacle; a bloodied

in

composers and sound designers

deep

pit

noisy', 'only orchestras

sound should be

and

to blows during the

of disinformation from which are

movies are too

it',

come

natural', 'film

'the art of

noise; noise

and

point can

be

it

distilled into a

music works best

like

'modern

when you

'film

don't notice

It

is

sound and

and speech; speech and sound. At no form which allows us to

The soundtrack

disequilibrium by

echoed truisms

can produce quality music',

a chimera of the cinema.

is

music; music

essential quality.

where

final mix; a

movies died with the coming of sound'.

soundtrack

Clearly, the

collide with

field

is

two meta-forces:

a world filnn

caught

in

safely state

its

eternal

scores - the commissioned

composition of music for specific scenes - and sound design - the conceptualisation of

how

dialogue, sound effects and atmospheres are

edited and mixed to provide the sound for a scene. Despite the existing

ways

in

which

critics

and

many

practitioners tend to separate the

forces, they continue to

combine according

to a unique, mutative

hermetic logic -

which conforms to

literary

figures, painterly this inability of

little

of

diagrams or photographic

two

and

models, operatic

allusions. In order to

accept

sound and music to be essenced from each other, one

has to think with one's ears.

SCREEN GUIDES

BFI

The cinesonic

womb

Sonic beings at our deepest and most unconscious

we

by sonar and aquatic sensations well before light.

The sensorium of the

The cun/aceous

womb

where the sonic

we

zone

Much

noise, shifting timbres, spatial

made

has been

sort of primordial social cave for storytelling.

say

and

air

our primary induction into sound.

deep rumbles, pink

reflections, swelling rhythms.

We

are shaped

film theatre returns us directly to a psycho-physical

of uterine impressions:

some

is

we

level,

are birthed into

of the cinema as

The cinema

a

womb

far

more

is

prevails.

'watch' movies, but the 'cinesonic' experience

is

than a mere optical event. Try watching a film with no sound: gone

power, emotion, drama,

vitality.

Shut your eyes and

is its

the

listen to

soundtrack, and through the blackness one can be excited by the orchestration of voices, atmospheres, effects and music. This sonic engulfs us

Yet to the

like

left

in

the unfolding audiovisual carnival that

is

is

a mysterious hieroglyphic stream, those squiggly white lines

under-theorised, presumed unimportant, yet

and

integral to technological

vital

to the history of

advances

the

in

entertainment industries over the past twenty-five years. You

you

the

of the celluloid film strip lay silent even to the inquiring eye -

audiovisuality,

without

how

the cinema.

realising

it.

But thanks to years of optical and

articulate filmic experience

literal

through words which use

metaphors. Though after a few simple pointers about

know

this

orientation,

visual

how sound

the most complex issues of the soundtrack's narrative power can

works,

become

remarkably evident.

Planet sound This

book

range of

will

guide you through the audiovisual layering of a wide

films, as eclectic in their collection as

status. Instead of forcing these varied

they are essential

ascribing significance, they are discussed to demonstrate

us back into the noise of reality - into

in

their

movies into a pre-fab mould for

its

psychological

how

they shoot

sonorum which

affects our everyday sense of time, space, mass, force, presence.

The

first

MODERN SOUNDTRACKS

100

morning, a distant siren at midnight, a woman's scream next

bird of

door, your baby's giggle, the

inopportune phone effects' to

breath of your dying father, that

last

heavenly voice - these are not mere 'sound

ring, that

you or me. Nor do they ever behave so

a film.

in

Night clubs, the ocean, tunnels, elevator muzak, stadium concerts,

shopping

malls,

Walkmans, home

freeways, televisions

surrounded by sonic spaces.

been

said

about

which

realities

theatres,

subway

You have experienced

how cinema

revives

direct your everyday

all

this

- but

are

has

little

and reworks these temperate

aural

momentum.

the deaf

Braille for

an attempt to move away from many well-applied

in

PAs, forests,

room while we eat breakfast - we

the next

in

literary

and

visual

frameworks through which the cinema has been perceived, structural

models of meaning are disavowed Following the voluminous ways every film covered

in

the book

is

in

in

favour of flow charts of effects.

which sound and music become manifest,

treated primarily as a spatio-temporal event

whose movement, denouement and performance

is

cited

and noted

audiovisual impact. Fundamentally, this requires a different

whose film's

'flow'

is

more important

momentum, than

it is

a film's signifying skeleton.

While many

'classics

in

A

in its

capture, replay

mode

for

its

of writing

and rendering of a

summarising, reducing or even encapsulating kind of

'Braille for

the deaf

is

required.

of cinema' are absent from this book,

its

focus on

the complexity of the soundtrack uncovers that the more interesting and

engrossing films

may

not be those missing

'classics',

whose

but those

soundtracks psychologically excite the auditory membrane. The ultimate aim of this

book

on what

is

to induce a consciousness of

we presume

to be our perceptual

how the

facilities

soundtrack operates

for

comprehending

film.

Diagnosing the modern All

100

entries

move forward from the view

destruction: a decimation of is

all

that

that has naturally

modernism

grown by

a spectacular practice of this destruction: Frankensteinian

is

itself.

in its

Cinema

BFI

assemblage, Futurist

in its

bombast.

result of technological, metaphysical

modern

All

that

and

audiovisuality therefore has less to

artificial,

This

which its

most inhuman, most

book

is

cinema

is

the

Cinema's

- even music;

has more to

it

chemical alteration,

And when cinema does

- that's

when

it's

at

its

most

unreal.

thus concerned with, swayed by and attracted to cinema

exhibits the scars,

corpus, and

Classical

in

do with the enlightened

plastic surgery,

eiectroshock therapy and nerve stimulation.

appear to be natural. Romantic,

modern

existential inquiry.

Classical arts of literature, theatre, painting

do with endoscopic exploration,

is

SCREEN GUIDES

make-up and covering

of these operations

whose soundtracks acknowledge the mutated

upon

state of

being which arises from decentred and deconstructed audiovisual distribution.

These are the films that are textually

filtrated

with the voices

of Glenn Gould, Phil Spector, Luigi Russolo, John Cage, Roland Barthes, Link

Wray,

Erik Satie,

Kraftwerk,

Yoko Ono,

Harry Partch, Jimi Hendrix

and Karlheinz Stockhausen, among others. While appear to be

made

in

the

directly last

this

brethren

may not

connected to the cinema, enough films have been

century to form a complex webbing to their work and

philosophies so as to constitute a sizeable body nominated herewith as 'the

modern soundtrack'. Threaded throughout

this

which the modern soundtrack

A

book's films are the key transformations by is

manifest:

(i)

ruminations on the nature of recorded sound;

(ii)

the bombastic deployment of sound effects;

(iii)

the spatialisation of atmospheres and environments;

(iv)

orchestral collapses

(v)

celebrations of electricity;

(vi)

the weaving and threading of songs; and

(vii)

the processing of vocal grain.

brief discussion of

follows.

and

interiorisations;

each of these technical and symbolic manoeuvres

100

MODERN SOUNDTRACKS

The nature of sound Sound has many

layers to

its

manifestation. While established discourses

how sound

enable separation and focus to perceive the film soundtrack that

all

occurs,

only on

is

it

the conflicting discourses of sound are

uncontrollably collided. Basic layers of

through

air

received by the ear

sound state

and

a linear

and processed by the

perceived, interpreted

is

how sound moves

sound would be the physical -

and other substances; the neurological - how sound

its

and associated with the

mental composure. Note

is

brain; the psychological

how

self, its

-

how

emotional

these basic layers virtually form

pathway from event to reception to comprehension, each with

territorial

break-away path hightailing

it

its

back to subsets of the sciences.

But sound has other routes which can cross, overpass or merge with the above rationalist triangulation.

the psychoacoustic -

how

A

secondary set of layers would be

the physics of sound are irrevocably tied to the

conditions of listening and the mental adjustment to sound's situation;

the phonological -

how sound

is

reconstructed

unfolds and reveals

itself

how sound

in

as an event

and shape.

as gesture, occurrence

Whenever sound occurs

the acts of recording,

in

encoding and rendering; and the performative -

conjunction with image,

its

status cannot

be qualified, described or annotated by any one layer of our cinesonic sextet outlined above. Issues of physical reality, personal memories,

and aural appreciation

be invoked

in

the

attempt to digest such an event. And yet the audiovisual event

will

interpretative reading

remain fraught with mystery:

symbol? an incision?

a

is it

will

a statement? a

documentation? a

dimension?

Modern soundtracks

are those that illustrate either a single

heightened sensation of one of these layers - as an act of rupture and dislocation, considering that

other

in

differing proportion

demonstration of sound's of sound' (as

in this

sense

such divination

is

is

all six

- or an overload of

ability to

artificial

modulate and affect each all

overcome and

layers

- as a

obliterate.

The 'nature

not a/any/all sound's essential or absolute guise

impossible) but

its

irrefutable behaviour, distinctive

SCREEN GUIDES

BFI

apparition and ingrained purpose.

might be - as

if

it

It

eschews any essence as to what

metaphor pointing

a

is

to

some

motivated the act of description - and instead accepts malleability

and

The nature of sound

its

thus overtly coded and transmitted as a

is

becomes so obsessed with

specialist

its pliability,

power. self-

The Conversation (1974), where an audio surveillance

reflexive act in

is

as

flexibility

it

sonic soul that has

a particular recording that his world

transformed. Blue (1993) contains no images bar a blue screen, yet

soundtrack

is

used as an intensely personal 'sonic

diary'.

sound can be constituted as an amplified stream of Temptress

Moon

(1996), or

more

erotica as

in

can be a debilitating shell-shock embodying

The Straight Story (1999).

familial discord, as in

manifestations and

it

its

The nature of

are each their

own

All

these discrete

exemplar, their

own

evidence of the nature of sound.

The bombast of sound

For some,

energy

in

effects

the cinema

is

a

form of noise

pollution, as

if

its

overbearing, dominating and numbing. This has formed the

is

basis for arguing that cinema's audiovisual loudness

is

some awful pop

culture noise constituting an unnecessary interference to the artful act of

communicating 'bombast of In

cinematically. For others, film

effects'

which cinema uniquely

the realm of the

modern soundtrack,

sound

this

and directed

audience only

at the

the

welcomed

in

where sound may

is

appear to be an attack on the audience. Far from jettisoned

is

delivers.

it:

sound

sound can resonate with the body of the viewer; how sound attain a bodily

presence which

sets

hurled,

is

order to figure

how

itself

can

up a sensational dialogue with our

bodies and minds. This

is

where animism

transformative

power and

between that which

is

overrides its

humanism,

extant energy.

broadcast and that which

maximising the act of listening

(in

in

testament to sound's

Sound energises the space is

received, thereby

the Cageian sense) and quelling any

notion that intaking film entails a contract of passive consumption. The

100

MODERN SOUNDTRACKS

bombast

of effects states that

of 'describing'

coming

alive.

sound comes from the screen not

what the screen

holds, but

in

an act of becoming

'meaning of sound'.

'reading', 'understanding' or 'deciphering' the

yet directional

and

authorless and inhuman,

is

affecting.

this sonic

animism

intersects with

and modulates the human

drama which propels the bulk of

storytelling in the cinema, the

does not preclude or negate the

latter.

If

former

anything, a heightened

humanism can be expressed when one accepts the base power as something greater than the fictionalised personages

of sound

and imagined

psyches which populate the cinema. Modern soundtracks which take recourse

in their

sound design and mixage generate awe-inspiring

opening up the cinema to broader statements of Hyper like

of

itself,

This constitutes an entirely different operation from

Sound's bombast on the modern soundtrack

When

an act

in

thrillers like

Angel Dust (1995) and

this

results,

life.

unclassifiable

pornography

Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979) certainly bombard the

audience with a barrage of psycho-sexual groans - but

in

blips, glitches,

gulps and

order to analyse audience response to unsettling

of sexual exchange. Science-mysteries like The Birds (1963)

cartoons

modes

and wild

Guided Muscle (1955) form massed attacks on the audience

like

with alienating noise and explosive sonics - but

in

order to symbolise the

subjective viewpoints of their characters' tribulations.

(1931) and The Innocents (1961) zone

in

And

films like

experiments on them with great subtlety and precision - but process generate a chillingly

distilled

M

on the audience to conduct in

the

cinema on par with the most

bombastic.

The marvel of space Somewhere between the death called silent

of

live

musical

accompaniment

theatres, the soundtrack lay spatially dormant. That

was

to so-

cinema and the wide application of Dolby surround sound

signified

is,

in

whatever 'space'

by any on-screen or off-screen sound was technologically

and ontologically streamed from the front-on emission of the screen.

BFI

This,

however, was a tenuous negation of

according to laws of physics.

You need space

SCREEN GUIDES

that defines

all

sound

sound to occur, and

for

sound can only be manifest through agent, action and auditor coexisting in

a shared or correlated space.

Sound and music that surround

us

in

everyday are mostly detached from the scopic. This tends towards a

between the consciousness of sound - that impelled by

the

split

acts of listening,

notions of importance and relevance, and objects of aural desire - and

its

unconsciousness - that requiring only the slightest act of hearing, placing

sound

as

backgrounded, unfocused, diffused, ambienced.

Cinema has had

to build

upon

its

soundtrack a complete

restructuring of the networking

between the

aurally unconscious. Film scores

and sound design would be two

crafts

and

which contribute to

industrial operations

and the

sonically conscious

this,

myriad ways that manipulate the audience into simulated

between

shifts

the conscious and unconscious. While categorical recognition of

not-music

(i.e.

sound) and

and somewhat narrowing

all

that

linguistic

identification of location, direction

while the audience

is

fixed

on

not-sound

is

purpose of

music)

(i.e.

staring at a screen

the world but also the feeling of being trapped

your

will.

window; your view

The 'marvel of space'

is

held,

arises

direct relation to that

in

and

terrified

a

window onto

a black box.

You

are

when you choose

to

changed, designed beyond

from your

sitting in isolation in

many

of

the

which have

which appears on the screen. Not only do

various types of sounds appear gratuitously, also shift through the black space

by that which

is

illogically, irrationally,

they

which engulfs you. You are excited

beyond the perimeters of the screen and

that which sounds behind you.

When slave

in

perceived

in this

way, the modern soundtrack

service to the image: film

is

front of them.

cinema's black box, subjected to an array of sounds,

no

that

all

the prime

also be controlled

in

deprived of even the base power of sight you have look out a

is

film audiovision,

and space must

The movie screen psycho-optically suggests not only

idly

historical

developing

is

in

no way

a

sound/music moulds a key for

realigning our consciousness to a non-hierarchical order of the senses.

100

We

MODERN SOUNDTRACKS

might not have eyes

in

the back of our heads, but our ears can hear

everything behind our head as well as

modern soundtrack image -

delights

in

all

that

is

front of our eyes.

in

The

rejoining actualised space to projected

to lever listening over seeing

-

either symbolically as

The River (1950) and Stalker (1979); cosmologically as

in

House By

Close

in

Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Contact (1997); or technologically as

in

Lost

Highway (1997) and Cast Away

(2000).

The collapse of the orchestra The

swirling sonic

grandeur of a symphony orchestra

a sign of 'production value' for

many cinemagoers -

orchestra's harmonic richness typifies 'the

sound of

is

so

considered to be

much

so that the

film music'.

Innumerable film scores feature a bellowing orchestra echoing the cavernous majesty of Richard Wagner and the acidic sweetness of Richard Strauss. Certainly, film music can reference these composers'

work, and do so with imagination and verve. But there are other options.

There have been a number of rebukes of

grandeur had been envisioned and employed centuries. Composers-cum-theorists

who

how in

orchestral beauty

and

the preceding four

enabled

this in

the

first

half of

the 20th century (Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Bela Bartok, Edgar Varese,

Anton Webern,

Pierre Boulez, Iannis Xenakis, Kryzsztof

Penderecki, Olivier Messiaen and Gyorgy Ligeti to collectively reimagined, reinvented

new

name

a few)

and reconfigured the orchestra as

a

compositional apparatus and sound-generating machine, while

using the materials,

methods and meanings endeared by preceding

centuries' rationale of orchestral composition.

The technological democratisation of the soundtrack - where

becomes

abstractly sonic despite

welcomed the cinematised

its

linguistic crafting

orchestra to be rendered

all

- should have

more akin to the

modernist techniques of the aforementioned avant-garde composers. But it

has remained a withering pursuit

film score. There, a

in

the

rigidly codified terrain of

reduced emotional range

is

the

guarded by harmonic

10

BFI

sentinels

- the major and minor modes -

nuance. Atonality

who

SCREEN GUIDES

rationalise psychological

allowed on the film score mostly to signify the

is

Other: the monstrous, the grotesque, the aberrant. Like the ultimate

death which must

befall

the movie monster, the presence of atonality

must be marked as transgressive and unforgiving. emancipated

(as

While the

Far

per Schoenberg's wish), dissonance

storytelling impulses

may be rendered

thin

which

and shallow by

crazily

classical

from being

is

condemned.

guide a populist movie

notions of myth or the

purist ideals of the avant-garde, those impulses are

astounding

when

gauged by modern and post-modern audiovisual perception. Many a

modern soundtrack

vibrantly celebrates the collapse of the orchestra:

from Bernard Herrmann's dissonant transsexuality de-jazzed asexuality

psychological soundscape

noise-quake

in

in its

rise

in

Araslii

in

in

(1988) and pathological

plastic arts,

cinema never experiences a

foregrounding the painterly, the

historical artistry

and

All

these

shows

that

revelation of

their specific disciplines are

its

was one, cinema

concede to being

electricity

where

via

its

is

Evoking

its

regarded as 'cinematic'

what about the

generally

electric?

unwanted despite

chemo-electrical

medium

if

but always to sound acoustic. Yet the

modern soundtrack's

unabashed

its

ever

vulgarity

'rise

film score breaks this aural

display of rocl< instrumentation -

connotes volume and

electricity

A

is

choreographic,

of depiction, their

preferred to look photographic, sometimes

theatrical,

of electricity' on the

ordinance

electrical circuitry

technological being.

its

theatrical, the

modes

they are blended onto the screen. But

Cinema

there

ol