FSM # 43: (Film) music vs. silence
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I’ve been listening to less and less music even in “relaxed situations” over the last few years. I rather like to have the windows open at night and listen to the leafs that rustle in the wind etc. There’s just something “musical” about silence that is truly cathartic, especially if you’re outdoors; in nature, somewhere.
A few years ago, I would fill all these voids with music, though….especially film music.
What about you? Do you enjoy a good silence now and then or do you fill it all up with music? Does film music also make up your constant soundtrack of your life?
Funny to read this now, 18 years later. Oh, how I envy that person, not afflicted by tinnitus the way I am now. Silence is evil now.
I absolutely love silence. I am dependent on it. Even though I have a LITTLE bit of tinnitus myself, so it’s never 100 % silent.
I love silence. I need silence. Without silence, music would not mean anything and vice versa.
I’m the type of person who sits awake and upright in a dark room in silence, contemplating, startling others when they enter and turn on the light.I rarely have the time to sit down and listen to music, but it’s not much quiet around me either. Therefore, I do most of my listening at work.
The topic of silence in my own life is rather painful, due to the tinnitus, but there’s a tangential topic here that is worth exploring — silence in films!
For as much a fan as I am of film music, I also adore silences in films, i.e. the absence of music. Some composers nurture it almost religiously, like Michael Haneke, and I find myself absorbed by their sonic universes.
Do you – as a film score fan – dare to admit you also like silences in film?
Especially when it comes to violence in movies, those scenes are usually much more intense when they are staged without music.
A particular good example is the hospital scene from Spider-Man 2.
The movie is more or less scored wall to wall. But this scene gives chills by using no music.
I love the silent scene in FORREST GUMP where Forrest sits in silence on the front porch after Jenny has left and before he starts running.
I was thinking more about directors who rarely use music in their films at all. Like Haneke, who I mentioned earlier, or his compatriot Ulrich Seidl. It’s fairly common in “arthouse cinema”. Celine Sciamma rarely has a lot of music in her films. Or Ken Loach. And I remember I attended Cannes in 2016, and many of the buzz titles in the competition programme had very little to no original score. Like GRADUATION, THE SALESMAN, SIERANEVADA,TONI ERDMANN, THE UNKNOWN GIRL and so on. And of course the classic example that everyone thinks about when the topic is films with no music – Hitchcock’s THE BIRDS.
I used to hold the opinion that these films needed music, because I think music in film is so important. But over the years, I’ve found the approach refreshing. Often results in more ambigous storytelling.
Not sure if I remember right but didn’t the French Nouvelle Vague at first avoided actual film score with using diagetic music only? Somehow they changed their mind later on then resulting in many Delerure classics of course.
I used to hold the opinion that these films needed music, because I think music in film is so important. But over the years, I’ve found the approach refreshing. Often results in more ambigous storytelling.
Just as much as I love film musc there are type of music that would be “watered down” with a too traditional score. A bit of the cliche that music “manipulates” too much (of course what the film shows is already manipulation by itself, too). I am no expert of Haneke but I for example cannot imagine any score to BENNY’S VIDEO.
But often I music in documentaries misplaced and overused, especially these historic ones dramatizing everything with re-acting scenes.
Not sure if I remember right but didn’t the French Nouvelle Vague at first avoided actual film score with using diagetic music only?
Most of them have non-diegetic music, but it’s often played around with, like Godard did with Duhamel’s score in PIERROT LE FOU (abruptly cutting it off and restarting, for example).
But Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg’s “Dogme” project had this at first, i.e. no non-diegetic music.
The movie is more or less scored wall to wall. But this scene gives chills by using no music.
It’s in principal the same as a movie with very little music, where a scene with music makes a big difference. It’s the contrast.
How much music a movie “needs” can differ greatly. Both STAR WARS (1977) and CHINATOWN (1974) are two very well scored movies, with exactly the right amount of music.
STAR WARS has close to 90 minutes of music in the movie, whereas CHINATOWN comes out at less than half an hour or so. And CHINATOWN is the longer movie. Yet both movies have a perfectly fitting score that has just the “right” amount of music.
Movies have different requirements, not all movies need the same amount music.
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