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Narrative Film MusicAuthor(s): Claudia GorbmanSource: Yale French Studies, No. 60, Cinema/Sound (1980), pp. 183-203Published by: Yale University Press

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Claudia Gorbman

Narrative

Film

Music

Underlying he particular

elationships

etweenmusic

nd

the feature

story

ilm

re

theoretical

nd

aesthetic

roblems

hathave

ntrigued

wide spectrum fscholars nd critics orforty ears.The momentwe

recognize to what degree film

music shapes our

perception

of a

narrative,we can

no longer onsider t ncidental r innocent .Like

lighting, ree f verbalexplicitness,

music etsmoods and tonalities

n

a

film

narrative.

Having

come to

experience

story,

he

spectator

receivesmuch

more than hat,

ituated y theconnotativeystems

f

camera

placement, diting,

ighting

..

and

music.

But music differs rom

ighting nd other

elementsof

film n

severalimportant ays. First,we hear t,we don't see it.Hearing s

less direct thanvisual perception;

o see something s

to instantan-

eously dentifyhe

ight ays

with he

object

that

reflects

hem;

while

in

hearingwe do

not

as

automaticallydentify soundwith ts ource.

Moreover, hearing

equires

greater uration f the sound

stimulus

than vision

requires

of

an

image

in

order to be

recognized.

Thus

hearing

s

at

once

more

selective nd lazier than

vision;

t

focusses

consciously n one or atbesttwoauditory vents t a time.Now, in

watching conventional

ilm

whosedialogue and

visuals re telling

story,

we

devote our concentration

o

its

successive ventsand the

meanings

that

are constantly

ccruing

o

them.

Most featurefilms

relegate musicto

the viewer's

ensory ackground, hatgray rea of

secondary perception

east

susceptibleto rigorous

udgement

nd

most

susceptible o affective

manipulation.

Consider

this

ituation.

You

are

listening

o

a Bach

fugue

n

the

radio, pleased thatyour ttentivenessnables you topickout some of

the

many complexities f the

fugual tructure. ou note

the subject

(the melodic

theme)

as

each voice

successively nnounces t

in

a

different

egister;

you

can also

perceive and marvel at certain

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Yale FrenchStudies

permutations

f

the subject as,

for xample, t s played at different

rhythmsnd

tempiwhile mbedded

n theongoing ugue, r s played

in

melodic

inversionwhile yet

other voices play the subject in

its

more recognizable

orm;with ach new phrase,

hemovement f

still

more musical

materialconstantly ransforms

t.

At the heartof

the

performance,

friendwalks into your living

room and asks

your

opinion

on

a timely olitical ssue. You are suddenly

aced with

n

either/or roposition:

ose

completely

he threads f thatmagnificent

fugue,

or

ignore

he would-be

nterlocutor.

n

a film,where

narrative

is the excuse for, the cementof, and the raisond'etreof the film's

existence

we

opt

to focus attention

n the

narrative nd visual

realities on the

screen before

us, just as we probably

will

choose

to

concentrate

n

the

political

conversation

nd

thereby

ease follow-

ing the fugue's

rhetorical tructures.

We forsake ny consideration

of that

abstract

arrangement

nd

rearrangement

f sound

which

is musicbecause

it s

nonrepresentational

ndnon-narrative,

nd does

not inhabit he

perceptualforeground

f

the

narrative

ilm.

Let

us

furtheruppose

thatthe nterlocutor

s attractive nd

you

decide

to

put

aside

the Bach

on

the radio.

While

you discuss,

the

music continues.Absent-mindedly ou

allow

your

hand to

play

with

the

radio dial; the

station hanges

nd

your

onversation

s

suddenly

accompanied

by some drunkenly, razenly mprovised

ixtiesblues.

This strikes

ou

as inappropriate,

cheapening

he mbience

f

your

tte-a-tete.

You return uickly

to the

Baroque

music

station,

re-

deemed bycenturies f culture nd dignity.

This example raises

a

pointupon

which ome

of

film

music'smost

respected

critics ave not insisted.

To

judge

filmmusic s we

judge

pure

music s

to

ignore

ts

tatus

s

a

part

of

the

collaboration

hat

is the

film.

Ultimately t is the

narrative ontext, he interrelations

between

music

and

the restof the

film's

ystem,

hat

determine he

effectiveness

f

film

music.

We

maysee music s meaning ,

r

organizaing

iscourse,

n

three

'Sir Arthur

Bliss, for

example,

in

Grove's

Dictionary f

Music and

Musicians,

wrote:

In

the

ast resort

ilm

music

hould

be judged solely s music-that

is

to

say,

by

the ear

alone, and the

question

of its value depends

on

whethert can

standup

to

this

test.

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Claudia Gorbman

different

evels

in

any

film.

f

we listen

to a Bach

fugue,

ndepen-

dently f anyother ctivity, e are listening o thefunctioningfpure

musicalcodes, generating

musicaldiscourse;music n this evel

refers

to music

itself.2

he Bach fugue playing

pleasantly n

the sound

system

f a

coffeehouse

where

people

discuss

politics

r

play

chess

functions

more

in

its culturalcontext;

t

refers o

cultural

musical

codes

(and

elicits enculturated eactions).

For example,

the music

that plays while a

film's redits nroll-jazz, pseudo-classical,Wag-

nerian, folk-activates

these cultural odes,

and can reveal before-

hand a greatdeal about

thestyle nd subject f thenarrative o come.

Third, music

in

a

filmrefers o thefilm-that

is, it bears specific

formalrelationships

o coexistent lements

n

the film.The various

ways n which t does

so shall be called cinematicmusical odes,

and

these latter

will

form ur primaryenter

f

interest.

The Presenceof

Music

There

might

e

somethingnherently

aradoxical bout

the

pres-

ence of music

n

films,

ven

as

our

experience

s

spectators

eems to

affirm

hat

musicquite naturally elongs

n

movies.Without aking

the time

to refer

o

critical iteratures old as Lessingon comparative

arts,

we

may put the problem thus:

is not the rhetoric f

filmic

discourse

(representational,

naturalistic , hythmicallyrregular)

incommensurate ith herhetoric f musical

discourse nonrepresen-

tational,

lyrical ,

rhythmicallyegular)?

What explainsmusicbeing

there at

all?

We

may identify

everal

reasons for

the

existenceof music

in

accompaniment

o the

silent

film.

The

first

s

historical:music

for

silentfilms

eveloped

as

an

outgrowthf nineteenthentury ramatic

traditions.3

Further,

n

the silent

ilm,music

ommunicated

arrative

information

hathas since

been

restored

o

the

province f dialogue

and soundeffects.t also had thedecidedly ractical askofdrowning

2 Le

sens d'une

musique

est a chercher

ans sa structure

t non

dans

son origine

ou ses effets sychologiques

.

.

Nicolas Ruwet,

n

Langage,

musique,

oisie

(Paris:

Seuil, 1972),

p.

43.

3Cf.

Roger

Manvell

and John

Huntly, The Technique

of

Film

Music

(rev.

ed.,

New

York:

Communication

Arts

Books,

1975),

pp. 15-21.

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8/20/2019 2930011


Yale French

Studies

out the unromantic oise

of

themovie-house rojectors. ourth, the

verylivelinessof the action in the primitive ilent films ppeared

unnatural nd ghostlywithout ome

form f

sound corresponding

o

such

visual

vitality 4:

music eemed

to

help

flesh

ut the shadows

on

the screen. Composer Hanns Eisler refines his point

n

citing he

magic function f filmmusic:

Music

was

introudced

s a kind

of antidote gainst hepicture. he

need was felt o

spare the spectator heunpleasantnessnvolved

n

seeing effigiesf iving, cting,

and even speakingpersons,who were at the ame time ilent.The fact hat hey re

living nd nonliving t the ame time s what onstitutesheir hostly haracter,nd

music was introudced ot to supply hemwith he ife hey acked-but

to exorcise

fear or

help

the

spectator

bsorb

the

shock.5

All of

these functionsmay

be

qualified

s

instances

f

music as

mediation:

between

film

nd

older dramatic

raditions,

etween pec-

tator and

circumstances

f

projection,

between

spectator

s

living

being

and

the cinema

as

ghostly.

In

addition,

Jean

Mitry

maintains

thattherhythmf musicmediatedbetweenreal time s experienced

by

the audience and

the

diegetic

r

psychological

ime dhered

to

by

the

film:

Owing

to

its

unrealistic ature,

he

silent

film

was

incapable

of

making

he

spec-

tator xperience real feeling f duration. he

time ived

by

the characters

f the

drama,

the

temporal

relations f the shots

and

sequences-all

this

was

perfectly

well understood-rather hanfelt.What

was

missing

n

the

film

was a sortofbeat

whichcould internallymarkthepsychological imeof the drama

n

relation o the

primary ensation f realtime. n otherwords,whatwasmissingwas a beat capable

of

justifying

inematic

rhythm

nd cadence. This

beat,

this

temporal ontent,

was provided by

music.6

Noel

Burch also writes bout the function

f

rhythmic

edition,

ut

stressing

more

formal

onsideration.

Fritz Lang's Mabuse

made a

much greater mpression

n all of

us

when we were

finally ble to see itwith musical ccompanimentike thatprovided

n

thedaysof

silentfilm.

Admittedly

he music

n

this ase

is little

morethan ound

background;

nevertheless,

t

provides

time cale

against

which

he

rhythms

f the

dicoupage

4Ibid., pp. 20-21.

'Hanns Eisler, Composing

or the Films London: Denis Dobson,

1947), p.

75.

6Jean Mitry,Esthetique

t psychologie u cinema Paris: Klincksieck, 965),

II,

pp. 118-119. Translationmine.

186






8/20/2019 2930011


Claudia Gorbman

become

far

more concrete.'

Finally, Eisler recalls the basic social functions f music-that

is, to create a feeling f collectivityr communality

another orm f

mediation )-to elaborate upon

music's

social function n films,

wherein t acts as

a

cement,whichholds together lements hatotherwisewould oppose

each other

unrelated-the

mechanical product and the spectators, nd also the

spectators

themselves. he old stage theater, oo,

was

confronted

ith similar

eed,

as soon

as

the curtain

wentdown. Music between he acts met thatneed. Cinema music

s

universalizedbetween-the-acts

usic,

but used also

and

precisely

when there s

something o be seen. It is the systematic abrication

f the

atmosphere

orthe

eventsof which t s itself

art

nd

parcel.

t seeks to breathe nto he

pictures

ome

of

the life

that

photography

as taken

away

from hem.8

Clearly

the

majority

of these factors ontinue

to

prevail,

to one

degree

or

another,

n

the

sound

film. ilm

music

s an

established

act

in

conventionalnarrative inema.

Nevertheless t s constantlyngaged nan existentialnd aesthe-

tic

struggle

with

narrative epresentation.

roof of

this

film-music

dialectic ies

in

examining ilmswhere

the

pure musical odes

appar-

ently

dominate.

Take

for

xample

a

scene

in

Rohmer's

Ma

Nuit

chez

Maud

wherein

protagonist

aul

accompanies

a friend

o

a concert.

During the concert,

he

camera rests xclusively

n

the

cellist or n

entire

movement

f

the cello

sonata

he

plays. But narrative ontext

wins out nonetheless.Even though he music laimsthe foreground,

the spectator pays attention o it only incidentally, or two other

factors

pre-empt

our

interest.Since previous shots have strongly

suggested

hatthe concert

s seen

from

aul's pointof

view,we tend

to concentrate s

much

on

the fact f Paul's spectatorial

resence s

on the

explicit

ontent

f

the scene (musicians nd

music). Second,

we watch the cellist perform.

n

the act of placing ts object in a

frame,photography/cinematographyncourages special aesthetic

mode of contemplatingtscontent.

7Noel Burch,

Theory f

FilmPractice New

York:

Praeger, 1973), note, p.

100.

Kurt London's

comments n theway

musical hythm

ives auditory

ccentuation nd

profundity

o the

overall filmic hythm

all ntothe same

category s

Burch'spoints.

8Eisler,

p.

59.

187





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Yale FrenchStudies

Jean-MarieStraub's Chronicle

f

Anna

Magdalena

Bach

further

illustrates hemusic-filmialectic.The film onsists rimarilyfmus-

ical performances; ny nonmusical lements re there o add authen-

ticity nd meaning o the Bach worksperformed. he actorsdeliver

theirlines

in

a flat monotone, constantly enying he viewer

the

pleasure

of immersion n

a

fictional

ontinuity.

or this

reason,

Chronicle equires

t least wo

viewings,

o that heviewer

may

earn

o

experience

he

music without nsisting

n

cinematic narrative)dis-

course. The camera s motivated y ittle ut musical odes: it frames

a mediumclose-upof Bach playing harpsichordadenza in the

FifthBrandenburgConcerto, and then pulls back suddenly nto a

general shot

because the

orchestra

has enteredfor

the

movement's

closing

tutti.

Straub has said that

his

cinema

s

free

of

language, 9

hat

ine-

matic rhetoricwould obscure the

filmed

eality.

n

Chronicle,

e

has

at

least thinned

he

texture

f cinematic

anguage

to a

point

where

musical rhetoric an once morebe recognized ndenjoyed s suchby

the spectator.

The

drasticdegree

of cinematic

minimalization eces-

sary

in

this

enterprise

ttests

eloquently

to the

enormity

f

the

spectator's

will

to

impose

narrativemotivations

n

viewing

film.

As

an

exception to the rule, Chronicle econfirmshe

fact

of

subordi-

nation of musical messages to narrativemessages

in

the standard

feature

film.

The Music/SceneRelationship Nondiegeticmusic)

Straub's

film

s an extreme xample,well outside heconventions

of classical

narrative,

o show that

although

film

music

undeniably

possesses

its own

internal

ogic,

t

always

bears

a

relationship

o the

film n which it appears. Thus, our next task is to consider the

possible

interactions etween music

and the

filmic exts

n

which

t

participates .

9lnterview

n

Cahiers

du cinemaNo.

223

(August 1970):

I'm

trying

o make

films

that

have

no

language,

nd when

sense that here

s

a

cinematographicanguage try

to

destroy

t

before

t is

born.

I'm

trying

o

eliminate

ll

the

obstacles

betweenthe

spectator

nd

what

'm

showing

f

reality. Trans.,

Maureen Turim.

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Claudia Gorbman

The restrictednumber of possible film/musicelationships

s

discussed by most

scholars eems curiously rimitive,

imited

argely

to

the concepts of parallelism

nd

counterpoint.

ither the

music

resembles or it contradicts he action

or mood of whathappens

on the screen. SiegfriedKracauer,

for

example,

writes hat

ounter-

point

occurs

when music

and

picture

onvey

different

eanings

that meet

in

a montage effect: Imagine

the close-up

of a

sleeping

face

which

appears

to

the rhythms

f nightmarish usic:

t is all but

inevitablethat the intriguing iscrepancy

etweenthese sounds and

so peacefula picture hould puzzle us. '0

Is there no other way to qualify

film

music

which

does

not lie

between these opposites

but outside them?

f

we must summarize

music/diegesiselationships

n

twowords r ess, the

notion

f mutual

implicationmight elp us at least to consider he problem etter,

nd

with he respect ue to films f any

complexity. or

it s debatable

hat

informationonveyedby disparatemedia

can ustifiably e called the

same

or

different.urther,

he notionsof

parallel

and

counterpoint

erroneously ssume the mage as autonomous.Kracauer'svery

xam-

ples show how music helps the viewer

to define he images, them-

selves polysemic. isler comments

n

the

nadequacy

f thenotion f

parallelism:

From the aesthetic ointof view,this elation s notone of similarity,ut,

s a

rule,

one of

question

and

answer,

affirmationnd negation, ppearance

and

essence.

This

is

dictated

by

the

divergence

f themedia

n

question

nd the

pecific

ature f

each.

l

We maythenraise the ssue: isn'tany musicusually ufficiento

accompany

a

segment

f film?

n

fact, he answer s yes. Whatever

music is applied to a film egmentwilldo something, ill have an

effect-just

as

whatever

wowords

poet

putstogether

ill

produce

a

meaning

different rom hat of

each

word separately.Kracauer's

reactions

to

a drunken movie-house pianist from his childhood,

whose inattention o the screen resulted

n pleasingly northodox

audio-visualcombinations, ecall theSurrealists' elightndiscovery

on

every plane

of life

where there

ssued

a

fortuitous ncounter

'0SiegriedKracauer,

Theory f Film

New York: Oxford

University ress,1965),

p.

14 .

I

IEisler,

p.

70.

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Yale French

Studies

between two unlikely ntities.

Jean Cocteau wrote that

he actually

scored some

of his films n theprinciple fwhathe called

accidental

synchronization :

he would take George Auric's music, carefully

written

or

particular cenes

in

his

film, nd deliberately

pply the

wrong music

to the wrong cenes.

Eisensteinhad pointed o music

as one

of the

elements

n the

montage

that

comprises

film.And

whether certainmontage

of

elements s intended

r not surrealist

word-gamesvs. traditional oetic

activity, he drunken ianistvs.

a

scoreby

John

Williams),

heir

orroboration

ill

generate

meanings.

The point s that mage, sound effects, ialogue, and music-trackre

absolutely

nseparableduring

he

viewing xperience,

nd they orm

a combinatoire

f

expression.

Any music

will

do (something),but

the coincidence

n

time of

music

and

scene creates differentffects ccording o

the dynamics

and structure

f the music.

Obviously,

f

nsteadof orchestrated

olk

music a sudden

tense dissonance

or Indian drumbeatwere

to hit

the characters

n

Stagecoach

as

they

wend

their

way

across Monu-

ment Valley,

we would drastically

evise our mental

nventory

f

interpretations

f

the drama

of the moment.

To demonstrate he

interdependence

f

music nd

film

iegesis,

we

might

se the tool of

commutation

y taking ny

small

egment

f

film

nd

applying

iffer-

ent types

of musicto it. The

Stagecoach

xample lready

uggests he

dramatic

mportance

f

tension-producing

armonies

nd

pauses,

as

well as general

style. Let

us further

nvestigate

music's

capacity o

create rhythm, tmosphere, inematic pace, spectatorial istance,

and

point

of

view, by selecting

short

egment

rom ruffaut's ules

and

Jim.

In a

sequence

fairly arly

n

the

film,Catherine,Jules,

nd

Jim

bicycle

down a

country

oad

in

a

sortof

metonymicalmage

of

their

own lives'

trajectories.

A

long high-angle

hot

howsthe

bicyclers

s

littlemore than

a

trioof specks

on their

winding oad,

pedalingvery

regularly, mbodying

hatdialectic

of

fate

and free

will

thatcharac-

teristically ervades

Truffaut's ilms.

The

musical theme

that plays

consists

of two

neighboring

otes

alternating

with each other

for

190






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Claudia Gorbman

measureson end before esolving o a cadence.12 Though tcan hardly

be called an interestingmelody, Delerue's delicate

woodwind-and-

string rchestrationounteracts

ts

nherent ullness.Also,

of

course,

there s its relationship o a particular et

of

mages.

The

regularity f

the

musicalrepetition mphasizes

he

regularity

of

the characters'pedaling motions. The allegretto empo and

the

total lack

of

harmonic

r

rhythmicurprises nly

reinforce he die-

geticpedalingrhythm.

t

is

important

o

note that he

rhythms

re

not

one and

the

same:

if

each

musical

downbeat

coincided

xactly

with

each turnofthe pedal shaft y each character,wewould be affected

strangely ndeed,

made conscious of a

perverselymanipulative

ar-

rator. Nevertheless,

he

music

turns

egularly, nd although

here

s

no question of identity etween musical and diegetic hythm,

here

does result

a

sensation

of

mechanicalness;

he music

is,

in

a

not

unpleasant way, reinforcinghe detachment onveyed

n

the

high-

angle

shot.

Let

us now

perform commutation

n the

bicycling egment y

changing

he

music

on

the soundtrack.

irst,

f

we

put

the

music nto

a minor

mode, a sadder,darker,

moreremote

eeling

omes

upon

the

scene. Indeed, later

in

the

film

he melody does appear

in

minor;

and, especiallyby contrast o itsprevious tatement

n

major,

t

gives

all the more

poignancy o the

mood

of ts

scene.

Or

we might hange

the

tempo

of

the music. f

played muchfaster, llegro staccato, his

music

will

dd an energy, n allkgresse o the hree haracters' icycling,

and perhapseven an optimism otpreviously uggestednDelerue's

score.

Further changes could be broughton the theme

in

terms of

instrumentation:magine he differencen effectf the melodywere

performed

n

a solo violin

more pathos),

a

solo

tuba

more humor),

a

large

orchestra

overblown,Romantic xcess). Changes

n

rhythm,

as well

as

articulation accents, phrasing), ach would have corres-

ponding

effects n the

way

we

receive the diegetic nformation.

I2Allegretto

- r i9

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We could

replace

the

entire

unitof musicby another heme. n a

later scene Catherine sings a song, Le Tourbillon, that subse-

quently inds tself n the

soundtrack s backgroundmusic.The lyrics

in

the sung version-words that mphasize he character f ove as a

circular,repetitive eries

of

meetings, ffairs, nd separations-are

reinforced y a pleasantly

epetitive une. Wouldn't thistune work

well as nondiegeticmusicfor

our bicycling heme?Yes. But a theme

is by definition musicalelement hat s repeated during he course

of

a work; as such it picks up diegetic ssociations,which, n turn,

infuse themselves nto each new thematic tatement. f textual le-

ment

X

is repeated ater

n

a

text,

t

s not stillmerelyX, but

X

plus

an

escort

of

accumulated

meanings. Le Tourbillon

is

first er-

formed

n

the film

y

Catherine

and by Albert, secondary uitor).

If

this melody were to

accompany

the

bicycling hots

of the

three

protagonists,t would function

n

such a

way

as

to put

the

weight

n

Catherine-to imply some

manner

of

narrative

focus on

her

or

complicitywithher. The melodywhich nfact ccompanies hescene

carries

no such

thematic

aggage,

forthis

s

its first ccurrence.

On

the other

hand,

we

may

compose

a

piano boogie-woogie

or

the

afternoon

yclists.

his

injects

humor

not nherent

n

the

mage,

partlyby

virtueof the

ungainly

uxtaposition

f

rhythms

t

creates,

and partly lso because

of

the cultural ssociationsof this musical

style historical eriod,class)

that

nter o

colorour

perception

fthe

threesome.

Speaking

of

associations,

we need

only

to

commute

well-known iece ofclassicalmusic-say, theopening fBeethoven's

Fifth ymphony- to imagine tseffect n the

cene.

Such a

theme,

n

all

its

force,would end uncalled-forpic grandeur

o the

poor

trio f

unsuspecting icyclers.Moreover,

ince the

filmgoer

nows hismus-

ical warhorse, his/her leasure

in

recognizing

t

in

a

new

context

threatens

o interfere ith

reading

the

story

f

the

film.

Silence

Since commutation ocuses our

attention

n

the

existing

music

versus the

music

that

might

have

been,

it

brings

out

stylistic

nd

cultural

nformationhat

goes unrecognized

n

the usual

processes

f

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Claudia

Gorbman

filmviewing,

nd

again suggests he

breadth f the subliminal

ower

that

music exerts

during he

film

xperience.

But there s

another

commutationwe

have not

yet

considered:

ilence.

The

effect f the

absenceof

musical oundmustnever

be underes-

timated; ilmmakers

raditionally,

ave

indeedtended o

ignore

musi-

cal

silences

n

mixing

heir

oundtracks. Pas de

trou,

urtout

as

de

trou, c'est un des cris

de terreurdes

cineastes.

Et si

trou

il

y a,

bouchons-le.Avec de la

musique.

Henri

Colpi

voiced this

riticism,

picking up on

Maurice

Jaubert's omplaint s

early as

1936

that

filmmakersall on composersonly to underscore constantly the

moods and

actions

of

scenes

and

boucher es

trous onores. '13

What would a

musical silence do to

the bicyclers'

romenade?

Interestingly, his

depends on what

kind

of silence

is

imposed.

A

diegetic

musical

silence

might

onsist f

the characters

wending

heir

way along

the road

to

thesole sound of

pedals and

gears

creaking.

n

this

sort

of scene which

conventionally

emands

backgroundmusic,

diegetic

sound

with

no music can function

ffectively

o

make the

diegetic pace

more

mmediate,

more

palpable,

n

the

absence

of that

Muzak-like

overlay

o

often hrust n the

spectator's onsciousness.

(It

also

emphasizesthat he characters re

not

speaking,where

here

is no

music tomitigate his

verbal

ilence.)

Conventional

ractice

as

made

an

anchor

of

background

music,

uch that

t dictates

what

our

response to the

images

ought

to be.

Remove it

from scenewhose

emotional

ontent

s not

explicit,

nd

you

risk

onfronting

he

udience

with an image thattheymight ail to interpret .

For

nondiegetic ilence, the

soundtrack s completely

without

sound.

Dream

sequences or

other

filmic

epictions

f ntensemental

activity

ometimes un to

a silent

oundtrack.

completenondiege-

tic

silence would

be

extremely nlikely

nywhere

n

Jules ndJim, et

alone the

bicycling

egment.For

if

this

silence

seems oneiric,we

might sk

ourseles

whose dreamor

memorywe are

watching, nd

why

t is

so

dreamlike.

WithResnais

or

Herzog,

these

questions re

more

appropriate.) The spirit f

easy

collectivitymong

Truffaut's

characterswould

be

altered

f

the

music, aken

from he

soundtrack,

left void.

I3Henri Colpi,

Difense

et

llustratione la

musiquede film

Lyon:

Socidtdd'ddi-

tion, de

recherches t

documentation

indmatographiques,963), p.

51.

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Studies

A structural

ilence occurs

where sound

previously resent n a

film s laterabsent at structurallyorrespondingoints.The film hus

encourages

us

to

expect the

musical) sound

as before,

o

thatwhen

in factthere s

no music,we

are aware of its

absence. For

example,

Public

Enemy (Wellman,

1931)

begins with a title shot,

1909 ,

accompaniedby

busy, heery

music

n

a

majorkey.

The

first

equence

follows,

introducing he two

protagonists s

young boys, playing

boys'

games-depicted as

harmless-which

nvolvevariousdegrees

of

trickery nd

petty heft.

he

next

sequence takes

place

six

years

later,whentheyhavegraduated nto real crime. tscorresponding

introductoryitle

hot, 1915 , this

ime s not

accompaniedby any

music. The

silence suggests loss of

frivolity, fall from

he child-

hood

games

of

nnocence hathad

initiated he two ntotheir

ives s

criminals.

A

similarly omberuse

of absent

music

occurs

n

Fellini's

Nights

of Cabiria.

In

the

opening cene,

no

music

plays

on the

soundtrack,

while on the screen an untrustworthyuitor hovesCabiria into the

river

nd runs

off

with

her

purse.

An

abundantly

music-filled

ovie

follows,

until he final

equence

is

reached.

Cabiria

and her

beloved

husband-to-be

walk

atop

a

steep

cliff

verlooking river;

she has

with her

all her

life's

savings.Again,

music

eaves

the

soundtrack,

and

again,

the man

proves

to

have

deceived her.

No

music

could be

as

eloquent

as

the lack

of

it

here;

and this silence

points

out a

structural elation

showing,

n

a

way,

that the

film

has

virtually

createdCabiria as a woman to be deceived,robbed,andpushed nto

rivers

by

men.

Narrative/Diegesis

Although by

the 1920s the Russian

Formalists

ad

explored

the

basic distinction

etween fable

the

narrated

tory,

he

represented,

thediegesis)and the subject (thecinematic reatment f thestory,

that

s,

its narrative

epresentation),

t was

theFrench

filmologues

f

the

1950s,

headed

by

Gilbert

Cohen-Seat,

who refined ertain on-

cepts

and

terminology

hat

paved

the

way

for

systematic

tudy

f

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Claudia Gorbman

film

narrative.Gerard

Genette defines he

diegesis

as

the spatio-

temporaluniversereferredo bytheprimary

arration. 114

tienne

Souriau,

a French

ilmologue, mplifies

n

thisdefinitionn terms

f

cinema

specifically:

Diegesis, diegetic: ll that

belongs, by inference, '5 o the narrated tory, o the

world supposed or proposed

by

the

film's

iction. x:

(a) Two sequences projected

consecutively an represent

wo scenes separated

n

the diegesisby a long nterval

(several

hoursor

years

f

diegetic ime). b)

Two

adjoining

tudio ets an

represent

locations

supposedly

hundreds f feet part

n

diegetic pace. (c) Sometimes

here

are two actors e.g. a childand an adult, or a starand a stuntman r double) to

successively epict the same

diegetic haracter.'6

Genette's and Souriau's

definitionsgree that he

diegesis

means

the

space-timeuniverse nd its

nhabitants

eferred

o

by

the

princi-

pal

filmic

narration. ouriau's

wording

hows a more

exacting

on-

cern

for ome importantetails. First,he takescare to

furnish

xam-

ples of both

spatial and temporaldiegetization

f filmic

lements.

Second,

he

includes

he

phrase

by

nference

dans l'intelligibilit6 ),

whose

importance

will

presently ecome

clear. At

this

point,

then,

we

may summarize nd define diegesis as

being

the

narratively

implied patiotemporal

orldof the ctions

nd

characters.

However,

a

problem arises

in film

tudy:

how

to pinpoint

his

narrativemplication.

What n a filmmakes t possibleforus to infer

that

characters

nd space exist

even when

they do not appear on

screen,

o

infer

logically

ontinuous niverse,when hefilm

resents

onlya series oftwo-dimensionalompositions-discrete nd discon-

tinuous shots? In

other

words, how do the perceived sounds

and

images, all edited and

spliced together, ive us the impression

f

some

real world they

re supposedly

xtracted rom?We seemto

14Gerard Genette, D'un recitbaroque :

Figures, .

II

(Paris:

Editionsdu Seuil,

1969),

p. 211. The primary

arration esignates

he principal evel of

narration, s

opposed

to

stories-within-the-story

hichGenette

ermsmetadiegetic arration,nd as

opposed

to narrativenstrusionsrom

withoute.g.

metalepsis,

articipatio)

r

extradie-

geticelements.

15Orig:

dans

l'intelligibilitecomme ditM.

Cohen-Seat).

16Etienne Souriau,ed., L'Universfilmique

Paris, 1953),p. 7.

Translationmine.Cf.

also

Ch.

4, pp. 97ff,

f

Christian

Metz,

Film

Language New

York: Oxford

University

Press, 1974).

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have psychological apacity to impose continuityn filmed mages

and sounds beforeus-a capacity o take Kuleshov's ittle equence

composed of a shot

of

a man's face followedby a shot of a bowl of

soup followedby a shot of the man again, and to say thatthe man

standsnear the table and is looking t the food even before umping

to the connotativeevel on

whichwe

perceive

him

xpressing unger).

From three fragments f a supposed reality,we infer, e-construct,

the

diegesis;

all

narrative epresentationresents

s

the subjectfrom

which we derive the fable.

Filmmakershave departed from trictly iegeticrepresentation

almost since the beginning f film tself. n the silents, isual meta-

phors commonly ppeared.

In

the sound film, he use of visualmeta-

phor strikes s as artificial,ince therealistic ntegrityf thediegesis,

seemingly nhanced by the ifelike resenceof sounds and dialogue,

is all

the more violently erturbed y nondiegetic mages.

Such

was

the reaction as

early

as

1936, to

a shot

in Fritz

Lang's Fury:

a

nondiegetic nsert f cacklinghens, which ommented n a montage

depicting townsfolk preading gossip, was considered

forced and

dated. On

the

other

hand, metadiegetic mages-those supposedly

narated

or

imagined by

a

character

n

the

film-persist.

n

addition

to

dreams, visions,fantasies,

nd the

like,

a

whole

flashback

ntro-

duced by a character who

thus

becomes a secondarynarrator)

s

a

common elementof

film

discourse.

It is not difficulto realize thatthe soundtrack akes manymore

liberties with the diegesis than does the image track. Voice-over

commentaries nd

verbally

narrated

flashbacks,

oth

nondiegetic,

punctuate many

film

narratives.Natural sounds

or sound

effects,

however,

tend

to remaindiegetic unless they ccompany lso non-

diegetic mages).

The

reason

for this ies

in

the

ambiguity

f

many

sounds

when

presented

out

of

the contextof their

sound

source.

Significantly,

he

only

element

f

filmic

iscourse

hat

ppears

exten-

sively n nondiegetic s well as diegetic contexts, nd oftenfreely

crosses

the

boundary

ine

n

between,

s music.

Once we

understand

the

flexibility

hat

music

enjoys

with

respect

o

the film

iegesis,

we

begin

to

recognize

how

many

different

inds

f

functions

t can have:

temporal, spatial, dramatic, structural, enotative,

connotative-

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Claudia Gorbman

both

n

the diachronic low f a

film

nd at various nterpretive

evels

simultaneously.

Diegeticmusic

a. Definitions

Diegetic music: music

that

(apparently)

ssues from

a source

withinthe narrative.While most viewers

will

agree on

whether

particular nstance ffilmmusic ssues from diegetic ourceornot,

a caveat-itself

withrich

onsequences-is

in

order

here.

Fellini,

for

example, deliberately

lurs he

ine betweendiegetic nd nondiegetic

componentsof his filmic iscourse, nd he particularlyoves

to use

music to serve thispurpose. Beginning s early

s

La

Strada,

Fellini

elevated this distinction

o the statusof a

dialectic,

fundamental

structuringrinciple f hisfilms.

7

As one of tsmostdeeply

ntrenched

conventions, he Hollywood musical also plays

on the tensions

hat

themusically iegetic/nondiegeticmbiguityreates.AndVigo,Clair,

Duvivier, Gremillon,Resnais, Carne, Renoir,

and a host

of others

since

1930

participate

n

a strongGallic tradition

f

exploiting

he

diegetic mbiguitynherent

n

film

music.

If

Genette has distinguishedt least three evelsof narration-the

diegetic arisingfrom he primary arration), he extradiegeticnar-

rative ntrusion pon the diegesis), and the metadiegeticpertaining

to narration y a secondarynarrator)-may we speak also of meta-

diegetic

film

music?

A

hypotheticlnstance: arly

n

a film

we witness

the

great

romanceof

protagonist ,

which

nds

tragically uring

he

War. Years

later,

while

X

and his best

friend

Y

sit

n

a bleak cafe

discussing heir rretrievableoys,

Y

brings p the name of Xs lost

love. This strikes chord: a change comes over Xs face, and music

swells

onto

the

soundtrack,

he

melody hathad played early

n

the

film

n

the night

X

had mether.

On

whichnarrativeevel do we read

this music? It is certainly otdiegetic,fortheforty-piecerchestra

that

plays

s

nowhere

o be

seen,

or

nferred,

n

the

filmic

pace

of

the

cafe. In a

certain ense,

we

may hear t as bothextradiegetic-for

ts

17See my article n Nights f Cabiria:

Music as Salvation:Notes on Fellini nd

Rota, Film

Quarterly 8,

2

(Winter 974-75):17-25.

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lack of a narrative ource-and metadiegetic-since the scene's con-

versation eems to trigger 's memory fthe romance nd the song

that went with it; wordlessly,he takes over part of the film's

narration nd we are privileged o read his musicalthoughts.

Note where this speculation eads us: to the veryfrontiershat

separate thegivenfrom he nferred

n

reading

film. f

t s always

bit presumptuous o assume as truth hat a diegeticuniverse xists

somewhere beyond the bounds of screen and soundtrack, nd to

make statements ased on those assumptions-about a character's

psychologicalmotivations, r the order f narrative vents

n

diegetic

time-it is one step morepresumptuous

o

suggest

hat ertainmusic

heard in a film s being thought y a diegetic haracter.

In reading music as metadiegeticor not, the issue is not its

truth/falsityalue-for music

s not

representational,

nd as

such,

cannot

lie-but

rather ts

connection

o

a

secondary

narrator

t

all.

Although

the

question

of

point-of-view

usic demands

rigorous

analysis,we may agreethat metadiegetic eadingdependson justi-

ficationby narrative ontext nd on other pecific inematic onven-

tions.

b.

Affective

oles

of diegetic

music

The

mood of

any

music on the

soundtrack,

e it

diegetic

or

nondiegeticmusic,

will

be

felt

n

association

with

diegetic

events.

Curiously, critics ftenmake the error

of

classifying

ilm

music as

either

nondiegetic

nd

therefore, hey contend,capable

of

expres-

sion,

or

diegetic, realistic ,

divorced

from he

tasks of

articulating

moods and dramatictensions.18 We need only

thinkof

countless

nightclub ceneswhere countlesscouples

declare their ove to soft

music:

sometimes

(diegetic)

orchestra

r

jukebox plays it,

some-

times

it

plays nondiegetically

n

the

soundtrack-with

about the

same

expressive

value.

What wemay ndeed remark boutthespecial expressive ffect f

diegeticmusic s

its

capacity o create rony, n a more natural way

18See,

for xample

MarkEvans, Soundtrack: he

Music of theMovies

New York:

Hopkinson

and

Blake,

1975). Even Manvell

and Huntleyperpetuate his

thoughtless

distinction:

f.

The

Technique f

Film

Music, p. 45.

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Claudia Gorbman

than nondiegeticmusic. Imagine

for

instance

that the heroine

is

enjoying herself at a party; people dance and shout to a lively

jitterbug.Suddenly message arrives orher, saying hat her fiance

has just been killed. As a close-up hows us the note, the gay music

continues to revel on the soundtrack,

unaware of its roniccom-

mentaryon her lover's death. Now imagine the scene conceived

differently.nstead

of

being

at a

party,

the heroine sits

at

home

chatting

with a

neighbor.

The unfortunate

elegram rrives,

nd

a

nondiegetic endition f the itterbug ccompanies heclose-up.

Now

this seems a shocking exercise in sheer styleand narrative elf-

consciousness.

Even

though

we know that the narratorhas been

equally responsible for the music/imagerony

n the

party cene,

his creative effronterytrikes s withgreater orce n the second

case-even

puzzlement. By taking

music meant as

extranarrative

comment

nd

rendering

t

diegetic

n

the first

xample,

the narration

motivates,naturalizes he music,

makes

ts disparity

ith

he filmed

events acceptable.

In

the dominantfilmmakingradition, he rhythm

nd mood of

diegeticmusic

that

coincidentally layswith scene

has

been

made

to match the scene's mood and pace withan uncanny onsistency.

This practice n fact mplies a departure f diegeticmusic from ts

naturalisticndependence nd a movement oward he ction-imitating

roles we mightmorereadily xpect

f

nondiegetic

usic.There

are,

of

course, degrees

of

this

improbable fusion

of

diegetic music

with

action. The most closely synchronizedmusic-scene oordination s

what we shall call orchestration .n Nights f Cabiria, a rich ctor,

Lazzari,

has

broughtprotagonist abiria, a prostitute, o his home

for he

night.

While

they

wait

for

he

servant o bring inner, azzari

puts the second movement f Beethoven's Fifth ymphony n the

record player. For the rest of the durationof the piece, or until

Lazzari

removes

it

fromthe

turntable, ellini paces

the

action to

matchexactly he movement f the ymphony. t thepoint f a great

crescendo and

modulation,

servantwheels

n a

majestic ray

oaded

withfood n silver

erving ishes.The spectacularnterplayontinues:

during quiet, pensive

moment

n

the

Beethoven, Lazzari, having

inspected the champagne and its vintage, repeats the year 1949

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nostalgically, s if directed y

themusic to do so at that ime nd

no

other.

A degree of stylizations achieved

bymanipulatinghecharacters'

action so that they submitto

musical divisionof time rather han

dramatic r realistic ime.The

charactersn the narrative ilm,whom

we conventionallyccept as subjects,unquestionably ecome objects

when theirmovements nd speech coincide strictly iththe music:

for

we

can consider musical rhythm-an abstract,mathematical,

highly rganizeddisposition f

time-to be the oppositeof spontan-

eous,

real time. We

sense

that the characters ave been created,

and

they do not inspireus to identify iththem. Contributingo

a

definitedeparturefrompsychological

ealism, he music employed

acts ironically s a much stronger

arrative ntrusion, ven though

diegetic,

than

extradiegeticmusic.

9

c.

Diegetic music,

ound

space, temporal ontinuity

It is all to easy to overlook the factthatin the contextof a

narrative ilm,diegeticmusic functions

irst

nd

foremost

s

sound.

Here we are

in

a realm farfrom he concerns f

pure

musical

odes,

but which bears greatly

on notions

of cinematic

pace.

Offscreen

sound,

for

example, typically

motivates

amera movement

nd/or

cutting

o

new

quadrants

of

space.

As the

camera

eye

searchesout

the sound

source,

cinematic

pace

naturally

nfolds.

iegetic

music

fleshes ut film

pace,

and

variables

n

recording,mixing,

nd volume

levels further etermine hequality, he feel ,

of

framed/livedpace

in a

given

film. n filmswith

tereo ound, diegetic

music-as well as

dialogue

and sound

effects,

f

course-can

articulate

pace

with ll

the more

directional recision.

Music can

also

create

depth

n

space.

In

Wellman's

Public

Enemy,

Tom Powers and Matt

Doyle

stand outside

the Red Oaks

Club. A

saloon

piano plays

Hesitation

Blues

faintly

n

the

soundtrack.

he

boys open thesaloon doorand themusicbecomes ouder.After cut

to the nside the camera tracks

y

the Red Oaks' adolescent lientele

and comes

to rest on

Putty-Nose

who

is

playing

this

song

at the

'9This

example

is

taken

from

my

article n

Nights f

Cabiria.

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Claudia Gorbman

barroom piano.

The

music

has of course

played continuously

cross

the cut and has grown ouderuntil hemedium loseupofPutty-Nose

at the piano. The diegeticmusic

n this cene has a double function.

First, t provides bsolutetemporal ontinuityo two patially iscon-

tinuous shots, acting as a seamless auditorymatch. Second,

it

provides depth cues:

since

oud means near

and softmeans far

(with corresponding evels of reverberation),

continuous

rogres-

sion from soft to loud means

a continuousmovement orward

n

cinematic

pace,

towardthe

sound

source.

The Blue Angel bases a whole scene on the power ofthesound-

track o describephysical olumes.Professor ath, somewhat

mbar-

rassed, is meetingLola Lola backstage

for the first ime. Oftenat

moments hat dd

ironicpunctuation

o Rath's haltingwords,

minor

characters

happen

to enter

by

either

of

two doors

through

which

escape sounds of aughter nd/or leazilyplayed

musicfrom he

girlie

show. The expressive

unctions

f

diegetic

music

here

are motivated

byitsspatialfunctions.

Since a

piece of

music

has

its own

temporal tructure,

hich

may

or

may

not

coincide

withthe

temporal

tructure

f a

narrative

ilm

sequence,

it

mayhave a variety

f temporal unctions

n

thenarration.

The example fromPublic Enemy

showshowdiegeticmusicplaying

continuously trongly einforces

ur sense

of

thetemporalndspatial

contiguity

f the

discrete hots

n

a sequence. (This verypointwas

lost at the beginning f Metz's syntagmaticnalysis f Adieu Philip-

pine, for whathe described as a bracket syntagma f musicians

recording

n

a

television tudio

during he opening redit equence

s

actually scene, held together

s one temporal nity y the single

continuous

une the

musicians re playing.20

Montage sequences

often

se extradiegetic usic o bridge aps of

diegetic

time.

The famed breakfast-table

equence in CitizenKane,

for

example, showing

Kane and

his firstwife

itting

t

progressively

20Christian etz, Outline of the Autonomous egments n Jacques

Rozier's

film

Adieu

Philippine,

n

Film

Language (New

York:

OxfordUniversity ress,

1974), p.

150. Actually,the ast few

moments f the credit equence may be seen as a new and

different

ecording ession-since, precisely, new piece

of

music

s heard on

the

soundtrack.

Under no

circumstances, owever,

an we

read

the film's

eginning

s a

discontinuous bracket yntagma.

201





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Yale

FrenchStudies

greater

distancesfrom ach other

s the

yearspass,visually ignaling

the emotionaldistance that growsbetweenthem,has a theme-and-

variationsmusic-as

well as

equally ymmetricalhot

compositions-

to simultaneously

ridge nd

demarcate

he temporal iscontinuities

in the diegesis.

We

might

f

coursepersist

n

enumeratingther ypes

fcontinuity

that

music can promote:

thematic,dramatic,

rhythmic,

tructural,

and so

on. In each case music funtions

s

connecting issue, non-

representational

rovider

of relations, mong

all

levels of thenar-

ration. One area that

nvites

xtensive xploration

s the function

f

music

with

respect o pointof

view: for t

can mark hiftsn point

of

view, or

it

can assure

a continuous,

oftennarratively

illogical ,

progression

from one viewpoint o

another. n

a key segmentof

Hitchcock's

Blackmail

(1929),

for example, a continuously

laying

musical

theme

eads the spectator

rom objective narration

as a

male suitor

plays

the

piano

to the

woman

protagonist)

o

a

guilt-

ridden,subjective nstance as the woman walks theLondon streets

having

stabbed the man to death,

and on

the soundtrack

n

increas-

ingly

rchestrated

nd

harmonicaly/acoustically

ltered

version f the

originaldiegeticpiano

theme s

heard).

Conclusion

In

privileging

pecifically

inematicmusical

codes

and

emphasiz-

ing some

functionsf music

n

the context

f a

filmic

arration,

his

essay attempts

o shift he balance

of

film

music riticism.

t is

simply

not

sufficient

o

judge

film

music

by

criteria

imilar o thoseused for

judging

autonomous

music.

Clearly,

filmmusic acts on

and

is

per-

ceived

on different

evels,

according

o

a

film's

creening

onditions,

the

nature

of

its

auditors/spectators,

nd

so

on. But for he

filmgoer

whose

attention s fixed on

a

story epresented

n the

screen,

the

cinematicmusicalcodes are deployed nwayscrucially eserving f

the analyst'sattention.

What

ought

to be

clear s

the

synergetic

uality

f music

n

films.

Change

the score on

the

soundtrack,

nd the

image-track

eems

transformed.

ynyanov,

speaking

of

literary

works,

wrote: The

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8/20/2019 2930011


Claudia Gorbman

work represents system f correlatedfactors.The

correlation f

each factorwith heothers s itsfunction ith elation o thesystem.

A

study of

the

functions f music

n

narrative

inema

necessarily

entails

a

study of its

relationswith other elements n the textual

system.

We have suggested

he mportance f the notionof mediation n

understandinghe presence nd functionsf

film

music.The status f

music as non-verbal nd

non-denotativellows t to cross ll

varieties

of borders : between evels of narration

diegetic/nondiegetic),

e-

tween narrating gencies (objective/subjective arrators), etween

viewing

ime nd

psychological ime,

between

points

n

diegetic

pace

and time transitional

unctions).

Finally,the

connotative alues whichmusiccarries, ia extratex-

tual culturaldeterminationsnd also through extual

repetition nd

variation,

n

conjunction

with

the rest of the film's oundtrack nd

visuals, largely

determine

tmosphere, hading,expression,

mood.

What is mood? Certainly, difficult oint to interrogatewithout

recourse to much more

exhaustivephenomenological escription.

The

question remainshow to

present ogent

heoretical

rguments

n

this

field:for

mood-the

mostobviousand oft-mentionedunction f

film

music-originates in

the complexof all connotative lementsn

the filmic

ystem.

Nevertheless t

will

be

through lose

analysis

of

individual ilms hatwe may rrive t understandingow music

works

in

creating connotative

meanings at the most global level

of the

fiction.

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