Sound of Cinema: The Music that Made the Movies

Neil Brand explains that adding music to a scene can add a whole new story, depending on the music, for instance when music that is played in different ways, it adds different moods a expressions that the scene may never be able to produce otherwise, like the coffee scene by John Barry, in the "Ipcress file".

He explains that central to Barry's theme is a Chimbolum, a hungarian hammered dulcima, this unique sound played gives a sort of "spy" theme to his score, along with the highlights in which bring the lightheartedness of the scene out, otherwise there would be too much of a scene of danger. 

Martin Scorsese explains that he tries throughout all his films to create the score throughout the whole film to excentuate the dialogue, the camera movement and the actors themselves, but also not forgetting about the scene which they are in. He says that this is all critical to have together to produce what is undoubtedly a thicker storyline and scene.

To begin with the films had no sound, no music, they were silent, so to accompany that they had a machine that produced a variety of sounds, that a musician would play alongside the movie, but unfortunately the film makers had no control over what they played,sometimes they also had their own orchestra, so every experience was different. So one film maker decided to integrate the two together, sound and movie, to create an altogether more appealing movie. But this was done with a disk, which was "synced" to the projector, this was called "Vitaphone". This was used for a film called "The Jazz Singer", but this included talking too, only a few lines, but they had created the first "Talkie".

People during this stage were convinced that people wouldn't want to hear the music without seeing the musicians themselves, but this meant that they could not produce and underscore, but only opening and closing credit music. Making the films pretty dull.

But in 1933 that all changed, when Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack created King Kong, with this film they created a underscore the whole way through, creating emotions and hidden dialogue, it also gave King Kong a lighthearted effect, making the viewers feel sorry for him. This was only possible through the soundtrack, also it helped with all the scenes, this is done by throughout the whole film, adding a score to associate with King Kong, with different instruments, or in a different key.

The one composer who changed film the most, was Erich Wolfgang Korngold. He started as a composer for operas and theatre work. He created magical pieces of work, and was hired by Warner Brothers to work on most of their films, he was so highly regarded that he could chose what he wanted and could make them film extra scenes so he could finish his score, at that time no composer had that freedom.They kept all his work.

In the late 1900's a new type of film emerged, which was called, film "noir" which was about moralities, and good and bad, but mixed them together. But ambiguity was captured with a film called "Double Indemnity", at the start there is no good or bad, they neither play definite major or minor keys, but something in-between.

Torn curtain was a film composed by Bernard Herman, and directed by Alfred Hitchcock,
 a great duo, that worked on the film psycho but this film tore them apart because they could not agree on what they wanted, and when Bernard went against Alfred's orders, he fired him. Breaking up the two greatest film makers.

What sound in a film does is create what dialogue cannot, it creates a different motif, a underlying mood, a suspense, sound that matches the action, and if used right it could make or break a film.

"Some think that the best score is the one you never hear, but I think the best one is the one you hear when you need to."

(Neil Brand)