Ben Hur Music

Coming out of the 50’s, new genres of films emerged to the cinemas. Some of the most well known and beloved movie musicals such as Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music and West Side Story were released during the 60’s and they changed the way that we thought about our e Horror and action films also made an appearance with Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and the first ever James Bond film Goldfinger.

     The music helped in elaborating this great film. As I mentioned in class different instruments helped create different moods for different scenes in the movie. We heard the cello and the violin to create sadness and remorse. The flute created eeriness and the trumpet created awareness. I thought these were instruments and tools that help make this film extraordinary.

There are many characteristics that contribute to the Classic Hollywood film score. Gone With The Wind serves as a paradigm, which means a distinct pattern of model of the classic Hollywood film score because it possess the qualities and characteristics of the film score throughout the story. First being that most often they employ well-known melodies such as “Dixie” and them famous “Tara” theme which is one of the most distinctive themes in the story. Also, another characteristic is that the film

Herrmann utilized a unified score that is constantly dissonant. Although there are variation of mood from loving sound to the terror of the shower, all the cues are observed to be used with minor seconds and major sevenths. He also uses distinct sound using the “percussive-sounding strings” through deploying microphone close to the instrument to demonstrate the sound to be harsher, which can be seen as some of the new approaches that Herrmann accomplished through this film as the start of “a New American Era”. In addition, new approach in film scoring can be seen through the lack of contrast in a cue. When a cue starts, it stays consistent and repeats the mood with no variation where there are absence of shifts within a cue. Moreover, descending and ascending chords of the Transition theme have an aloof characteristic with no display of emotions. This in return provides an overall disquieting mood to the story. During the Norman’s story, Hermann employs ostinato to maintain tension and discomforting sound of melody.

In these two movies, the right music and visuals had to be chosen in order to get the ambiance Hawke and Branagh tried to obtain. Each director chose different music and images that were very visual and auditive for an audience’s appeal. In Hawke’s version, visuals of New York and Times Square were appealing to an audience. Modern music at the beginning of the film caught the interest of the younger generation. As well, close ups of Hamlet were revealing to an audience and it was easy to feel infatuated by the character’s nihilistic despair. Branagh’s version used supernatural and dark visuals of ghosts, statues, and castles to produce feelings of awe and fear. The scene of the ghost was quick and staggering, and it created an automatic feeling of anxiety and fear. As well, the traditional use of classical music did a skillful job of creating suspense. Both directors appealed to an audience by using music and visuals that created an ambiance the directors desperately

During the 1940s music were created around Jazz and Band Styles that were popular. For example Rosemary Clooney, Court Basie, and Artie Show contributed to define the music for this era. But also during this era, World War II was going on. A lot of artist were portraying with the music the pain the country was going through. The 1940’s was the breakthrough of artist that marked their way in music history.

In the movie he used music to create suspense. Like when something bad was about to

In 1965 Robert Wise presented the world with his smashing box office hit film, The Sound of Music. Over time it has become known as one of the most loved and well-known musicals of all time. Shortly after its release it won many Academy awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Sound, Best Adapted Score, Best Film Editing, Best Film-Musical, Best Color Cinematography, and Best Costume design (Freiden par3). The movie is based upon the true story of the VonTrapp family and allows its audience to relive their family experience as well as their flight from Nazism just before the outbreak of World War Two.

Thanks to technological innovations the price of recorded music dropped significantly. These lower prices raised the public interest in music, and because of the new huge profit margins record companies were finally able to spend money to promote artists these promoted artists were the first of many hundreds of pop stars. The biggest of these early pop stars was Italian singer Frank Sinatra. After seeing the profitability of this many record companies decided to manufacture their own pop stars so to speak, meaning that they would take a relatively unknown artist who wasn't necessarily the most talented and would promote them very heavily based on their looks, normally to teens and preteens. This sub genre is called bubblegum pop, and the poster child for it would have to be the band The Monkees. Around this same time period the genre of rock n roll was also gaining a substantial amount of popularity. Rock can be described as a fusion of jazz, blues, and country. At first white artists like Elvis Presley were the only ones garnering national acclaim for rock and roll. However by 1959 many black artists like Fats Domino and Little Richard were seen as national icons. The genre of rock and roll only grew larger as the decade turned, with that it also inspired many sub genres one in particular being surf. Surf is rock that mostly made up of instrumentals, and is very heavily based on a guitar sound that has

This clearly explains the significance of music and the role that has in motion pictures. Music has to match the emotions that the actors are showing and the environment they are in. If fail to do so, the movie could be a dreadful thing to watch.

Psycho (1960) is a film that redefined horror expectations, and made a name for slasher films. Prior to Psycho, horror was a popular genre, but nothing compared to this. One of the scariest aspects of this film is the fact that we still almost sympathize with Norman because of his innocent demeanor, and up until the very end of the movie, we’re stuck thinking that Mrs. Bates is the one responsible for all of the murders. The use of quick-shots within horror were also birthed through Psycho, which is part of what made the shower scene so famous, as it has definitely influenced horror films since then. The music is also crucial, again, adding to the impact that the shower scene leaves on the audience. While the content of the scene is frightening

Most of the soundtracks in the film are composed by vintage songs spanning throughout the time of the Zodiac’s story. They are a compilation of pop songs that reflect the era and these serve as non-diegetic sounds which playout during various scenes in the film. In some scenes, these songs are played in the background to distract the audience from what is happening on screen. For example, in the first scene of the film, which is also the first Zodiac murder, the song – is playing in the background. This contrapuntal sound has been done to give the viewers unexpected emotions over a death scene, creating an anempathetic feeling. These unexpected emotions make it clear that the film does not want to focus on the victims or the killings.

The release of Gordon Hollingshead and Alan Crosland’s The Jazz Singer in 1927 marked the new age of synchronised sound in cinema. The feature film was a huge success at the box office and it ushered in the era David Bordwell describes as ‘Classical Hollywood Cinema’; Bordwell and two other film theorists (Janet Staiger and Kristin Thompson) conducted a formalist analysis of 100 randomly selected Hollywood films from the years 1917 to 1960 in order to fully define this movement. Their results yielded that most Hollywood made films during that era were centred on, or followed, specific blueprints that formed the finished product. Through this analysis of Hollywood films the theorists were able to establish stylised conventions and modes of

(Mulvey, Nov. 2, 2017) Our society today is engrossed in the visualization of gore, horror, and violence. In the infamous scene where the murderer is unveiled, an orchestra plays a staccato melody that rises in tempo. “Incorporating music into your own films can not only make your final cut more interesting, but it also allows the audience the ability to connect emotionally to your characters and their situation, and you, the filmmaker, to reinforce your story and/or message.” (Bell, Nov. 2, 2017). Nevertheless, this would explain why a viewer's interest would peak at the moment of each murder. The music being played pre murder builds suspense and creates the feeling that the viewer knows what is going to happen before it even happens. For example, a creepy tune plays every time the mysterious murders carriage drives around the town. The viewer is left to assume that a murder is about to occur, but is left at the edge of their seat wondering if their assumption is a correct inclination of where the plot is going. Music not only builds suspense by allowing the viewer to have freedom of their own foreshadowed outcomes, but it keeps their interest as well.

Though these aforementioned motifs are used quite extensively in Hollywood film music, the use of music to augment the cinematic scene in Hollywood films is seen most noticeably during instances of grandeur and opulence. To accompany these scenes, the film scorers elect to use large ensembles, with each family of instrument partaking in the production. This correlation has become a staple in Hollywood films, as “orchestral size not only indicated musical choice or financial well-being but became a status symbol for the music director” (Morcom 70). Such an implementation of emotional mimicry is found in the movie The Lord of the Rings: The Twin Towers, when Howard Shore’s “Helm’s Deep” played during the Helms Deep Charge. In the middle of the Rohirrim charge at Helms Deep, Gandalf the White presents himself at the top of the hill on a great white stallion. Gandalf is magnificence personified, so the choice in musical accompaniment simply strengthens the delivery of this fact to the audience. Therefore, as seen from all three previously discussed styles, there exists a pattern in the field of music, where an inherent sense of strategy and intention is employed when selecting the notes in a piece. In American culture, the general view of film music is that “song sequences, seen as distractions, cast doubt on a film's narrative authenticity by limiting creativity, plot development, and characterization, resulting in a genre that appears to lack cinematic realism as compared to