Koyaanisqatsi
Koyaanisqatsi, sometimes titled Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance, was directed by American director Godfrey Reggio. The film deals with the relationship between humans and nature entirely through the contrast between the music and the visuals. The tone of each scene relies purely on composer Philip Glass' score to aid what's being shown on screen and provide meaning to what's taking place.
Because there are no conventional story ideas or dialogue, the film takes its message from the tone set by the music and the visuals. Glass uses key, tempo, and instrumentation to great effect, using instruments to mimic everyday city things like car horns and using tonality to subtly change how the viewer is interpreting the
…show more content…
The organ motif then changes to an arpeggiated D minor chord and proceeds to play a descending D minor, C major, Bb Major, A major progression. As the sequence continues, a male choir sings the word, “Koyannisqatsi”.
Knowing that the title of the film loosely translates to “Life Out of Balance” adds some hidden depth the cave paintings and music. Both the unsettling music and primitive, albeit thoughtprovoking, images create an apocalyptic uncertainty. Both the sound and visuals predict something disastrous is going to happen. The music with its warning church music and the visuals there
Although no dialogue is spoken in the entire film, the music says, literally, that life is out of balance, and the cave paintings start the film's narrative by suggesting this may happen if something doesn't change.
Eventually the cave paintings are ignited and debris explodes towards the camera, supporting my earlier theory that something disastrous has been predicted.
The flames fade away revealing, not a cave wall, but the base of a rocket taking off. The music remains unchanged, making its message even more mighty. The absence of foley sounds for the rocket and flames only seems to enforce the power of the music.
Flight
In the “flight” sequence, the camera glides over vast open spaces of undisturbed land. The music
seems
To start, the film seems like your basic run-on-the mill coming of age tale with a group of teenagers growing up to desire more after they graduate high school. However, there are various more themes discreetly displayed throughout the runtime of the film. For example, one central sociological overtone of this film is Marxism. With this overtone, it becomes possible to view this light-hearted and comedic movie in a
He is able to use these parts to manipulate the audience’s emotions. The music playing from the car is an on-screen sound. As the man gets attacked, the volume increases. The sound helps intensify the scene that has been created by the film’s visual elements. The audience then subconsciously forms ideas, opinions, and feelings about what they are seeing. The viewers develop scared feelings as the scene intensifies to the happy upbeat tune. The increasing volume of the cheery song reflects the violence and the sinisterness of the scene. The song stops with the slamming of the car’s driver-side door as the man is abducted. There is a moment of silence and then a new song abruptly entered the silent scene. The music is non-diegetic and is an offscreen sound. The song is screechy, high pitched, and jagged sounding at first, continuing the anxious and scared mood. The song shifts into a sort of soulful hymn. The tone shifts along with the song. The audience begins to feel relieved and relaxes to the peaceful song.
The image is brighter and sharper in the film. The contrast of the film really affects the mood. Since the contrast is so bright the viewer is bound to stay focused and aware because everything is so catchy and noticeable. Also, the exposure changes throughout the film. At the very beginning the film starts in black and white and changed to color as the story progressed. The filmmaker uses a lot of Long Takes, each shot of Dorothy meeting someone new is pretty lengthy.
Even though the film is essentially a visual experience, the use of sound has become extremely important in modern film. The modern viewer hears a complicated soundtrack that is as meaningful as the image on the screen. Three elements comprise the film's soundtrack: the dialogue, the sound effects, and the musical score. The proper balance and mix of these elements produced the essential emphasis required, which created the desired effects. As explained by Joseph Boggs and Dennis Petrie,
with a specific choice of music or sound. Given the project, the “eerie” tone given by the
As well as lighting, sound was used very effectively to stage the story. For example “echoes” were created in the alleyways, to make us think that Eddie’s house was a long way away. These echoes were also used to symbolise Eddie’s loneliness. This could show that there is emptiness in Eddie’s heart that can only be filled by a close friend or a brother. There was a bold use of sound especially in scary, dramatic or important scenes. This added to the drama of the overall performance, it made the audience feel a variety of emotions. In the scene when Mrs. Lyons tries to murder Mrs. Johnston, the sound affects really emphasised how Mrs. Lyons was feeling and her sheer madness. The use of surround sound made me feel like I was in the scene and it made the whole performance much more realistic.
A composer depends entirely upon the nature of the film for all the clues needed to write a suitable score for a film. Brought into the production after a certain amount of film has been shot, the films concept will dictate how the composer will write the music. Whether based on the story line, or providing information by setting an atmospheric state, film music will always have different purposes between different films. Penguin Ballet by Nigel Westlake was composed to focuses upon the graceful, almost ballet like movements of the penguins underwater. Whereas, Writings on the wall by Sam Smith conveys ideas and messages which will be expressed throughout the film, especially through the use of lyrics. Although positioned within the film to provide contrasting messages, both these songs use similar musical elements to support the piece, and its position with the film. The discussion of this essay is that there are similarities between the musical elements that support the lyrics in a song and the action in a documentary. Through this, we will discuss the musical element’s of pitch, and timbre and texture.
cave are forced to stare at a wall where shadows are cast and puppeteers are able to show the
Tone can have an immense effect on the plot and it can also have a large effect on the setting. In the movie High Noon, all of the characters
The use of sound is another that is interesting in the movie and between the play. For example,
Along with background music, sound effects play more of a role on the way we feel than many moviegoers think, and "although the function of sound effects is primarily atmospheric, they can also be precise sources of meaning in film" (Giannetti, 225). When the
“The most exciting moment is the moment when I add the sound… At this moment, I tremble.” (Akira Kurosawa) Sound is arguably the most important concept in cinema studies, being there ever since the beginnings. It can radically change the way a motion picture is looked at and it can render what the director may sometimes find hard to depict using only his camera. Looking upon silent cinema one discovers an era which wasn’t at all silent, but rich in sound of different forms, from the simple narration of the images shown on screen, accompanied by a piano, to the complex score later composed specifically for that film. An example of that complex score is shown in Sunrise, a film by F.W. Murnau, which lies at the border between silent cinema and sound cinema. Considered to be one of the first films with an actual score, Sunrise is a great example of the multitude of dimensions and effects sound can have.
As Ali's face dissolves to a flashback, non-diegetic music accompanies the overview of Algiers. The musical motif which begins as the camera starts to pan is exemplary of the parallel relationship between the aural and visual elements in the film. As Joan Mellen has highlighted, the arabic soundtrack, as if from another world, expresses the
In 2001 space odyssey, as formentioned, he uses light classical music juxtaposed with the dark mysteries that surround the mission and the spaceship Discovery One. The music provides a sense of serenity as well as discombobulated feel like one might feel in space. As with all of his films there was great attention to detail and it was visually stunning as well as aesthetically pleasing. One specific shot of beauty is in the beginning of the movie titled “dawn of man” after the apes jump around the monolith, the sun is setting behind a flat topped hill and the moon is juxtaposed right above it with golden clouds all around. Also in this movie, the reoccurring theme of an unsavory character that we are manipulated into sympathizing with is HAL during the
Additionally, a recognizable sound (such as a gunshot, a bestial growl, or a child's scream) that doesn't relate to what's on-screen at the moment ratchets up the suspense by several notches.