The Evolution of Music in Film and its Psychological Impact on Audiences By

“I feel that music on the screen can seek out and intensify the inner thoughts of the characters. It can invest a scene with terror, grandeur, gaiety, or misery. It can propel narrative swiftly forward, or slow it down. It often lifts mere dialogue into the realm of poetry. Finally, it is the communicating link between the screen and the audience, reaching out and enveloping all into one single experience. ” Film composer Bernard Herrmann. Why Is There Music in Film? The general feeling about film is that it is singularly a visual experience. It is not. While we certainly experience film through our eyes, we just as surely experience it through our ears. Especially today, particularly with modern home and theater sound systems offering multi-channel sound and high fidelity. Films are generally fantasies. And fantasies by definition defy logic and reality. They conspire with the imagination. Music works upon the unconscious mind. Consequently, music works well with film because it is an ally of illusion. Music plays upon our emotions. It is generally a non-intellectual communication. The listener does not need to know what the music means, only how it makes him feel. Listeners, then, find the musical experience in film one that is less knowing and more feeling. The onscreen action, of course, provides clues and cues as to how the accompanying music does or is supposed to make us feel. Let us distinguish between scoring a movie, a movie score, and writing songs for a movie, a movie soundtrack. Many of us know about a soundtrack, and can sing songs from movies. But, few of us are even aware of the score of a film unless someone produces a breakaway or break-out hit, like Celine Dion’s singing “My Heart Will Go On, ” from Titanic(1997). Some films combine the two