Chapter 7: Sound

Essay: Film Music

As you know from Looking at Movies, film music (like film sound generally) can be diegetic or nondiegetic. Diegetic music comes from the story world: a character turns on a radio, for example, or performs, as when the classic rock and roller Buddy Holly (Gary Busey) plays his songs during concerts in Steve Rash's The Buddy Holly Story (1978). Nondiegetic music comes from beyond the story world, enhancing the viewer's appreciation and even understanding of the story but not representing a literal part of the characters' lives. Classic examples here are the orchestral scores composed by Bernard Hermann, who worked often with Alfred Hitchcock, and by John Williams, who works often with Steven Spielberg. Many films play with the distinction between diegetic and nondiegetic music. A song may begin as background music, for example, and emerge in the next shot streaming from a car radio in the story environment.

Perhaps the ultimate merging of diegetic and nondiegetic music occurs in musicals, which nonrealistically allow their characters to sing and even dance. Some movie musicals, such as the series made during the late 1930s and early 1940s costarring Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, present their characters as singers and dancers rehearsing for and starring in shows. Thus the sudden shifts from plot-driven dialogue, drama, and comedy to otherwise unrelated performances are justified, however cursorily, by the movies' structures. Rob Marshall's Chicago (2002) puts a different spin on this tradition, presenting the story from the perspective of one character, an aspiring singer and dancer named Roxie Hart (Renée Zellwegger). In adapting Fred Ebb, John Kander, and Bob Fosse's musical for film, Marshall presents what would have been straightforward production numbers in the theater into reflections of Roxie's fantasy life. Thus within the stylized world of the film, an even more stylized and at times cartoonish world exists in which musical numbers present both story information and the characters' inner lives. Complicating matters even further is a film such as François Ozon's 8 Women (8 Femmes, 2002), a faux–murder mystery in which the characters, inexplicably, burst into song. The actors don't really sing—they merely lip-sync to records—and their songs bear no relation to the plot. The viewer is left to ponder whether the music is diegetic or nondiegetic, meaningful or absurd, an affectionate nod to old Hollywood or a put-on.

In The Conversations, his book-length exchange with writer Michael Ondaatje, sound designer Walter Murch discusses the dramatically innovative ways he employed diegetic music in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972) and George Lucas's American Graffiti (1973). While crafting the sound for the wedding scene at the opening of The Godfather, Murch took the musical guide track Coppola had played during shooting, happy Italian music that gave the actors a sense of the occasion, and remixed it. As Murch explains, instead of having sound track music scored and recorded, he allowed the viewer to hear music originally intended only for the actors:

So I painfully reconstructed, out of bits and pieces, a master track of this atmosphere—which had voices in it but mainly loudspeakery music—then found the original recording of the music and put those two things in sync with each other, so that in the mix we could blend from one to the other and have lots of reverberation and rackety voices, or have it be more up front, with a fuller sound. This was something I also did the next year, on an even more developed level, with American Graffiti. (Ondaatje 98–99)

Set in early-1960s California, American Graffiti (see the chapter 2 discovery module "Form and Expectations") depicts two college-bound high school graduates' last night in the small town they plan to leave the next morning. Drive-ins, cruising hot rods, teenage romance, and rock and roll dominate the setting. From radio to radio, the voice of legendary disc jockey Wolfman Jack creates a kind of background picture. In The Conversations, Murch describes the realistic musical atmosphere he wanted to create:

We produced the radio show just as if you'd happened to tune in radio station XERB in the summer of 1962: it had Wolfman Jack talking, it had commercials, it had songs, it had people phoning in to request music. And then we took a tape of that radio show into different sonic environments, out in the real world, and played it back and captured what we heard on a second tape recorder. It was a process I nicknamed, for obvious reasons, "'worldizing."

In the mix I had separate control of both the original radio show and the "worldized" version. By fading up the first track, I could emphasize the power and clarity of the radio show and the music, if that's what we wanted. If we wanted to push the sound into the background, we could shift the balance and emphasize the second track and, in fact, the third track. We did all the worldizing twice, which further randomized the sound so that if we wanted to we could make the sound into almost a mist, like a rainy mist, in the background. Almost not there at all, and yet filling the space around the characters. (119)

Cameron Crowe: Musical Biography and Autobiography

Working with sound designers, sound track composers, and musicians, contemporary filmmakers can draw on a century's worth of sonic experimentation in film and centuries' worth of music, both written and recorded. Throughout his roughly two-decade career as a writer-director, for example, Cameron Crowe has employed his knowledge of popular music to create deeply expressive sound tracks.

Crowe was born in 1957 in Palm Springs, California, and grew up in San Diego. A precocious child, he skipped kindergarten and two grades in elementary school. He began writing for school papers and in his early teens contributed rock reviews to periodicals such as Cream, Penthouse, Playboy, Crawdaddy, and the Los Angeles Times. After graduating from high school at fifteen, Crowe began to write for Rolling Stone magazine and traveled with musicians such as David Bowie, Neil Young, the Allman Brothers, and Led Zeppelin. At twenty-two, Crowe returned to high school, masquerading as a senior, to research and write what would become the successful exposé Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which he later worked into a screenplay for the 1979 Amy Heckerling feature film by that name. Crowe wrote and directed successful low-budget films such as Say Anything (1989) and Singles (1992) before his popular and critical triumph, Jerry Maguire (1996). In Almost Famous (2000), he revisited his youth and particularly his early work as a rock journalist. In addition to writing and directing feature films, Crowe has directed a number of music videos and written highly considered and intelligent liner notes for album and CD releases, most famously for Bob Dylan's groundbreaking boxed set, Biograph (1985). He has also started his own, vinyl-only record label, Vinyl Records. He is married to Nancy Wilson, songwriter and guitarist for the rock group Heart, who has contributed musical ideas and songs to many of his films.

In the following brief discussions, we will look at moments in Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous that use music to achieve their thematic and emotional effects.

Jerry Maguire

A Shark in a Suit

"Who had I become? Just another shark in a suit?"	Rainy day in Miami
"Sky rocketing salaries, and you are one of the guys responsible"	"Two days later at our corporate conference in Miami"
". . . a breakthrough"	"Breakdown? Breakthrough!"

In this early scene in Jerry Maguire, Crowe uses a subtle piece of electronic music within a very complex sound montage. Largely composed of Jerry's narration and snatches of dialogue, the result is a haunting prelude to Jerry's near–emotional breakdown and his career- and life-changing epiphany.

Boom!

"Everybody got a copy"
"Boom!"

Here, Jerry nervously sits in front of his hotel room television and listens to the melodramatic music from an episode of the classic CBS television show Hawaii Five-0. Jerry interprets this ominous, diegetic television music as a sign that maybe he shouldn't have placed a copy of his "mission statement" in all of his fellow employees' hotel boxes.

I Will Go with You!

"I will go with you!"
"Dorothy Boyd, thank you!"
"Right now?" "DON'T DO IT" "SHHHHH" "BYE"
"We'll see you all again—sleep tight"	"Let's see how they do without us"

In this scene, Nancy Wilson's composition "We Meet Again (Theme from Jerry Maguire)" mitigates the pain of the characters' humiliation and betrayal. A feature film theme song may appear in many variations, but it always builds on the viewer's memory of the basic melody. In this way the melody helps signal thematic motifs, reminding the viewer of earlier moments in the film and building on their resonance.

Radio Tuner Medley

"I want him to go number 1 in the draft, and I want him to play"	"It'll either be Denver or San Diego trading up to take him—he'll go number 1"
"Hell, I'll either surf or ski, I don't care"	"Denver's where he should be"
"You know I don't do contracts, but what you do have is my word, and it's stronger than oak"	"Love, it's a bitch"
"Just call me angel of the morning"	"She had faith, and she had believing"
"breakin her heart, and I'm free . . ."	". . . free falling"

Here is another example of Crowe playing with the distinction between diegetic and nondiegetic music in an interesting and surprising way. The scene begins with the strong guitar riff of the Rolling Stones' song "Bitch" (1971). The song perfectly accentuates the masculine bravado and excitement of his deal-making. In the next scene, Jerry drives home from the deal and the viewer realizes that the song is coming from Jerry's car radio. Thus the song serves as a musical "bridge" from the first scene to the next. Jerry begins to scan the radio for another song, searching for a something to match his mood. After trying Juice Newton's version of "Angel of the Morning" (1981) and Gram Parsons' "She" (1972), Jerry settles on Tom Petty's "Free Fallin'" (1989), a pop-rock ode to the existential freedom of a "bad boy."

Walk the Lobby

"Nobody gives a damn about me being here"	"We're going to go downstairs and walk through this lobby because I want every media guy"
"The most commanding wide receiver in the game"	"You are the man"
"Let's do it"	"I want you to meet Rod Tidwell right now"
"I'd like you to meet Rod Tidwell"	"I'd like you to meet Rod Tidwell"
"I'm great, baby"	"He's the fiercest wide receiver in the NFL"
"I want to talk about Rod Tidwell"	"Came all that way just to walk through the lobby" "Might have even worked, too"

In this scene, Crowe returns to the dramatic rock song that played in the film's opening scene, the Who's "Magic Bus" (1968). Thanks largely to the Who's revved-up take on the "Bo Diddley beat" and the frenetic interplay of the band's vocals, the mood and sound fabric of the song are perfectly suited to the aggression and machismo of professional sports and the wheeling and dealing of the big-money sports agents. While more obvious popular songs and melodies already identified with professional sports could have worked with this scene, Crowe chooses something unexpected and therefore that much more exciting. This type of intuitive selection and creative placement of prerecorded music is one of the signatures of his directorial style.

First Hug and the Secret Garden

"Give me a hug"
[Music fade in]	[Music builds]
	"That is the first time I've ever seen him kiss a man just like a dad"
"And don't be a shoulder for him to cry on either; that's all I'll say"	"Oh dear"
"She'll let you in her house . . ."	". . . if you come knockin' late at night"
"She'll let you	in her mouth"

Here, Bruce Springsteen's ballad "Secret Garden" enhances a mostly wordless love scene. Note how the instrumental buildup to the first verse of the song has been extended through careful cutting and matching of the sound. By cutting on a beat and repeating parts of a song, film music editors can extend or shorten a piece of music so that it works with an edited scene. Alternatively, many picture editors like to edit scenes so that they correspond to a piece of music or with the film's score, following the sound track's rhythm and flow.

Almost Famous

Growing Up

The Who's "Sparks"
Lester Bangs: "Here's a theory . . ."
". . . for you to disregard . . . completely"	". . . music, true music, not just rock and roll"
". . . or alone, listening with your headphones, the vast scenic bridges and angelic choirs in your brain—you know it's a place apart from the vast, benign lap of America"
"It's quite an honor to have the world's greatest rock critic and editor of Cream magazine back home in San Diego for a few days—Lester Bangs"

In Almost Famous, an older sister leaves home, but makes sure to leave her record collection for her younger brother, telling him the music will "set [him] free." The Who's "Sparks," an instrumental from their "rock opera" Tommy (1969), serves as the musical bridge that connects the eleven-year-old William Miller (Michael Angarano) to the sixteen-year-old William Miller (Patrick Fugit). (Miller is Crowe's cinematic representation of himself as a young rock critic.) This elliptical montage allows Crowe to leap across five years of story time. The montage emphasizes the "coming-of-age" theme and the importance of particular pieces of music to William's maturation.

In this scene, members of the rock band Stillwater bond on their tour bus after leaving behind their lead guitarist, who is seeking "reality" at a teenage suburban party in Topeka, Kansas. Elton John's ballad "Tiny Dancer" contributes to the bittersweet mood of the moment. The heart and soul of the film, this scene helps explain how Stillwater, or any band, can endure the repetition, pressure, and exhaustion of life on the road and in the spotlight, and it helps explain what might have brought Stillwater together in the first place.

 

For Further Reading

Esquivel, Alana. "Cameron Crowe, and the Marriage of Music and Film."

Ondaatje, Michael. The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002.

The Uncool—Cameron Crowe Online.

"Written by [Cameron Crowe]."