Music as a source of emotion in film

This entry is from a chapter of the book Music and emotion: Theory and research. Series in affective science, New York, NY, US: Oxford University Press, viii, pp. 249-272. Bits relevant to my research are gathered below.

Emotion characterises the experience of film, as it does the experience of music. Because music almost always accompanies film, we may well ask what contribution music makes to the emotional aspects of film.

Historical background of music and cinema

When silent film was first introduced, the film projector was nothing but silent. Music was therefore enlisted to mask the extraneous noise. While serving the masking function, music was also exploited to illustrate and explain the action (Palmer, 1980). Kracauer (1960) emphasises that the noise problem of the film projection was short-lived, and yet the importance of music remained. An entire music-for-the-silent-film industry developed to support this function of music (Limbacher, 1974; Thomas, 1997).

In 1927, The Jazz Singer signaled the advent of the ‘talkies’ and the demise of the film-music industry. With real voices and sound effects, music would no longer be needed to establish mood and emotional context… or would it? To the surprise of many, something was missing without music (Kracauer, 1960). The screen had lost part of its vitality.

Several theorists have commented that music adds a third dimension to the two-dimensional film screen (Palmer, 1990; Rosar, 1994). Film composer David Raksin (Brown, 1994) said that ‘without music, life would not be worth living’.

In a study by Bullarjahn and Guldenring (1994), professional composers of film music create a total of five different backgrounds for the same 10 minute long film segment. Both quantitative and qualitative analysis showed that the different soundtracks led to different judgments of the appropriateness of emotional categories (e.g. sad, thrilling, sentimental, vivid), choice of genre (horror, comedy, thriller, crime, etc.), reasons for the actions of the protagonist, and expectations about the completion of the film.

In a series of experiments, Thompson et. al (1994) specifically examined the effects of musical closure on perceived closure of a film. The influence of independently judged visual and musical closure on judged closure of the film was shown through regression analysis. In addition to demonstrating a robust direct effect of musical structure on the feeling of closure of a film narrative, the authors also reported that the role of music was almost completely implicit.

Boltz et. al. (1991) examined the role of music on inferences in a study that compared music that foreshadowed an outcome versus music that accompanied an outcome. Participants viewed 20 different 3-4 minute clips from feature films and TV dramas. Excerpts were selected that ultimately resolved in a happy (positive) or sad (tragic) way. Music emotionally consistent or inconsistent with these endings either preceded (foreshadowed) or accompanied the video excerpt. Thus, in some cases the foreshadowing music correctly predicted the mood of the following video event and the accompanying music was congruent with the mood of the video event, and in other cases the foreshadowing music incorrectly predicted the subsequent event and the accompanying music was incongruent with the event. Music accompanying an episode’s outcome led to higher recall when the mood of music and scene were congruent with each other. Conversely, mood-incongruent relations significantly lowered performance to a level comparable to that of the control condition in which no music had occurred. Foreshadowing, however, revealed the opposite pattern. Here, expectancy violations arising from mood-incongruent relations were significantly more memorable than were mood-congruent relations were significantly more memorable than mood-congruent episodes in which viewer’s expectancies were confirmed (Boltz et al, 1991) concluded that their results supported the notion that viewers rely on the emotional expression of music to either generate expectancies about future scenarios or to direct attending toward corresponding aspects of visual activities.

Marshall and Cohen (1988) also observed the ability of music to alter the interpretation of a simple visual presentation. They studied the effects of two different soundtracks on impressions about three geometric forms, a large and small triangle and a circle, in a short animation. In their experiment, subjects viewed the animation with one of the two soundtracks or with no soundtrack (control condition). The activity and evaluation dimensions are understood to represent the motivation and appraisal dimensions associated with two-dimensional  theories of emotion.

Regarding the ability of music to focus attention, Bolivar et. al. (1994) noted that attention to a visual object might arise not only from structural congruencies but also from semantic congruencies. Hypothetically, a soundtrack featuring a lullaby might direct attention a cradle rather than to a fishbowl when both objects are simultaneously depicted in a scene.

Cohen (1999) described eight functions of music in a film or multimedia context. First, music marks extraneous noises. Second, it provides continuity between shots. Third, it directs attention to important features of the screen through structural or associationist congruence. Fourth, when unassociated with a particular focus it induces mood, as often occurs during the opening credits of a film. The ability of music to induce mood has been supported in several experiments (Pignatiello et. al, 1986) and is used in music therapy. Fifth, in communicated meaning and furthers the narrative, especially in ambiguous situations (Bullerjahn & Guldenring, 1994; Cohen, 1993; Kalinak, 1992; Levinson, 1996). Sixth, through association in memory, music becomes integrated with the film (Boltz et. al, 1991). Seventh, music heightens the sense of reality of or absorption in film, perhaps by augmenting arousal, and increasing attention to the entire film context and inattention to everything else. Finally, music as an art form adds to the aesthetic effect of the film.

Emotional cuts through six of the either functions of film music identified by Cohen (1999): contributing to the narrative’s continuity; emotional meaning of events; induction of mood, creation and activation of memory; maintenance of arousal, global attention, and associated sense of reality; and finally, aesthetic experience. In regard to the nature of experienced emotions generated by music in the context of film, it is useful to consider six criteria of a genuine emotion that Tan (1996) outlined, based for the most part of Frijda’s (1986) laws of emotion.

1. Control precedence. Music controls emotion response (Thayer and Faith, 2000; Thayer and Lavenson, 1983), hence, emotion created by background music exerts control over the audience member.

2. Law of concern: emotion entails identifiable concern. When music is combied with other media, the music readily finds an object. Marshall and Cohen (1988) explained that music directs attention to an object and ascribes meaning to that object. Attention is required for concern.

3. Law of situational meaning (or stimulus specificity). Each emotion has a particular ‘situational meaning structure’; a set of critical characteristics of the stimulus.

4. Law of apparent reality: the stimulus must represent some reality or other. Music contributes to the sense of reality of the narrative. It accentuates important events.

5. Law of change: emotion responds to changes in the situation. Music creates an everchanging auditory environment that establishes expectations and implications, some of which are realised and some of which are violated.

6. Law of closure: an emotion tends toward complete realisation of its appraisal and action tendency, and is relatively immune to outside influences such as conscious control. Music commands interest (Munsterberg, 1970). The emotion generated by music is governed by the tension and resolution established by the music in which the audience is unaware (Thompson et. al., 1994) and over which one seems to have little control. Rehearing music reproduces emotional responses regardless of prior expectations (Jourdain, 1997).

Thus, it can be concluded that music contributes genuine emotional experience in a film.

The film-score composer

It is well to say that music is a source of emotion in film, but the ultimate source is the composer. The average cinema-goer appreciates the emotion established by film music but would be hard pressed to compose this music. While many classical composers have created film scores, such composition is often regarded as a special talent and preoccupation. Music composition for film differs from music composition for its own aesthetic sake. Typically film music is music produced for the sake of the story. It is constrained by the intent of the director, narrative, time, and budget. The composer must know how shared audiovisual accent patterns can focus visual attention, how musical information avoids conscious attention, how mood is established, how musical associations provoke inferences, etc. The composer is usually called upon at the end of the film production (Palmer, 1980; Rozsa, 1982) and may be shown the film for the first time with recorded music already in place, known as temp tracks. The temp tracks indicate the director’s wishes for type and placement of music, therefore can restrict the composer’s latitude considerably. Familiarity with the temp tracks may bias the director against new insights offered by the composer (Brown, 1994). The composer’s job is to replace these tracks with new material that must meet some or all of a number of constraints: to time the music cue to a fraction of a second to coincide with the rhythm of the action of a particular frame for the film, to match or create the mood or spirit of the film content, to use affordable orchestration and rehearsal time, to be unheard but be memorable, to never drown out the dialogue (Burt, 1994; Rosza, 1982). In spite of these constraints, some composers claim that composing for film can be the ultimate freedom.

The art of film music, perhaps more than other forms of music, requires ‘taking the attitude of the other’ (Meyer, 1956). Specific messages must be communicated in an aesthetic package, but the aesthetic goals may be secondary. Some composers may be more suited to film-score composition than others in terms of personality and motivation. Unlike many other types of composition, the creation of a film score is a collaborative process. Generally, interpersonal intelligence (Gardner, 1993) would be necessary:  appreciation of the demands of socially shared cognition (Krauss & Fussell, 1991) and the willingness to cooperate with the film production team.

Emotion characterises the primary experience of both music (Sloboda, 1985) and film (Munsterberg, 1970; Tan, 1996). Music typically plays an integral part of the film. While more research is needed to further examine the simultaneous contribution of music to emotional meaning, mood, feeling and absorption, there are sufficient data available now to conclude that music provides one of the strongest sources of emotion in film.

References

Cohen, A. J. (2001), Music and emotion: Theory and research. Series in affective science, New York, NY, US: Oxford University Press, viii, pp. 249-272.

Palmer (1980), Film music. In New Grove dictionary of music and musicians, (Vol 6), Washington, DC: Macmillan, pp. 549-56.

Kracauer, S. (1960). Theory of film: The redemption of physical reality. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Limbacher, J. L. (1974). Film music. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow.

Thomas, T. (1997). Music for the movies, 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Silman-James.

Palmer, C. (1990). The composer in Hollywood. New York: Marion Boyars.

Rosar, W. (1994). Film music and Heinz Werner’s theory of physionomic perception. Psychomusicology, 13, pp. 154-65.

Brown, R. (1994). Overtones and undertones: Reading film music. Berkeley, CA: University of California.

Bullerjahn, C. & Guldenring, M. (1994). An empirical investigation of effects of film music using qualitative content analysis. Psychomusicology. 13, pp. 98-118.

Thompson, W. F., Russo, F. A., & Sinclair, D. (1994). Effects of underscoring on the perception of closure in filmed events. Psychomusicology, 13, pp. 9-27.

Boltz, M. Schulkind, M., & Kantra, S. (1991). Effects of background music on remembering of filmed events. Memory and Cognition, 19, pp. 595-606.

Marshall, S. & Cohen, A. J. (1988). Effects of musical soundtracks on attitudes to geometric figures. Musical Perception, 6, pp. 95-112.

Bolivar, V. J., Cohen, A. J, & Fentress, J. C., (1994). Semantic and formal congruency in music and motion pictures: Effects on the interpretation of visual actions. Psychomusicology, 13, pp. 28-59.

Cohen, A. J. (1999). The functions of music in multimedia: A cognitive approach. In Music, mind, and science, pp. 53-69, Seoul, Korea: Seoul National University Press.

Pignatiello, M. F., Camp, C. J., & Raser, L. (1986). Musical mood induction: An alternative to the Velten technique. Journal of Abnormal Psychology. 95. pp. 295-7.

Cohen, A. J. (1993). Associationism and musical soundtrack phenomena. Contemporary Music Review. 9, 163-78.

Kalinak, K. (1992). Settling the score, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

Levinson, J. (1996). Film music and narrative agency. In Post-theory: Reconstructing film studies, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. pp. 248-82.

Tan, W. (1996). Emotion and the structure of narrative films: Film as an emotion machine. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Frijda, N. H. (1986), The emotions. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Thayer, J. F., & Faith, M. (2000). A dynamical systems of model of musically induced emotions: Physiological and self-report evidence. New York, June 2000.

Thayer, J. F., & Levenson, R. (1983). Effects of music on psychophysiological responses to a stressful film. Psychomusicology, 13. pp 9-27.

Munsterberg, H. (1970). The photoplay: A psychological study. New York: Arno.

Jourdain, R. (1997). Music, the brain and the ecstasy: How music captures our imagination. New York: Morrow.

Rozsa, M. (1982). Double life. New York: Hippocrene Books.

Burt, G. (1994). The at of film music. Boston: Northeastern University Press.

Gardner, H. (1993). Frames of mind, The theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books.

Krauss, R. M. & Fussell, S. R. (1991). Constructing shared communicative environments. In Socially shared cognition, Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, pp. 172-200.

Sloboda, J. A., (1985). The musical mind: The cognitive psychology of music. New York: Oxford University Press.

How does music help to shape a film?

“If we step back and think about it, music is one of the most peculiar conventions in movies. No one questions that music should be a part of movies because we’ve all grown used to the idea that, in a movie, when two people kiss, we should hear music in the background. Or when the platoon attacks the beach, a symphony should provide the inspiration behind their assault. Of course, no one has a soundtrack accompanying their real lives. But in movies we not only accept this convention, we demand it.

Music can be used for a number of effects in a movie. The most obvious way music scores are used is to guide the emotional response of the audience. They provide clues, or, in most cases, huge signposts, that tell audiences how the lmmaker wants them to react to a given scene.

Some directors play against our expectations and use music in ways we might not expect. Stanley Kubrick shocked audiences when he used “Singin’ in the Rain” as the backdrop to a horrible rape scene in A Clockwork Orange (1971).

Music can also provide an overture for a movie when it’s used as the backdrop for the opening credits. The brassy theme music composed by John Williams for Star Wars is one famous and often-parodied example.

In some instances, directors use music to foreshadow upcoming events. In horror movies, for example, the score is often used to build up tension and suspense just before the monster attacks one of its victims.

Finally, music can be used to shape the ethnic or cultural context of a lm.”

Pacific Cinémathèque (2014). Sound in Filmmaking. The Language of Film. Visual Storytelling and the Grammar of Filmmaking, Part II.

The psychology of film music

“[Film music] makes the difference, all you have to do to get the point of film music across to the sceptical is to make them set through the picture without the music.” David Raksin (Kalinak, 1992)

“The final function of film music, at least for me, is to complete the psychological meaning of a scene.”. Miklos Rdzsa (Brown, 1994).

Film music can substantially alter the spirit of a scene. “It is an accepted fact that music strongly contributes to the drama of a film or video production, yet research in this area is minimal” (Taylor, 1994/96). Film theory commonly assumes a strong impact of musical factors on the viewers’ (cinematography constructed) reality perception. For example, the music can be an essential underpinning of the “inner mental states” of a scene’s agents, fulfilling the function of an “expression of the inexpressible” (Thomas, 1996). The general functions of film music can be roughly conceptualised in a framework of at least three major categories (Vitouch, 2001): (1) direction and management of attention, (2) “emotionalisation”, and (3) transfer of information (nonverbal auditory communication).

Film music is frequently believed to have mainly “subliminal” effects: the best film music is the one that remains unheard (Brown, 1994; Kalinak, 1992; Karlin, 1994). Except for the analytical ears and eyes of the specialist, music and montage have been put side by side as being the two “most invisible contributing arts to the cinema” (Brown, 1994).

A general way to probe questions relating between cognitive/psychological perspective and film music is to present visually identical film sequences with different musical underscoring in order to test if, and to what extent, different impressions are induced in the perceiver. Similar effects in other domains of cognitive psychology have been subsumed under the unifying concept of context determination: one and the same entity can be perceived very differently, depending on the particular context in which it is embedded. In film theory, the same phenomenon is known as a musical Kuleshov effect. Kuleshov found that in the same shot, presented in the context of other shots, may evoke completely different impressions in the viewer. In an emotionally indifferent and objectively unchanged human face, people saw a change of expression towards either sadness or joy, depending on the preceding picture (Neidermeier, 1997; Bullerjahn, 1997). Thus, people constructively see something that is not in the picture.

Vitouch (2001) conducted a research which employed a covert design to investigate the influence of musical context on viewers’/listeners plot-related expectations. He found that viewers’/listeners’ expectations of the further development of a scene are clearly influenced by the underlying film music, which implicitly co-determines the perceivers’ psychological reality.

References:

Vitouch, O. (2001). When Your Ear Sets the Stage: Musical Context Effects in Film Perception. Psychology of Music, 29, 70-83.

Kalinak, K. (1992). Setting the score: Music and the classical Hollywoodfilm. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.

Brown, R. S. (1994). Overtones and undertones: Reading film music. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Taylor, J. A., (1994/96). Preface. Psychomusicology. 13, 1.

Thomas, T. (1996). Filmmusik. Die Großen Filmkomponisten – ihre Kynst and ihre Technik. Munchen, Germany: Wilhelm Heyne Verlag.

Karlin, F. (1994), Listening to movies: The film lover’s guide to film music. New York: Schirmer Book/Macmillan.

Neidermeier, C. (1997). Die seltsamen Abenteuer des Mr. West. In Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft (Ed.), Film + Musik live. Ein Festival im Wiener Konzerthaus(p. 21) [Film and music live. A festival at the Wiener Konzerthaus, April 16^th to 21^st, 1997; festival program]. Vienna, Austria: Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft / Vienna Concert Hall Society.

Bullerjahn, C. (1997). Theorien und Experimente zur Wirkung von Filmmusik. Hannover, Germany: Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Hochschule für Musik und Theater / Academy of Music and Performing Arts.

Effects of music on psychophysiological responses to a stressful film

In 1983, Thayer and Levenson conducted a psychological experiment to study stress in relation to soundtrack. Two musical scores were composed in accordance with contemporary film scoring techniques in an attempt to increase and decrease the stressfulness of the film. Subjects viewed one of three versions of the film: the film with no music,with horror music and with “documentary” music. Physiological responses were monitored continuously while subjects viewed the film. Results indicated that the film scores were successful in both increasing and decreasing electrodermal responses to the film, compared to the control condition (film with no music). These results provide preliminary experimental support for the efficacy of musical scores for manipulating the stressfulness of films.

The presence of music in our environment has increased drastically in the past decades. Its uses new extend far beyond the domain of the arts, reaching into the business and work place, where it is ostensibly used to influence shopping behaviour, worker productivity, responses to waiting room tedium, and the like. Music has also established a foothold in the treatment of mental and physical illness, with music therapy used in many institutions to not only aid rehabilitation but also to cause changes in emotional state. The use of music to effect changes in emotional state is most strikingly evident in film and television. All of these uses rest on the questionable assumption that the effects of music on listeners are rulebound and thus predictable.

This paper by Thayer and Levenson (1983) has proved that music can significantly manipulate people’s emotional state, proven by comparing the condition with different types of music and condition with no music. Although this is a paper concerning psychophysiology, it is certainly applicable to music and filmmaking and the choice of music in order to enhance the audience’s emotional and physiological responses when watching a film.

References:

Thayer, J. F. and Lavenson, R. W. (1983), Effects of Music on Psychophysiological Responses to a Stressful Film, Physhomusicology, Vol. 3, No. 1.

Noam Chomsky and “Manufacturing Consent”

Manufacturing Consent

In the documentary Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky believes that the [American] media indoctrinates the public with deceitful messages in the way that the people are not aware of what is happening. Chomsky believes that the public is controlled by an elite group, who are those in control of the biggest companies in the US, including newspaper publishers. The way these newspaper publishers control the public is by manipulating the content published on newspapers in a systematic fashion. The content are not lies by any means; they are edited in such a way that only certain information will be passed through, from the source to the readers/public. He demonstrates his views by using and comparing certain examples, which are few of the biggest controversial events of the past, such as the Vietnam War, the Khmer Rouge atrocity and the invasion of Indonesia into East Timor. Because the people of America only obtain information from the biggest newspapers, their perceptions and beliefs are then manipulated without their consent, without them being aware that the content was already controlled or censored, in order to form a general public opinion that is created by an illusion done by the elite group/the media. However, Chomsky believes that the people are not brain dead and should start to be aware of the false claims of media, rise up and create their own “alternative” media.

In Chomsky’s own words, “Maybe everything I’m telling you is wrong. It could perfectly well be. I am not God” – everything in the documentary is Chomsky’s own opinion about the media, and every evidence that he has is also what other people have told him, or what he discovered in the media of other countries. In the same way, I cannot really agree if what he says is true or not, but I do agree with Chomsky that people do have the right to know what is the truth and they have the right for freedom of speech. There might have been other evidence against Chomsky’s thesis that he was not aware of, or he simply chose to ignore them – this is the same method that the media used that Chomsky accused them of doing. I do agree that the media has the power to manipulate what messages are delivered to the public, but to know if they are abusing this power to control what people think, is still Chomsky’s own opinion, not a fact. Another weakness if Chomsky’s thesis is that it only applies to the US, and every evidence he gathered were all related to the American media. In a global context, it is very hard to determine if he is right or wrong, but it is still important to acknowledge the fact that the US is one of the few most powerful forces in the world, therefore it has large influences over other countries’ media.

To someone who, in the future, will be contributing to the media, I believe that the audience have the right to know whether the information they are receiving has been tampered with or not. However, it is certainly different when it comes to creating fictional films as the information is not the same, and it has less effect than the public. Unless the films are claiming “based on a true story” and they actually are not (a technique which many horror films used in order to increase the fear factor), the audience has the right to know what they are watching, or it may have many unwanted side effects. Great movies often have characters which stand out, a chaotic sort of a personality which goes against the government, a symbol, or an idol, which represent their views in real life. These characters often send a clear message to the audience; I believe, in fictional media, these characters are equivalent to words the government leaders would say, and moral and ethical obligations certainly apply to them. If people see those fictional characters as God, and these fictional characters are doing things that are illegal, what is there to stop ordinary, weak-minded movie goers to imitate their actions, except common sense?

Scarface (1932)

The original Scarface film focuses on the character Tony Camonte, telling the audience everything about the character, including his personality, his ambitions, his family, his reputation and his criminal “career”. As the film goes on, the character grows more powerful in terms of reputation, presence and control over others.

The World Is Yours

“The World Is Yours”

The big, glowing advertising slogan that is held high opposite Tony’s apartment is the character’s driving inspiration throughout the film and has symbolic values. It reflects Tony’s personality and actions: he does things as if the world is under his control. Everyone listens to him and he always gets what he wants; he can wreak havoc without anything or anyone stopping him, and if anyone tries to stop him, he kills them.

The film is almost a biography of Tony’s most dominant years until the end of his life. He rises from being a mafioso’s (Johnny) henchmen, acting under his order to kill his boss’s boss – to continuing the circle, killing his own boss later in the film to become the most powerful gangster, until his downfall because of his own mistake.

Scarface and Citizen Kane both focus on a single character and tells the story of the character’s rise and fall. Both Tony and Charles Foster Kane are powerful and reputable figures which had a large number of followers and friends until their downfall/death. The two film differs in the way the story is told, but both stories are very similar in terms of the message delivered to the audience (assuming that every character in Citizen Kane tells the truth).