{"id":4009,"date":"2014-09-30T11:31:06","date_gmt":"2014-09-30T11:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=4009"},"modified":"2014-10-03T12:12:37","modified_gmt":"2014-10-03T12:12:37","slug":"synesthesia-and-the-mystery-of-great-film-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=4009","title":{"rendered":"Synesthesia and the mystery of great film music"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Paris-Texas<\/a><\/p>\n

By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

\u201cGive me music,\u201d says Shakespeare\u2019s Cleopatra. \u201cMusic, moody food for us that trade in love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moody food, too, for those who trade in movies. Whether it\u2019s Rupert Everett leading a rousing chorus of \u201cI Say a Little Prayer\u201d in \u201cMy Best Friend\u2019s Wedding\u201d, Henry Mancini\u2019s feline tiptoe accompaniment to \u201cThe Pink Panther\u201d or Maurice Jarre\u2019s haunting \u201cLara\u2019s Theme\u201d from \u201cDoctor Zhivago\u201d, music in films has the power to move us as much as, and sometimes more than, the words and pictures.<\/p>\n

William Congreve wrote: \u201cMusic has charms to soothe the savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is a word for it: synesthesia. It\u2019s the subjective response of one sense when another sense is actually being stimulated. It\u2019s when perfume brings to mind someone\u2019s touch or when a sip of champagne makes you hear someone’s voice. Most of us have experienced it.<\/p>\n

Clinically, synesthesia has to do with an intense crossing of the senses, particularly those that involve colours and sound. Dr. Elizabeth Cohen, who has degrees in music, physics and electrical engineering plus a doctorate from Stanford in acoustics, points out that waves of deep or loud sound can affect senses other than hearing — balance and stability, for example.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut synesthesia usually refers to the association of music with color,\u201d said Dr. Cohen, who is president of the Audio Engineering Society and whose company, Cohen Acoustical, Inc., designs concert halls and screening rooms. \u201cData varies all over the map on the percentage of people [synesthesia] occurs in but there is huge literature, stemming from studies in anthropology and ethnomusicology, on the emotional impact of music and the ability of music to induce altered or transcendent states.\u201d<\/p>\n

How it works is a puzzle, and so too is the way composers render music for films that create such responses in moviegoers.<\/p>\n

Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer said, \u201cIt is a mystery, and that\u2019s one of the great things about it, because, being a mystery, you get to reinvent it each time. There are certain things that strike us at the core of our being, and music is incredibly powerful in that respect because it\u2019s an absolutely valid and legitimate language in its own right, and it deals only with emotion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zimmer wrote the music to Terence Malick\u2019s film \u201cThe Thin Red Line\u201d and he said at one point he was at a loss over what a certain piece of music was supposed to do: \u201cHe said, \u2018Oh, you\u2019re the harmony to the character,\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, Zimmer had problems because Malick asked him to write music for a film not yet shot: \u201cI kept saying, \u2018I need to see how you light this scene. I need to see how green the grass is in the valley you’re asking me to write about. On \u2018The Lion King\u2019, I had black-and-white drawings to work with, and I\u2019m still kicking myself about one scene because I got the colour in the music wrong. I didn\u2019t get the emotion right because the colours were clashing.”<\/p>\n

Songwriter Allan Rich, whose songs have been recorded by Kris Kristofferson, and his father, the late Charlie Rich, said he is synesthetic: \u201cAbout 12% of the population is truly synesthetic. We hear colour and smell sound. Beethoven thought that B-minor was black. He thought that D-major was yellow and Rimsky-Korsakov thought it was orange.”<\/p>\n

John Frizzell (\u201cAlien: Resurrection\u201d, \u201cThe Following\u201d) said it\u2019s difficult for him to write music before he sees the movie: \u201cI\u2019m inspired by colours and lighting. I tend to share a bond with the cinematographer. I view scoring a picture an aspect of a film as important as the cinematography. They set the visual tone. We set the sonic tone.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Debney (\u201cSin City\u201d, \u201cNew Year\u2019s Eve\u201d) said that he doesn\u2019t think consciously in colours: \u201cI think of orchestral colours, that is, the softness of a solo clarinet or the plaintiveness of a solo oboe. Would an oboe be orange or yellow? I don\u2019t know. I\u2019ve had directors say the music was a little too blue or too red. One time, I had a melody carried by a bell and someone said, \u2018It\u2019s a little too yellow and happy.\u2019 It can help facilitate communication sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Legendary guitarist and film composer Ry Cooder (\u201cParis, Texas\u201d, pictured, \u201cSouthern Comfort\u201d) observed that music also reflects time and space: \u201cIf you hear old blues music that came out of the Southern states, especially Mississippi, and you go down there and catch the way the place looks and smells, you understand where the tempos are coming from and where the space in the music comes from.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cooder made the hit Nonesuch Records \u201cBuena Vista Social Club,\u201d which features a group of old-time Cuban musicians and reflects that sense of place. He recalled when he was 4 years-old and heard music that made him see places he\u2019d never visited: \u201cWhen Woody Guthrie used to say, \u2018I\u2019m goin\u2019 down the road feelin\u2019 bad\u2019, you really saw it happening. I\u2019d listen to those records as a kid, and I could see every foot of the road. I try to bring that to my pictures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wherever composers derive their inspiration, Dr. Cohen says that films would reflect their own time and space much more successfully if directors worked with composers from the beginning: \u201cThe best filmmakers have very close relationships with the composers they work with. Scripts that have a strong point of view and compositions that have a strong point of view can work together to deliver whatever message or emotional state the filmmaker wants. Anytime you start doing things by committee or start delegating that, you\u2019re giving up control over your artistry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leonard Rosenman, the concert-hall composer who scored such pictures as \u201cRebel Without a Cause\u201d and \u201cEast of Eden\u201d, observed that music and film are similar because they deal in the same way with real time and psychological time: \u201cThere has to be a real marriage between the music and film.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosenman wrote the score for \u201cEast of Eden\u201d before the picture was made: \u201cI played the piano for the actors before they played a scene. They all said it helped them enormously.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Figgis is one filmmaker who provides the perfect mesh among writer, director and composer. That\u2019s because he does it all. He wrote jazz music for \u201cLeaving Las Vegas\u201d and a classical score for \u201cOne Night Stand\u201d, amongst others.<\/p>\n

Figgis played the theme music for \u201cLeaving Las Vegas\u201d to stars Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue at his home before they shot a love scene: \u201cThey both said they learned more about their characters from the music than from the script. With the music, you can add a whole new layer of imagery that no one\u2019s heard before. That\u2019s always been the point of making films to me. The idea of handing everything over to another composer is unthinkable. It\u2019s such a powerful gift to give someone.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it remains a mystery. But movies would not be the same without the score. As Shakespeare\u2019s Orsino says in \u201cTwelfth Night\u201d, \u201cIf music be the food of love, play on.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story first appeared in The Hollywood Reporter<\/a> circa 1998<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett \u201cGive me music,\u201d says Shakespeare\u2019s Cleopatra. \u201cMusic, moody food for us that trade in love.\u201d Moody food, too, for those who trade in movies. Whether it\u2019s Rupert Everett leading a rousing chorus of \u201cI Say a Little … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,8],"tags":[1275,1054],"class_list":["post-4009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film","category-music","tag-hans-zimmer","tag-ry-cooder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4009"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4024,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4009\/revisions\/4024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}