Update: For those of you who found this through Google, I got an "A" on the paper, so it's actually a solid model. Good luck!
The Prompt
Discuss the role of music in a single film created in 1970 or before.
The
famed film composer Bernard Hermann is quite well known for having created some
of the most memorable film scores in human history. After scoring the indelible
classic Citizen Kane, his career took
him even further when he was asked to pen the compositions for Alfred
Hitchcock’s Psycho. His use of shrill
dissonance and solely string instrumentation was tremendously beneficial in
putting the audience in the mindset of a psychotic killer. The theme for the
shower scene is perhaps one of the most well-known film compositions in the
entire world.
But one of Hermann’s other great compositional
triumphs is hardly even a score at all, at least in the traditional sense. When
he was asked to develop the sound for Hitchcock’s horror follow-up The Birds, he made the ingenious
decision not to include a single piece of non-diegetic music. This worked
perfectly because The Birds made a
habit out of defying audience expectations: The plot of the entire first act is
a decoy, turning what seemed like a screwball romantic comedy on its head once
the first bird attacked. The Birds
also exhibited an entirely unprecedented level of gore for the time, rendered
in beautiful full color.
In every regard, The
Birds was pushing the envelope and Hermann recognized the importance of
keeping that quality consistent within the score. Where the audience, after
decades of movie watching was expecting either a lush post-romantic score
(assuming a romance) or a dissonant modern score (assuming a horror), what they
got instead was absolutely nothing. Due to the almost unconscious nature of
film music, most audience members wouldn’t have actively recognized the lack of
a score but it would have continuously
registered in the back of their minds, creating an unbearable psychological
tension during the first act of the film, even before anything goes wrong.
This is where Hermann’s genius works
its magic. Despite its technical lack of instrumentation, his silences work in
the exact same manner as a traditional film score, playing with the audience’s
preconceived notions of certain styles, motifs, and instrumental colors and
their meanings within the context of cinema. A traditional film might use a
sultry sax to signify a sexual scenario or a sweeping orchestra to denote an
astounding act of heroism because it effortlessly puts the audience in the
right mindset thanks to their experiences with similar techniques in previous
films. It is this exact prior experience that Hermann exploits to create the oppressive
atmosphere that haunts the entirety of the film.
Some might argue that Hermann’s work
on The Birds isn’t a true score, but
that is ignoring its base nature as a way of using music to manipulate an
audience’s emotions. That is, in fact, exactly
what Hermann is doing here, but simply in a wildly alternative format. And that
argument ignores the presence of source music and sound composition, all of
which was carefully selected by the composer himself for maximum effect and
terror. Although sound design is somewhat out of the scope of this essay,
Hermann’s use of flapping wings, clacking beaks, and avian squawks provides an
unsettling rhythm and quasi-score of its own.
The two most important musical
moments of the film are source music, impeccably chosen to break the silence at
the two most opportune times to set the opposing tones of the beginning and
middle of the film. The first, Debussy’s “Arabesque No. 1 in E” can be heard on
the radio during the first, romantic, portion of the film. It highlights the
elegant nature of Tippi Hedren’s character Melanie Daniels as well as the
wistful romance with which she approaches her life. This song choice is
immensely important because it comes early on in the film, lulling the audience
into a false sense of security, both in terms of film composition (having heard
an expected classical composition early on would make it that much more
unbearable during the absence of regular score) and of movie tone (one of pure
classical romance and the innocence of the era).
However, that security is shattered
with the startling placement of the next musical piece. After already having an
uncomfortable encounter with the business end of a seagull, Melanie Daniels is
on edge and taking a smoke break outside of the local elementary school while
she is waiting for her friend – a teacher – to get off of work.
During this scene, the children’s
choir is singing “Rissle-dy Rossle-dy,” a derivation of a traditional Scottish
folk song while black crows slowly gather on a playground behind an
unsuspecting Melanie.
This comes after a long period in which the film has been
utterly devoid of music and the innocence and joy of the song provides a
modicum of relief in the listener. That is, until the murder of crows begins to
roost. With the arrival of each additional crow and the threat of an impending
attack, the children’s song grows more and more eerie, replacing the pleasant
tone with the terrible potential of the slaughter of unaware innocents.
This is the most effective scene in
the whole film, entirely because of Hermann’s unprecedented skill in using
music (and its absence) to manipulate an audience. It’s absolutely brilliant,
using the infrequent source music and ample expectations due to cinematic
precedents in order to to play the audience like a fiddle – another alternative
form of orchestration. Hermann will forever be remembered for his contributions
to Kane and Psycho, but The Birds is
a sonic experience of unparalleled skill so subtle that it will rarely be
appreciated to the extent that it deserves.
What should be one of the most memorable scores in
human history will perhaps never attain such status due to the completely
subliminal effect it creates. Nobody even realizes that it exists! That is the
beauty of Hermann’s work on this film and it’s certainly no mistake that he was
paid the full salary of a traditional composer.
