Narratological Perspectives on Film Music To what degree does film music shape our perception of a narrative?

Consider . . . Music is heard, not seen Film largely is seen, not heard The film medium requires us to focus on the narrative and visual realities on screen Film music cannot be judged as one would judge “pure” music The narrative context—the interrelations between music and the rest of the film’s systems—determines the effectiveness of a movie’s score

Music as Meaning organizes discourse on 3 levels: As pure musical code As cultural musical code As cinematic musical code

“Pure” music v. Film Narrative Inherent tension Film discourse is representational, naturalistic, and rhythmically irregular Music discourse is nonrepresentational, lyrical, and rhythmically regular

Music/Scene relationship Parallelism/counterpoint: music either resembles or contradicts the scene. This view assumes that the image is autonomous Mutual implication: whatever music is chosen will have some effect on the scene

Silence Types Diegetic musical silence Nondiegetic musical silence Structural silence