In film and television production, the composer is expected to create
music that is governed in length, style, development and structure by non-musical
elements. Often, sound effects engulf much of the detail and subtlety of
the music (if there is any in the first place), or dialogue limits the music's
purpose to a simplistic manipulation of the audience's emotional response.
The development and variation of musical thought and structure--which for
most composers of genius is the most challenging and joyful aspect of composition--is
generally limited and controlled wholly by the visual medium.
I am not saying that music has no place as a collaborative art. Indeed,
in many artistic collaborations involving music, the composer is vital,
if not essential, to the direction of the project. For example, in opera,
ballet, musicals, and songs, the composer's unique vision is not subservient
to the vision of librettists, choreographers, conductors or lyricists. While
conflicts between colleagues can occur, these art forms share a common assumption:
Music is a primary language of communication. In visual media, music is
not the primary language. When music is coupled with the visual image, its
impact on the listener is always associative: If the music is effective,
but the overall scene is not, the music stands out like a self-conscious
adolescent on a first date, whereas if the music is poor and the scene works
well, the music (which may be outdated, trite or melodramatic) can distance
the audience from unselfconscious involvement very quickly and have an effect
the director did not intend. Soundtrack engineers must always consider pacing,
dialogue, sound effects and overall sound design, with the resolution ultimately
in the hands of the director. One of the remarkable and rare things about
an effective soundtrack is how these elements work together, each in its
own aural 'space', each contributing to the scene, each playing its own
part. I sometimes wonder while watching a film how much of the music is
being masked by these other sonic elements.
Making feature films is an expensive enterprise and every year the cost
of production goes higher. Movies are often created in a profit-motivated
corporate environment where people invest tens of millions of dollars to
make money. Many movies are produced with the strategy that they will be
of interest to people with dissimilar intellectual, social, and cultural
values. Other films seem to be produced for people who seem to have no interest
in values at all. As millions of people have the same aesthetic experience,
perhaps a kind of cultural catharsis happens, but I suspect it is far more
common that the victory of market-driven values over sensibility is the
consequence of mass-produced entertainment. Occasionally, I'll glance at
the 'Top 10 Grossing Films' column in the newspaper. What does this mean?
A film's value can be measured in dollars? |
Have we become so entrenched in the energy of money that we use it as
the standard for artistic expression and achievement? The absurdity of this
kind of thinking does not stand up to reason, yet we continue to make judgments
from the economic paradigm. Maybe the equating of mass entertainment with
fine art is irrelevant - I'm not sure whether I am cynical or naive on this
point - but the widespread assumption that market-driven exchange values
define what is of true worth to people seems to be one of the tragic illusions
of our culture. It is not that fine art cannot exist in the marketplace,
but that real art always has intrinsic psychological and cultural value
which unquestionably transcends any economic value it may or may not possess.
In our age of mass-advertising and mass-marketing, the means and ends of
artistic experience and artistic works are confused. As the ever-larger
corporations of entertainment continue to swallow up smaller groups, like
a cancer cell unchecked, how will diversity of values, and more important,
the evolution of values, be played out in a culture where money is used
by the ignorant to measure the value of artistic products?
If a film costs $35 million to produce, and is expected to gross $80
or $100 million, you can bet that someone is making sure this film will
be of interest to a lot of people. And these producers are not in the mood
to take the artistic risks necessary for creativity to flourish. Name-recognition
wins out over originality, and proven formulas eclipse experimentation (except
in matters of technology, where experimentation is the norm). These factors
have a strong influence on a composer's creative direction. Hence, contemporary
film scores sound all too similar: If film A is successful in the marketplace,
then film B ought to have the same musical 'sound', whether a different
style (or different composer) may work better from a dramatic or musical
perspective. Many of these production decisions are made by executives whose
abilities and training are in business and marketing, or by half-trained
musicians who have won a place in the corporate entertainment hierarchy.
It is difficult for people to agree on what constitutes a good piece of
music based solely on artistic standards. In our culture we impatiently
sidestep the entire question and allow the success or failure of mass-marketing
to be the arbitrator in these matters. Since economics is one of the great
mythologies of our civilization, it is no wonder that we do this and not
see the uselessness and shortsightedness of our judgments.
The composer's role in film, therefore, is influenced by two powerful
factors: First, as a craft, in which structure, development and style are
governed by non-musical elements, and second, as a contributor to a medium
which is, in essence, controlled by money, and has its central aim the realization
of large corporate profits. Perhaps this is why many of our most gifted
composers are either indifferent about, or antagonistic toward, the messy
business of commercial scoring. |
