The music of Pan's Labyrinth: Conveying emotion in the realm of Magical Realism - Research Paper Example

Magic Realism makes a ment of two juxtaposed events. "It is a combination of realism and fantastic ideas in a way that magical elements are portrayed as reality...The realistic narration is mixed with the fantastic and supernatural elements. Hereby a decline of the familiar imagination of reality leads often to a challenge of the truth in general. (Deitrich 2007). The transition is made by the turn of a page and the imagination of the writer and the reader. Early renditions have been seen in the Soviet Union with Master and Magerita by Boughalkhov and in Germany, the Metamorphis by Kafka. In the cinematographic genre, the narrative modalities are two separate entities. The transition between the subversive or violent world and the magical, or mythic world are full of incongruencies, moments of silence and cacophony. Music has become a primordial essence in making the transition between these two modalities less apparent to the viewer. The object of the producer is to make the transition so unapparent that the viewer no longer notices that he has changed worlds. Music is Magic Realism has become a genre of its own. As music was once composed then used in a film, the magic realist writes his film with the composer collaborating at his side. Pan's Labyrinth directed by Guillermo Del Toro and composed by Javier Navarette is the exitensional culmination of music, literature and art. Three points would like to be developed to show how music in magic realism has become such an important element in cinematography. In Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth the transition between the worlds can heard through the different melodies and how they a juxtaposed in harmony to show how the worlds are co-existing. In Tim Burton's Big Fish, the different styles of music told the listener which type of setting to anticipate. In literature, magic realism was used by Gabriel Marquez in his One Hundred Days of Solitude setting the geographical landscaping for South American film makers. Tim Burton's Big Fish will have a dual function to show the influence this film had on future use of magic realism and to show the naive way music was used to switch between the juxtaposed worlds. Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth has taken the influence of South America and combined it with the mythical world of Moana. The use of Mercedes' Lulluby is full of metaphors and symbolism which will be fully discussed in the body of the paper. Magic Realism took its strength from the writings of the South American writers in the 20th century. The tumultuous political situation, the diverse folkloric culture and geographic natural landscape created the perfect imagery for both the writer and future screen writers. A genre of writing of putting reality and fantasy at the same level without giving a chance for the reader to be able to differentiate between the two, is the essence of magic realism. Gabriel Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude, responds to a need to explain the horrors of the reality of the Columbia government by introducing the irony of magic. His winning of the nobel prize of literature put a label on the genre that was typically Hispanic genre which was never intended to be labelled by the genre "magic realism". In the 1980's there was a rebirth in genre as coming from South America. The film, El Norte in 1985 received accolades. In one Hundred Years of Solitude, the farmer workers are killed by government officials when they go on strike. Marquez presents this as a banal event which is so mundane that it is not even worth reporting. Jose Arcadio Segundo cannot get any support in proving it happened. The mundane has become non -existent. In contrary, Colonel Aureliano is an imaginary "real" character. 'He organized thirty two armed uprisings and he lost them all, he had seventeen male children by seventeen different women and they were exterminated one after the other in a single night before the oldest one had reached the age of thirty-five. He survived fourteen attempts on his life, seventy three ambushes and a firing squad. He lived through a dose of strychnine in his coffee that was enough to kill a horse. He refused the Order of Merit which the President of the Republic awarded him. He rose to be the commander in chief of the revolutionary forces with jurisdiction and command from one border to the other and the man most feared by the government, but he never let himself be photographed. He declined the lifetime pension offered him after the war and until old age he made his living from the little gold fishes that he manufacture in his workshop in Macondo. Although he always fought at the head of his men, the only wound that he received was the one he gave himself after signing the Treaty of Neerlandia which put an end to almost twenty years of civil war . He shot himself in the chest with a pistol and the bullet came out through his back without damaging any vital organ". (Marquez 1967 ) He shows magic as a banality and the banal as magical or supernatural. The reader cannot tell what is important and what is insignificant; who is real and who is not. Marquez is quoted as saying "As the final judgment runs, the source of all creation is reality". He was against having his literature as other South American writer's put in the category of magical realism. All magic is a part of creation". Needless to say, Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude is full of folklore, myths, legends, and artefacts which are a part of everyday life in South America, . The duality of the "old life" juxtaposed with the "modern life" puts the reader in a position of no longer knowing what is normal or not. For twenty years, the population was confronted with La Violencia. More than 200 000 political murders occurred. Having seen such murders as a child, Marquez had been motivated to use this political event as a central non documented theme juxtaposed with the folklore of his grandparents. The technique of juxtaposing two opposing genres as fairy tale and historical (horror) reality or make believe "tall" tales with real life to facilitate the comprehension of life's atrocities or give an explanation of the reason of life's pivotal moment. First attributed to literature, magical realism is now considered part of cinematography. (Jameson 2010). All magical realism share stylistic features: historical films, source of fascination and the dynamic of the narrative has been reduced to violence which can also be sexual in nature. (Jameson 2010). A genre of historical film would either be a period piece or a nostalgic film: Pan's Lullaby or Big Fish Big Fish owes many of its conceptual features to Magic Realism where the music plays an integral part. It is not yet true magic realism though there are two worlds, there is not that element of perversion. There is only an element of "sociological" nostalgia. This genre of music of magic realism is in its infancy so there will be many changes which will occur before Del Nora's Pan Labyrinth. Ewan McGregor's Big Fish wanted to have his music change according to subject of the story. Because of his wonderful work, the orchestrated symphony orchestra or banjo music or light group of circus music gave the viewer a sense of a painting with each scene change. Edward's Bloom's fantastical stories has music which corresponds. His stories ,which seem to be a fabrication of his own imagination, are juxtaposed to reality. We think it is reality because of his son's anger and how his son thinks life should be. The viewer cannot tell the difference between the "tall" stories and reality. Music is used as a possible indicated of when talebs are being told. A closer analysis will show that one theme is used to answer that one important question of life: life or death. Ewan McGregor has two "light motifs" used. He used music to portray the subject of the scene and he used one theme to help through the difficult transition points in life. The music used at each of the tales where the situation changes (the fish, the giant, the Siamese twins, the daffodil fields, the circus, the magical town etc) is colourful and full of character. The Siamese twins perform at a Chinese concert. The circus has the proper music and the magical town has dance music. Only one time in the whole film to we hear "real music". On his death bed, Edward Bloom has a radio by his bed. For those discerning ears, you can hear Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony which is a sign he is approaching death. Memory become reality and reality becomes memory. Little by little the two worlds merge together, when the son carries his father towards the river. Music is used in the form of auditory image to help change between the worlds. Big Fish is one of the earlier films in Magic Realism using the technique of music motifs to bridge two worlds within one film. Navarette's Pan's Labyrinth use of music motifs is complex and fascinating to study. There are three primary melodic motifs which are used: Ofelia's, the Resistance's, and Mercedes'. During the progression of the film, these three motifs harmonically merge together and become a full theme as the three main protagonists resolve their issues and the enemy cease to exist. There are full themes which are metaphors of the 'enemy' which differ from primary melodic motifs. The Captain's music is in a historical style male genre music that we mostly see in the form of vinyl records on his gramophone while he is shaving. It sounds like real Spanish music from the war. The second full theme is the music of the orchestra and the tympani drums showing the galloping horses and soldiers going into the forest towards the resistance soldiers . The genre of the enemy music is male. The genre of Orfelia's music is the female outlook towards the world. The captain only plays historically period music of Spain 1940's.. It shows his self attributed arrogance. He is always shaving with a sharp razor. It important to show his transformation as in the end the music at his demise has completely changed. At the beginning of the film, Ofelia is seen dying and we hear the famous Lullaby in its full version. Note that it is rarely that the viewer hears the full lullaby. The three times represents major changes in Ofelia's outlook towards life. Quickly in the second scene, she is showing coming to a far away mill where she gets out of a car and sees a "fairy". "A film has many ways of coaxing the audience from character development, narrative discourse and events, to the more visceral point of view shot composition and sound design". (Goerbman 120). A young girl is seen walking from the car, she sees a tree with an interesting motive. We know she is young and naive. She like reading and she is an only child. When she sees the fairy, the 7 note motif repeats itself over and over with different added sounds but the underline motif remains the same. When she goes to the tree and puts the rock in, there is only the question motif asked two times, before the 7 note motif of the lullaby answering showing it is the beginning of the story; and the story is going to move as at the very beginning, the motif was complex and had a choral voices. Ofelia's motif remains the question - answer motif (7 notes of the lullaby). When she goes in to the labyrinth for the first time the music become complex with chorus and orchestration. We are seeing it as more inquisitive. She is curious but scared as what she is going to find. The emotions are expressed with the timpani drums. The harmony is continued and changes into the second part of the lullaby when the fairy appears and the fast clacking of her wings. The next part of magic is when Ofelia speaks to her step brother . His heart beat is the three note motif which turns into the same theme as at the rock. The three note heart beat returns and turns into the ticking of the Captain's pocket watch. This is the symbol of the father he never knew who died while fighting WWI. The outside music when Ofelia wants to be outside is fully orchestrated to show movement and searching. When she is happy to be outside the music is light. The lullaby is present in the theme. When she is scared or running, the music becomes dark and ominous. At this particular moment when we come back inside, the genre of the music changes, it is the sound of the gramophone of the Spanish war music. We see dancing of soldiers. Each time, music is used during the scenes of the Captain it is either diagetic or historical music. Diagetic music is to his harshness of character. (Buhler 40) Where as the rest of the music in the film is non diagetic. A major change in the film when she goes into the bathroom to look at the book for the first time. The music is a piano and clarinet. The theme is different and the viewer hears it for the first time. The added chimes gives the effect of grandeur.. She realizes that she is indeed a princess. When she looks at the book and an ancient text appears which actually dates from the 9th century per the icon, there is the church bell ringing. A new melody is juxtaposed with the Captain's horse melody show the Resistance and the Franco army out in the forest. This juxtaposition shows that the Resistance is gaining force. The first time the army goes into the forest the theme was just the horse melody. The Resistance has a male genre and is full in sound and harmony. The second time we hear the full Lullaby is when Ofelia asks Mercedes to sing to her for comfort. She had seen blood running down the page of the book and then her mother almost dying.. She ask Mercedes if she helped the men of the forest. We hear the Ofelia 6 note motif and it converges with the full melody. It also shows the mutual acceptance of each other and a mutual understanding of the hatred of the Captain and the desire to leave the mill. Their complicity continues during the whole film and is heard with the new rendition of "Mercedes Lullaby". "A state of equilibrium by a continuous theme which changes according to the state of others." (Jones 10) The harp is a principal instrument as it expresses the one note themes, the Resistance theme, and Ofelia's motif. In the cave, the theme shows a change of optimism as the music is suddenly in a major key, the viewer knows that something good has happened by the change in keys. The boy who stutters tries reading and another reads the newspaper that the Americans are approaching, the music is picking up speed and becoming fuller. It can be confirmed that Mercedes Lullaby and Ofelia's motif have become one and the Captain is against them. Other motifs used are to show emotions, the unknown, fear, excitement. String orchestration and piano arpeggios are used for running scenes. There are three types of running scenes where one is where we hear the orchestra with drums to represent the horses; another when Ofelia is running out of joy and the music is light and synthetic and another where she is running out of fear and vocals have been introduced. There is the constant question and answer motif that we heard in the opening scene when she put the first rock in the statute by the car. Navarette has used musical motifs and variations of 3 themes to explain mood, emotions, transitions, events, colours, the magic of reality etc. Ewan McGregor uses styles of music and one motif during Big Fish. There is a difference of the conception of music in magic realism because of the complexity of the stories. In both films, they start with death or dying then they have stories to create and tell. Bill's reality needs to become Edward's reality. This is the purpose of the film. Edward was convinced he was meant for bigger and better things. Ofelia was supposed to return to her role of being a princess. She had returned to reality. In order to return back to her previous role in the underworld she had to achieve three tasks in which she had to offer her baby step brother as a sacrifice. Throughout the film there was constant movement, back and form from the magic to the real, and movement from the magic to the resistance and soldiers. Ofelia wanted to get back the love of her mother; and find her father in reality. In Big Fish , Will wanted to learn who was his real father. He merged the magic life of his father with his own real life. Ewan McGregor's music in Big Fish was determinate to allow the viewer to know the scene had change whereas in Pan's Labyrinth it was depended more on the emotion and had to be more expressive. Tim Burton's Big Fish was done for young and old. Del Nora's was a fairy tale full of violence and magic where music was essential to make so many different multiple transitions into each world. Navarette was brilliant in making so many extra motifs which merges together harmoniously at the end as peace into an orchestrated version of Mercedes' Lullaby. The metaphor of the music as a peacemaking device and a musical device is strong. When the Captain was killed, it was not sure that his watch hadn't stopped as it could no longer be heard when he looked at the time. Had it done so, the fourth element can be introduced into the metaphor: Ofelia, Mercedes, the Resistance and the Captain. The one theme used in Tim Burton's Big Fish first appears when Edward is a younger boy and goes to the witch who tells when people are going to die. The fence creaks (diagetic) and the music is eerie. It is a moment dealing with death. A second moment we hear the theme, Edward realizes in leaving Specter, life will be harder and more difficult (without one's shoes). The music is swampy and spooky. It takes careful listening in realizing that there the melody is present. It is a sort of epiphany, life is not easy. One would assume that McGregor uses this theme to change between the real and the "tall stories". Only at the final scene at the lake when some of his "magical friends" are present, do we realize that the theme meant something different. His life was uplifting and optimistic. When he walks through the swamp and reaches Specter, he doesn't know if he has reached Paradise (death). We also hear the same theme played on the banjo and question if the perfect town represents heaven. The rest of the music was stylistic light hearted, and bright. When his son carries him to the river and he goes under the water we hear the theme. The theme is never full and orchestrated. Strings or synthesized music are used. Big Fish, the music is a bit more full and orchestrated throughout but this is because the fantastical elements of Big Fish are a bit more whimsical and uplifting then those in Pan's Labyrinth, so Navarette's score in Pan's Labyrinth has to remain dark throughout.  In Big Fish, the whimsical musical elements of Edward Bloom's fantastic stories do contrast to the reality of the elderly Edward Bloom dying. In his bedroom, emanating from his radio, we hear the diagetic music of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony which symbolizes one of the psalm "May I walk in the field of death….". It also is corresponds perfectly to the field of daffodils he had for his wife. Edward would never give up that he was a story teller. Yes, he was dying but how he was going was going to be a surprise. Will Bloom had to acquiesce to accepting that some of his stories were true and thus he accepted his father as he was or not at all. The two elements of the magic and reality did converge partly but the music did not. The circle of life in Big Fish, Edward starts his life as the fish he always wanted to become. The story is not sad as it ended how it should have. The theme of the film was that life was a series of event (paintings) as though we were at an expositions. The side tracks, which we took, were the learning experiences which made us grow. The side tracks were unified and linked together by one theme. This one theme can be translated by one purpose. Though this is a simplistic explanation of the musical theme of the Big Fish, it is one of the two elements of Magic Realism that both Ewan McGregor and Tim Burton used. Del Tor and Navarette have used magic realism at a higher realm. The music of Navarette was composed alongside the writing of the film. Each genre, each hybrid genre, each allegorical motif was applied to assist the transition between light and dark, black and white, magic and real, horrid and fantastic. Each note, each motif, each melody, each theme had a meaning. Both stories existed at the same time. The viewer went from one to the other within seconds. So much transition makes us think that the death of Ofelia is futile, but she ended up when she began back in the womb of her parents. Gender is important and has not been developed. The perspective of the observer is often determined by the music used. In Big Fish, the observer for the most part is male, Edward Bloom is the observer in each of the whimsical situations. When the theme is present, the gender vacillates between male, female and child depending on the level of fear or emotion. In Pan's Labyrinth, gender also changes depending on the theme. In its most simplest form when Ofelia and Mercedes have united it is feminine. When they have joined with the Resistance, it still remains feminine because they are showing the scene through Mercedes perspective. An interesting moment is the sound effects of Ofelia's mother screaming and you see the Captain looking scared for his son. It is somewhat questionable if we are looking at him through the eyes of a woman or a cold man. One point about non diagetic music. In most of Ewan McGregor's compositions who shows the music as diagetic. It eminates from a valid source of music: instruments, radio, banjo, circus music. In Navarette's music it is only the ticking of the watch which is a highly symbolic metaphor as to the Captains death and the gramophone. He primarily used non diagetic music synchronized perfectly to give emphasis to the events. Illustrating the development of the importance of the Music of Magic Realism as a genre in itself has been a challenge on paper only. Literature has shown that the imagination helps in creating the transition between the two worlds. On the scene the rapidity of the change is rapid and can exist at the same time. Music is needed to illustrate the differences as the real from the magic is not always obvious. The juxtaposition of two worlds with the use of scenic music does not create more than a difference of scenes as seen with Big Fish. The use of one theme in a film is only a one element of magic realism which limits the film's use of colour. The use of multiple techniques of music such a notes, motifs, melodies and themes parallels the complexities of Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. Word count 4117 References Brown, R.S., (1994). Overtones and Undertones: Reading Film Music, Berkeley; University of California Press (pp 41-59) Buhler, J. (2001). Analytical and Interpretive Approaches to Film Music: Analysing Interation of Music and Film. In: Donnelly, K.J., (ed) Film Music Critical Approaches, Edinburgh University Press; Edinburgh(pp 31-69, 169-187) Deitrich, J. (2007). Elements of Magical Realism in Sakes Mda's Novel Playing with the Darkness (p 6) Goerbman, C. (1987) Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music, London; BFI (pp 190) Jameson, F., (1994). On Magic Realism in Film. Chicago Journals. 12 (2), 301-325 [online] Available from : JSTOR [Accessed 02 May 2011] Jones, T., (2010). Studying Pan's Labyrinth, Leighton Buzzard; Auteur Books(pp 5-95) Marquez, G., (1967). One Hundred Years of Solitude. (pdf edition pp376) Vernon, K.M. and Eisen, C., (2006). Contemporary Spanish Film Music: Carlos Suara and Pedro Almodovar. In: Mera, M. and Burnand, D., (eds.) European Film Music. Hampshire; Ashgate, pp 41-59) Read More