A Conjunction of Visual and Auditory Signals in Movies - Essay Example

From the first public presentation of Lumire cinematographic techniques, for which a pianist is claimed to have improvised an accompaniment, until today's wide-screen multi-channeled, digitally recorded scores for films, music has always held a special place in the motion pictures. Movies have allowed artists and musicians to create an abundant and rich variety of music. Yet, most of the researches done in this direction include music scores written in the era of talking movies. Very poor knowledge of what film music was like in the silent movies was conducted. In this paper I will attempt to give some details about music in silent movie period and in particular what role the jazz had played as part of the silent motion picture. Furthermore, I give try to illustrate the jazz music used by Chaplin for his films. The difficulty of studying the nature of the music for motion pictures derives from the complexity of the medium. Films usually operate through "a conjunction of visual and auditory signals, research into film music requires an understanding of not one but two non-verbal systems of communication, as well as the problematical jargons with which we attempt to describe each of them in speech (Marks, 1997, p. 3)". Currently, few scholars have mastered the field of such specialized studies as music in silent movies. Thus, I have to address that this paper has limitation based on the narrow specialization of the topic. The subject of film music is neglected by researchers, because it spans between two disciplines and its material presents many problems (Marks, 1997). Unlike concert music, film music exists only as an accompaniment to the film and is not included into a repertoire. Especially in music for silent movies, the primary material that has to be researched is not the music, but the film itself. Consequently, the film music in silent movies has to be studies together with a profound observation of the movie. Music in this sense is in the core of the research and the movie plot stays in the periphery (Marks, 1997). "As we view a film, our minds must contend with the ever-changing content of the moving image and the soundtrack. The individual elements (not just music, but also lighting, camera work, editing, and so forth) are submerged into the flow of images on the screen. Hence the engrossed audience rarely perceives these elements consciously; it is simply carried along by the stream of sights and sounds (Marks, 1997, p.4)." Marks (1997) points out that most of our "information about music and silent cinema dates from after 1910; earlier than that, documents are lacking and extant scores are few (p. 26)." Altman (1998) observes that in the early periods of silent film musical accompaniment was not standard practice. He explains that the US film industry began to introduce normative musical score as accompaniment between 1908 and 1912. Altman (1998) also notes that developing the musical accompaniment was a significant part of the cinematic transformation that was taking part at that time. Efforts were made to stimulate the use of film music and to supervise its quality. Much more attention should be paid on the impact of geography into music. The urbanized east coast versus the less populated western states, the neighborhood trends versus the downtown surroundings have influenced the sound in the silent movies (Altman, 1998). Ethnicity and race and the emergence of African folklore traditions, ragtime and jazz on the musical accompaniment also placed a cornerstone in silent movies music. After the World War I and the disastrous flu epidemic in the 1918, the 1920s can be characterized as one of the most prosperous years in America. The 1920s are also called "The Roaring Twenties" or "The Jazz Age" (Blundell, n.d). After the World War I, a lot of African Americans who were living in the South, started to move North. Northern America was more industrialized and provided more employment opportunities. Thus, African Americans hoped they could make a better living. 1920s was the time when jazz began to gain its popularity. While moving to the North, African Americans brought their culture with them, influencing music and dance. In New York this new emerging culture was named "The Harlem Renaissance" (Blundell, n.d). The "King of Jazz" Louis Armstrong was extremely popular and soon, everybody was listening to jazz music and blues. In his book "A New History of Jazz" Alyn Shipton (2004) presents a different view of the jazz music, which contrasts with the common beliefs about jazz. By examining the usual origins of the jazz music from the ragtime period to the big bands, he regards jazz as an international music. While studying the jazz, he discusses the politicization of this genre and the influence of jazz in the film industry during the Great Depression. To connect this with the films of Charlie Chaplin we can say that in most of his later movies Chaplin politicize his ideas - in "The Gold Rush", "The Great Dictator", or "Modern Times". The original release of "The Gold Rush" was in 1925. This was 6 years before Charlie Chaplin's first attempts to compose his full-length score for "City Lights". "The Gold Rush" was circulated even during the age of silent-film theatre orchestras. In 1942 there was a new "sound" version of the film released with newly added music score by Max Terr (Brock, 2008). The score written in 1942 was to aid the narrative musical bed to Chaplin's voice dramatization of intertitles. Initially, the music was not intended to serve such purpose, but to play a contact role with the audience. Chaplin was self-taught pianist and preferred to focus exclusively on the melodic structure (Brock, 2008). In Chaplin's features music serves as an intermediary between the motion picture and the audience and creates the image success of the movie. For Chaplin the music needs to charge the scene and to add to the content. Consequently, the score to "The Gold Rush" was intensified with storm music, fight music, dance-hall music and love music (Brock, 2008). All these suggest that Chaplin used all the popular musical genres and incorporated them into his motion pictures. The period between 1910 and 1914 was a crucial one for the history of music for silent films in America. This period is characterized with the term "special score" which is distinguished from the musical content in the silent movies (Marks, 1997). The term "special score" designated that scores are especially written and distributed along with the film, while the accompaniment was improvisation prepared by musicians and played within the different theaters. This period marked the beginning of the special scores, which were reproduced, and published in numerous copies, in order to be performed in the different theaters. In this sense the film industry was able to encourage and control the release of the music features across the country simultaneously in the most systematic fashion exercise influence. During the 1920s film industry was flourishing. Hollywood silent cinema created numerous motion pictures without adding words and soon in the mid 1920s some directors seized to use intertitles (Blundell, n.d.). Even though the movies were silent, musical accompaniment was composed and attached to the narrative. Different styles of music were added to the silent movies, like jazz, blues and Dixieland. The Charleston, a lively dance which originated from South Carolina and was transmitted by African American culture also become immensely well-known and many silent movies were filmed with people dancing it (Blundell, n.d). Since the traditions from the music halls were carried out to the cinema halls, during the silent movie age, there was a "live" accompaniment by organists, pianists, singers or even bands to enhance the attractiveness of the film and to entertain the audience. These accompaniments sometimes included the popular jazz music scores. These are the first recorded evidence of jazz music presented as a medium in silent movies. Jazz music in silent movies has been paid little attention. However, we can presume its influence particularly in the silent movie era. Chaplin film scores are idea example of employing the various jazz sounds into his musical trademarks. Jazz music in most of Chaplin's features conveys the dark and melancholic string passages in unison with the character's emotions and feelings. Other instruments in Chaplin's score music that can be heard besides the piano are the barbarian sound of the brass, the colorful oboe and bassoon solos. Chaplin tried to perfectly synchronize the narration with the music score during all of the silent movies, which at that time needed strenuous and persevering efforts. But this was what made Chaplin's films scores original and unique with using notes from different genres from classical music to jazz, he introduced his kind of silent-film composition that was presented in the second release of "The Gold Rush". Chaplin used a great deal of quotations in his scores, which was a common practice in the silent-movie age. Employing specific well-known songs, the film composers aimed in registering a particular feeling in the audience. Popular jazz music tunes such as "Comin' thro the Rye", "Bonnie"," Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond indicated the full instrumental techniques integrally used by Chaplin (Brock, 2008). The inclusion of jazz scores conveyed certain emotions into the characters, for example - distress, or happiness. The harsh transitions from classical to jazz music in Chaplin's silent movies and the use of various altered musical scores of popular songs demonstrate the profound meaning that sound has and its impact both on the audience and for the completion of the picture. The piano and violin parts in "The Gold Rush" add to the dance-hall effect that Chaplin was aiming. 1920s were filled with dramatic changes in fashion, entertaining, hairstyle and music. All those industries were dominated by American lifestyle and motion picture industry was recognized as the most powerful entertainment instrument. Directors discovered that with the aid of musical art, they can provide the audience with incredible amusement. Consequently, including popular musical scores to the silent movies guaranteed success. At that time jazz music was tremendously fashionable and major pictures began to release movies with special scores which sometimes included jazz songs and improvisations (Marks, 1997). As jazz dominated the musical industry, it was natural to incorporate it into the motion pictures. Since movie goers demanded variety of music and had different interests the musical jazz accompaniment had to be blended with classical music and other popular music dances. Chaplin succeeded the most in his silent movies providing the audience both with various musical genres and combining it with his profound entertaining, artistic techniques. "Smile" was the name of the theme music introduced in "Modern Times" in 1936 - his last silent movie. The theme music was not credited in the motion picture. Chaplin wrote the composition and John Turner and Geoffrey Parsons supplied the lyrics to "Smile" in 1954. Afterwards Nat King Cole recorded the song and it eventually became a popular hit. Cole's interpretation of the song reached top 10 position on the Billboard Charts in 1954. Many people have heard this song, however, they did not recognize and connect it to the original melody which Chaplin wrote for "Modern Times". Chaplin's pinnacle in his composing career is with the innovative scores that he delivered for "Modern Times". The thematic imagery of the film made it necessary to employ 64 players to perform the complex symphonic ideas of Chaplin. In the silent film era, live musical scores were playing a central role into presenting the motion picture itself. The appearance of jazz music in silent movies notes a development of this genre which was used to elaborate on the sentiments of the characters. The importance of jazz in silent movies is little neglected and stayed invisible to many decades. This is so, because the musical accompaniment in silent films was regarded, not as part of the overall presentation of the film, but as additional, entertaining techniques aiming to involve the audience into the dramatization of the film projection. Being a self-taught composer, Chaplin played the piano and violin. He succeeded in composing several popular songs and occasionally handled the full 87-munite musical score to "City Lights". A year after his film debut in 1915, Chaplin established "Charlie Chaplin Music Publishing Company" (Weissman, 2008). Furthermore, he released some moderate hits such as "Oh! That Cello", "There's Always One You Can't Forget" and "The Peace Patrol". Following the musical trends in the 1920s Chaplin used various popular jazz songs in his silent movies. In 1925 he composed a lively fox-trot "With you, Dear, in Bombay" which was performed by Abe Lyman's California Orchestra (Weissman, 2008). "City Lights" was the first film for which Chaplin composed all the scores and added them through imprinting as a "sound" to the film. Chaplin's musical triumph was recognized with his Academy Award winning score from "Limelight" and "This Is My Song" from "A Countess of Hong Kong". Brennan (2008) claims that the roaring success of the African American music, in this sense of jazz music, too, is due to people's desires to escape from the monotheistic certitudes and rhythms at that time. Broadway and Hollywood in the 1920s were disproportionately inspired by African musical elements which can be sensed through the silent movies scores and hits. Jazz music appeared as devotional hymn and many songs jazz songs were performed in dancehall and locales (Brennan, 2008). Adding jazz music to silent movies gained jazz commercial fame and even created scandalous appearance for the actors. Jazz music was associated with leisure and easy life, with trespassing boundaries and acceptable status. Thus, attaching jazz music into silent movies unconsciously underlined the entertaining effect that motion pictures intended for. It is important to note that African spirituality added to the jazz music emotionality. Black musical forms like the ragtime and jazz fascinated the theatre audience and created spectacular effects as a background to the silent movies. Since silent movies were truly silent, they would look more intriguing and exciting if they are played with music. Thus, composers, jazz musicians and other artists tried to perform the musical scores in the silent movies. Film music was performed live in the silent cinema, however, phonographic recordings were sometimes used in America. The 1920s marked the development of the mammoth theatrical organ (Marks, 1997). The development of orchestral scores, transcribed for the orchestra emerged late in the silent movie era. Very often, Chaplin tries to identify his characters through the musical associations attached to them. Three key musicians assisted Chaplin in the scores for "Modern Times" - the conductor and composer Alfred Newman, David Raksin who was recommended by Gershwin and who was working for Broadway's Harms and Edward Powell. In "Modern Times" Chaplin employs soft, muted versions for old traditional songs "Halleluiah, I'm a Bum" with distant, dynamic piano on the background. Many of the early film music scores, in fact did not narrate particular action-movement, rather they attempt to reflect the general overall emotional charge (Brock, 2008). "If there was a love scene, the music was generally romantic (e.g.Francis Delille's Amoroso Appassionato), whereas a hurricane or other inclement catastrophes would require a boisterous overture (e.g. Domenico Savino's Storm Music) and comedies would usually warrant a light fare (e.g. Hugo Riesenfeld's Pizzacato Caprice) (Brock, 2008)." Most of the special scores in early silent movies are not well researched. Thus, even though this paper attempted to explore the significant of jazz music and especially in Chaplin's film, the paper faces source limitation, which should be taken into consideration. In this essay I tried to present an overview of the music in silent films, concentrating on the impact that jazz music had in the 1920s when its popularity soared. As musical and film industry are interconnected it was obvious that they exchange entertaining ideas, in their zest to amuse the audience. Jazz music was performed in silent movies to present certain moods of the characters - dramatic, lustful, emotional demonstrations. Since jazz music produced multiple hits, some of them also were used in silent movies as improvisations to enhance the viewer and to add into the cinema hall atmosphere. Chaplin was not only a prominent actor, but also wrote his own scores to his movies. While his compositions vary and there is data available for the scores he created, there is little research on the jazz songs performed in his silent movies. To an extent the difficulty arise from the fact, that most of the musical scores performed were not credited at the end of the film, because during the silent era, the accompaniment was in live. Jazz music was inseparable part of the silent movie age, because it was the most celebrated entertaining genre and because film and music industry are interdependent for their mutual success. References: Blundell, Karen. (n.d) The Golden Age of Silent Cinema (1923-1928). Homeschooljournal.net, retrieved from: http://laughingstars.homeschooljournal.net/unit-study-on-movies-in-progress/the-golden-age-of-silent-cinema-1923-1928/ Brennan, Timothy, (2008), Secular Devotion: Afro-Latin Music and Imperial Jazz, Verso Altman, Rick, (1998), Film/Genre, British Film Institute. Brock, Timothy, (2008), The Gold Rush, Article, retrieved from: http://www.timothybrock.com/articles_the_gold_rush.html Marks, Martin, (1997), Music and the Silent Film: Contexts and Case Studies, 1895-1924, Oxford University Press Shipton, Alyn, (2004), A New History of Jazz, Continuum International Publishing Group Weissman, Stephen (2008), Chaplin: A Life, Arcade Publishing. Read More