The Importance of Soundtrack

You could argue the opposite just as easily if not more. They're not called "movies" for their sound.

Soundtrack and musical editing for "Mad Max: Fury Road" goes a long way to make action scenes more impressive.

Definitely.

I'm a personal fan of John Williams, particularly Star Wars, Harry Potter, Schindler's List, and Saving Private Ryan. I also like the work of Jerry Goldsmith and Thomas Newman, among others.

Here's another interesting example. Murray Gold has been criticised for his TV scores – in the case of Vanity Fair that his music was cacophonous and intrusive (I remember his creative explanation for it was feasible but as a viewer it was still hard to take); and later that some of his scores for Doctor Who were too loud. Whether the latter is down to how they've been mixed in to the production is arguable, and this problem definitely crops up on a regular basis with BBC dramas.

In the film Beautiful Creatures Gold's music is similar to Vanity Fair: brash and in your face but somehow it works for the film really well.

I liked Thomas Newman's score for Skyfall – parts of it reminded me of Vangelis. Much as I like David Arnold a change was long overdue – I saw some of Quantum of Solace recently and his music really sounded tired and as if the ideas were depleated. When I found out that Arnold had created his version of the Doctor Who theme in an afternoon I thought two things: "you can hear that he did" and "it's still so fantastic what would he have done with time and money?".

X-Men: First Class would be one of those for me. It was very funny to hear Henry Jackman recall the exchange with Matthew Vaughn about how to take some of the John Barry out of it, even though Barry and the Bond films were a massive influence. The fact that Magneto's theme was used on trailers for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy proves it's one of the best contemporary pieces in film.

Without music you would have a very different film though. Even with silent films, the music is extremely important in setting the right tone and feel.

You can have great image, writing, performances and directing but if the music and sound isn't right, then it's not going to work.

My point is you could any other single element on the same pedestal.

If the actors aren't right, the whole movie fails.

If the editing isn't on point, the whole movie will be dead in the water.

If the story is riddled so many plotholes it may as well be swiss cheese, the movie will collapse in itself.

Any one of these things can have a tremendous effect on the end product after everything is said and done. It's why you hear so much criticism about found footage movies, if that one element isn't done well it's going to severely impact the experience.

That's why I think movies should be judged as the sum of their parts considering the angle the movie's going for.

If it's a musical, the music will be most important.

If it's a comedy, the jokes will be most important.

If it's a drama, the characters will be the most important.

It's an action, the action will be most important, and so on.

Most movies don't entirely pigeonhole themselves into these categories though, there's far more to the movie than just those things.

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"Well, at least your intentions behind the UTTERLY DEVASTATING FAULTS IN YOUR LOGIC are good." - Captain Steel

Sound arguably has a bigger impact on the tone a film or TV show seems to take on though. You could have bad acting but it's not going to affect the tone (unless it's very extreme - hammed up or toned down), you could have bad editing but it won't affect the tone, you could have a bad story but it won't affect the tone (even if it's laughable, it doesn't make it a comedy unless it is a comedy)....

Whereas with sound, if the sound is comedic it can turn a serious film into a comedy.

Not a good comedy. Besides, tone isn't everything and a lot of great movies have very understated backing tracks.

You might as well make the argument that "Music is the most important part of any movie because the tone can change if the music is nothing but an ear-splitting jackhammer throughout the whole thing".

Music is extremely important element of movies. Most highly regarded movies have great soundtracks.

Soundtrack is very important... Most of the time. I recently watched Dual (1971) and there's no soundtrack. And it works just fine for that movie - the isolated mood is what they were going for.

I love the soundtrack of Ghost (1990). Even the song "I'm Henry the 8th I am" fits beautifully with the story: it's about a widow and even "Willie" and "Sam" are mentioned (two of the movie's characters).



I also enjoy in Rocky (1976) how the music swells right after Rocky and Adrian reunite in the ring and declare their love for each other.

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Boldly going.

I almost never pay attention to the soundtrack. I know it's important but I don't focus on it, but 'feel it' instead.

Movie music puts movies over somewhat into opera territory. Like opera, a movie could be recitation of lines of dialog or it can be a rousing emotional experience. The music is the emotional barometer. You could be having a nice day at the beach, kids frolicking in the water, but it's that deep, menacing musical theme that alerts you to the approach of Jaws.

That's something that's been recognized all the way back to the silent movie era. They piano player, organist or theater orchestra prefigures emotional content and "tells" you how to feel, alerts you to something about to happen, tells the guy that his girlfriend is there, tells you that someone has died, or whatever.

Back when I was doing clinical psychology I recall this as a thing. There is emotional content and intellectual content and that applies to real life and movies. In the case of the movie, the music, if it's well done, goes right past your thinking brain and right to the emotional brain. The music makes the difference between a nice day at the beach and the yet unseen, approaching shark.

Color does something very similar, but since movies are mainly either all color or all monochrome, music does the job in most movies. This is why movie composers are such a distinct genre from people who write music for non-visual purposes. Most movie music isn't much to listen to by itself, but a theme, e.g., Lara's Theme in Dr Zhivago non-verbally tells you that he's thinking about Lara as he trudges across the Siberian taiga.

Exactly. The music tells you how to feel, whether you're actively listening or not. You don't want a subtitle that says, "feel happy now", but that's what the music does. Otherwise, a movie is just pictures. Even back in the silent era, film presenters knew this.

Like opera, it's the difference between a clown story and Pagliacci with its soaring emotionalism. This is what movies aim for, even though audiences in our era are too cynical to believe in this level of emotion.

Not all film scores are about telling you how you should feel

I would argue that they're ALL about that, unless it's a sterile documentary or a plumbing lesson. A great film score is one that does it even though you are not listening actively. Pagliacci is obviously too emotive for a movie, but the same principle applies...it tells you how to feel. Generally the music doesn't whack people on the head; it gives them a nudge in the right direction, prefigures something or brings back a recollection. If you miss that element in a movie, it's a big loss.

Guess you've never noticed music in movies being used for thematic reasons

Of course....the theme is part of the story. That's exactly what I'm getting at. It doesn't have to be the sad clown, but it narrates, non-verbally, the pleasant day on the beach until the shark arrives, most importantly, before YOU see the shark. You'd need a lot of pictures and words to do that, but music hits it in an instant. Often the best movie music is something you hardly hear.