The band Dropkick Murphys originated in Massachusetts and incorporates the sounds of Ireland into its punk-rock voice. The film “The Departed” revolves around cops and criminals, some of whom are of Irish descent, living in Boston. The use of the band’s song “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” intermittently throughout the film couldn’t be more appropriate.
While not every film achieves as literal a connection to its music, the role of the soundtrack has matured over the years into a much more formidable force, pulling the audience into the world of the movie for about two hours.
As music becomes more accessible through filesharing Web sites and MySpace, audiences expose themselves to more music and the emotions induced by it. After conditioning themselves this way, audiences now rely more heavily on hearing music in movies to fill their need.
In 2004, filmmaker Zach Braff made the decision to hand-pick each song found on the “Garden State” soundtrack. In addition to winning a Grammy for “Best Compilation Soundtrack Album,” the music also educated the audience on Braff’s personal taste. This insight allowed viewers to get to know the storyteller and relate to his characters, making the movie’s message all the easier to grasp.
Likewise, the new film “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” brings together a list of indie and alternative musicians, creating another conscious soundtrack. Music clearly plays a larger role in this film than in most, and it allows the audience to get to know the characters.
As opposed to only employing nondiegetic music, which plays outside of the characters’ world, the filmmakers let the characters themselves simultaneously listen to a majority of the songs the audience hears during the movie.
From the band Bishop Allen performing at a club to Nick’s ringtone of The Cure’s “Boys Don’t Cry,” every musical moment presents the audience with more information concerning these characters and how they regard each other.
“Most films at the core always come down to relationships … and it seems music is as ripe a subject to connect people as any other. People do come together over music,” fourth-year film and television student Oren Peleg said.
The diegetic music heard in “Nick and Norah” instigates bonding between the two primary characters. Peleg, whose concentration is screenwriting, understands the inspiration that accompanies hearing a certain song.
“I remember hearing (Sia’s “Breathe Me”) driving home one night. It’s very emotional, and I’m not saying what I came up with is good, but it inspired me to think of a quick scene in my head,” Peleg said.
Likewise, third-year theater student and filmmaker Ernesto Sandoval searches for that connection. In his film “Brother Stranger,” Sandoval considers the struggles of a character who tries to conceal his internal conflicts.
“I decided to choose “˜Scar Tissue’ by the Red Hot Chili Peppers because … I like that idea in which you carry around scars with you, and I felt that that fit with that specific character appropriately just because he’s carrying around scars that he doesn’t want to reveal to people,” Sandoval said.
Along with formerly published songs, a different use of music comes in the form of an original composition written for the sole purpose of that movie, a concept that UCLA film and television professor and composer Laura Karpman finds just as profound.
“If character A and character B are having a discussion and you want to amp it up, make it more moving, touching or angry, then you call on me to create that mood behind the dialogue,” Karpman said.
No stranger to composing film scores herself, this Emmy Award-winning composer is responsible for the theme to Steven Spielberg’s TV miniseries “Taken” and the upcoming score for “Center Stage 2,” for which she is currently collaborating with The Roots.
When she’s not writing music for the big screen, Karpman teaches the class “Music in Film: Another Way to Tell Stories” in which she trains filmmakers in the language of music so they can successfully converse with composers when it comes time to create music for their films.
Karpman tests her students’ senses in order to stress the importance of choosing the right music for a film.
“I take a scene from a movie and then put four different kinds of music against that scene, and, literally, you can feel four different ways. Music is one of the things in film that tells you how to feel or what to feel,” Karpman said.
Peleg finds this power in a scene from “The Shawshank Redemption,” in which Tim Robbins’ character plays opera music over the loudspeaker of the prison.
“(The song is) emotional to everybody at the prison because you can hear the freedom in her voice, and you can hear this hope that she has as she’s singing. Everybody in the prison is just so overwhelmed by it, and it really relates to them, and it inspires something in most of the people,” Peleg said.
As thoughtful as a piece of music in a movie can be, completely discarding all music from a film can also fully reflect the filmmaker’s vision. Last year’s Academy Award winner for best picture, “No Country for Old Men,” achieves just that.
“That film is one of the most stark kinds of brutal violent films I think I’ve ever seen. It’s the wrath of humanity, and there is no reason to have a score to make it scarier, to make it warmer or anything. It is the stark reality of unequaled violence,” Karpman said.
“Music, whether it’s silent or whether it’s booming symphonies, definitely creates a mood,” Peleg said.
On the other end of the spectrum are musicals such as “Across the Universe” and the upcoming “High School Musical 3: Senior Year.” The music is literally telling the story in these types of films, but they run the risk of overloading with tunes instead of tales.
“A lot of filmmakers just use music because they don’t trust their audience,” Sandoval said. “I’ve done that as well, where you just use music because you want to make sure that your audience is engaged … There are moments where you just have to let the audience take it in, meaning you have to trust them.”
Even though music can serve as the force that draws people into the movie, filmmakers must ask themselves whether the story could survive on its own. In some cases, the music in a movie is all an effort to publicize an artist.
“Remember when Britney Spears came out with her movie? Stuff like that, I don’t agree with,” Peleg said.
Regardless of artistic integrity, the evolution of the soundtrack has undoubtedly affected the diversity among musicians who now write original music for feature films. From Mark Mothersbaugh to Three 6 Mafia to Adam Sandler, original scores have successfully migrated away from their traditional orchestral sound.
Even with all the technological advances and fewer limitations placed on the type of musician that can participate, not all soundtracks deliver an equaled amount of insight.
Will the much talked about collaboration of Jack White and Alicia Keys that produced a theme song for “Quantum of Solace” make it easer for the audience to relate to James Bond and understand his world? Maybe. One thing’s for sure: The role of music in movies, as well as in everyday lives, continues to grow into not just another way of telling the story, but also an essential tool to connect to the audience.