Another of my goals in this blog is to increase awareness of the different components which make up films. Frequently we look at the story, and maybe the acting, and stop right there. But there are other elements which help to compose a movie. How about color palette? The colors which make up a film are very important to a film, and they are often critical to any true analysis of a movie. Take the film Gladiator. The colors of this film are almost universally kept muted. They are either dark blues and rich golds that border on brown or silvers so bright they seem almost to be one with white light. Only one jarring color sticks out. Red. The reds from blood and good luck dyes clash with the rest of the film’s palette. Think about what this says in the film?
Also in the film Gladiator we can see another key component of film making: the cinematography. Look at the very first scene, in the battle with the Germans. What does the camera do, how does it move. It’s shaky, and it moves so quickly that your eyes start hurting as they try to follow. It gives us tilted shots and odd angles. This jolted movement of the camera completely captures the fear and the mind-splitting speed that a soldier encounters while in battle, and the odd angles follow the viewpoints that a constantly moving body would see.
And I’ve saved my favorite for last. How about a film’s score, that stuff that plays in the background? I personally believe that the great movie scores of today will be read about in tomorrow’s music history books. I think they will be called the Brahms and Mozart of our era. They are as important to our society, even while they play in the background, as Bach’s court music was to that of the 1700s.
Listen to Howard Shore’s “The Bridge of Khazad Dum” from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Hear the violins in the background playing off the rest of the orchestra to bring on a sense of urgency. Listen to the dark undertones of the men’s chorus, making the blackness of Moria visible to the listening ear. Mid-way the trumpets have such joy, their tones ring of triumph over the decaying stone. And then there is silence, and ever slowing drumbeats. Then a new sound enters the piece, escorted by a haunting soprano. It is the sound of ultimate loss. In six minutes, Shore completely captures the fear, success, and devastation of the story. Now that’s what I call art.
Now turn on James Newton Howard’s “What Are You Asking Me?” from The Village. Listen to the violin. Can you hear it crying? There is a foreboding, weeping sound to the violin here that defies all description. It expresses the overall mourning we see in its film, The Village. There are countless other tracks I could name which show how fully a film’s score can capture the meaning and tone of the film.
It is oft-forgotten elements such as these that I also wish to examine in this blog.
