Sound technique · used in 4 films
Building the film around its music, with recurring themes for characters, relationships and moral states. The score swells and returns to shape your emotions as deliberately as the editing.
Examples
Francis Ford Coppola · 1972
Nino Rota's main theme sounds grand and tragic from its first bars, and right away, it sets the mood somewhere between a dynasty story and a lament. The theme comes back at moments of ritual (funerals, meals, betrayals), so it becomes the sound of the Corleones' fate.
Where to see it: The opening titles and the wedding sequence. This is where the film's musical world is first set up.
Francis Ford Coppola · 1990
The film uses the stage opera as a real part of the story, and it carries the music's emotional weight. Themes from the earlier films also return. The score turns Michael's fall into a grand sad song.
Where to see it: The Palermo sequence. The opera's music and Anthony's performance run through the climax.
Mel Gibson · 1995
James Horner's score of Celtic pipes and orchestra works like a second narrator. The main theme carries grief, defiance and longing at the same time. Each time it returns over the runtime, it marks a step up in emotion and does more than underline what the image already shows.
Where to see it: The battle charges. The score turns physical action into a statement of the spirit.
Damien Chazelle · 2016
Justin Hurwitz's score holds the film's emotions together. Themes introduced in the early musical numbers come back as instrumental echoes in later scenes of loss and separation. I feel like the score works as a second narrator. It follows the emotional path of the relationship alongside what you see.
Where to see it: The returns of 'Mia & Sebastian's Theme'. The melody from the early romance comes back at the film's close. The score turns the theme from a love song into a farewell.
Questions