While journeying down for a short trip away to the secluded vistas of the Norfolk broads, little was I aware that the weekend away was to allow for a lecture and a personal chat with one of this writer’s heroes. The brilliant thing about north Norfolk in general is that, in just about every field whether it be art, film or even food, it has … Continue reading Screen-Next-The-Sea Film Festival – Kevin Brownlow Lecture.
The constructs that delineate a difference between short films and music videos has been fuelled by debate and value judgements by those after a perfect set of rules. Acclaimed director Derek Jarman didn’t seem too fussed about these connotations when creating his short films and music videos often blurring the line between the two and questioning whether the line even existed through explicit highlighting of … Continue reading Derek Jarman And The Music Video.
Introduction Peter Strickland’s 2012 film Berberian Sound Studio is the first popular film quite possibly since Stanley Donan’s Singing In The Rain (1952)[i], to focus its narrative around sound as a concept in cinema. As a visual medium, sound and music is often taken for granted; an assumed norm of film since the 1930s that has a texture of interweaved sound and music that can … Continue reading Berberian Sound Studio – Sound And Music As Narrative (Part 1)
Contains spoilers. Hindsight can be a terrible burden to approach an older film with; lagging hard on the back of the viewer whose inability to contextualise what they’re seeing disengages their perception. When watching James Whale’s The Old Dark House (1932), it could be tempting to accuse the film of being full to the brim with stock horror clichés. Yet Whale’s film is special and … Continue reading The Old Dark House (1932) – Symbolism, Class and Taboo (James Whale).
In vampire films of the past, the mere label of the main villain as a vampire or a child of the night, almost justifies and forgives their actions. When Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee have to seduce in order to attain for their nightly fix of blood, the label of vampire forgives their action as a necessity just as if the person was a mere … Continue reading Martin – George A. Romero (1976)
The use of harp in film scores has gained a number of clichéd uses over the years. It can be seen as the most typical of ways to introduce dream sequences, even in more adventurous visual forms of dreams such as in Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1954) (score by Miklós Rózsa) or can be used as a leitmotif for harmony, paradise and utopia which also handily connects … Continue reading The Harp And The Sound Of Snow – Citizen Kane, Lost Horizon and Ikiru.
It is an oft stated belief that silence is the most powerful effect in the canon of film sound techniques and tricks; a seemingly obvious nod to the lack of music to the lead the viewer emotionally and also a gentle nudge at the general over abundance of non-diegetic score in film. One of the most stark and allegorical uses of silence can be found … Continue reading Silence as Resistance – Le Silence De La Mer (Jean-Pierre Melville)
Part 1. Part 2. Mulholland Drive In Context of Other Subversive Mainstream Films (Eyes Wide Shut). “For the duration of his career, and despite the size of his productions and the fact that they were all studio funded, Kubrick was very much an independent filmmaker.” – Horsley (2005, p.54) Lynch isn’t the only director to take Hollywood visuals and use them for his own artistic ends. A … Continue reading David Lynch’s Avant-Garde Uses Of Music – Part 3 (Influence).
This article contains spoilers. Considering the large amount of time and effort that goes into creating and putting together the soundtrack to a film, one of the most interesting creative choices for filmmakers (often outside of the mainstream) is to use a piece of music continuously throughout rather than use different music for different scenes and segments. This choice often highlights a desire for the … Continue reading Solitary Music In Melancholia and The Turin Horse (von Trier and Tarr).
Part 1. Musical score – In the Context of David Lynch and Film Noir. The score for Mulholland Drive is a melting pot of ideas, genres and textures all of which add to the ineffable nature of the film. Instead of putting the music in contrast with outside environments and films like most normal critiques would, the analysis is firstly in the context of Lynch’s … Continue reading David Lynch’s Assimilation Of The Avant Garde – Part 2 (Musical Score and Club Silencio).
Celluloid Wicker Man 