Corbin Roens
John Wineglass
MPA 312- Music in Film
March 25, 2014
The Music Within The Devil Wears Prada
This 2006 movie, The Devil Wears Prada, winning 14 awards including a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Comedy and 30 nominations including two more Golden Globes and two Oscars, is a story about a girl Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) who gets more than she bargained for when she becomes the assistant to the tyrannical, ruthless, and cynical editor-in-chief of a major New York fashion magazine, Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep).
Theodore Shapiro, the films composer used repeating themes of guitar, bass, and percussion, sometimes backing these instruments with a full orchestra, to create a contemporary city like sound. He also integrated songs from various artists to add substance and feeling in important parts of the movie.
Shapiro does a lot of narrative cueing throughout this movie. Miranda (Streep) has her own cue as a character. We hear this cue when we first see Miranda in the film. It is a continually repeating cue that we hear when she enters as the great Miranda Priestly or when she is being a complete over-the-top bitch.
Andy (Hathaway) has a narrative cue as well. We first hear her cue when Miranda sees that Andy isn’t wearing high heels in the office. This cue continues through the movie when Andy does something right in her job. The movie finishes with Andy’s theme and it becomes a more formed song over the credits then just a theme. Both Miranda and Andy’s themes are invisible and inaudible forms of non diegetic music as well as providing unity through the movie.
Like I stated before, Shapiro used many contemporary songs from famous artists in this movie. Most of these songs were so...
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...e movie. I found that even in areas where the music should be louder than the cell phone ring, the phone was always louder. This was because the phone was more important to the story than the music.
Out of the five movies we watched, I feel this was one of the most musically diverse. Theodore Shapiro used a plethora of both diegetic and non diegetic music in this movie. He was able to use music to both cue to a character or their behavior. He was able to use music as a way to add substance to a scene. Shapiro artistic choices about choosing when to break the rules of the principles of composition, mixing and editing and when to follow them allowed for a more creative listening experience.
Works Cited
The Devil Wears Prada. Dir. David Frankel. Prod. Wendy Finerman. By Aline Brosh McKenna. Perf. Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and Stanley Tucci. 20th Century Fox, 2006.
In the book Our America: Life and Death on the South Side of Chicago, LeAlan Johns and Lloyd Newman, as two kids grow up in ghetto, document their life from 1993 to 1996 to show the rest of the America the reality of living in a poor black neighborhood. Through vast interviews, diaries and monologues, Johns and Newman provide a new perspective on the ongoing issues in the ignorant black community; they encourage the black residents to express their point of views on gang, drug, crime, and they also address their hope. Since this book is story with long time span and fragmental writing styles, it is impossible to finish the soundtrack for chapters in detail within eight songs. Therefore, if I am going to be the music composer of the movie based on this book, I would choose eight songs for the following eight themes.
Winning 117 awards and being nominated for another 225, it is no surprise that his name is common in households across America. Williams’ music style is very classical, having been influenced by composers like Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler. In this film, Williams uses the perfect amount of brass and strings to create fanfares and marches that are unsurprisingly still in the audience’s head, hours after they are heard. Not only are they catchy, but they also provide another dimension for the film, evoking emotions and setting the mood, to pull every audience member into each scene and develop the action in the film. Majority of the music in this film is non-diegetic with a few rare occurrences of diegetic music. One of these instances is a scene where Marion kisses Sallah, Indiana Jones’s colleague, and he starts singing. The only other time it is diegetic is when Indiana Jones is in the bar meeting with Belloq, a rival of Indiana
In a film where music is needed to denote the messages the film is dictating, there is obviously a lot
The film elects to use a soundtrack comprised of only popular music from the 1970s. Frith writes, “The sociologist of contemporary popular music is faced with a body of songs, records, stars and styles which exists because of a series of decisions, made by both producers and consumers, about what is a successful sound” (Frith, 134). I reference this quote because it is important to note that this film was released in 1993. The people who are responsible for choosing the soundtrack have the luxury of knowing what music is able to ...
Andrew Adamson, Ann Peacock, Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely, Liam Neeson, Ray Winstone, and Dawn French. Prod. Mark Johnson and Philip Steuer. Perf. William Mosley, Anna Popplewell, Georgie Henley, and Skandar Keynes. Buena Vista Pictures, 2005. DVD.
For this essay I will be looking at the work of Hans Zimmer to discuss how music in film engages the viewer and evokes emotion and pulls the viewer toward the film. Hans Zimmer is a German born music composer. Hans Zimmer’s love of music stems from his childhood when he learned how to play various instruments. Before Zimmer began composing music for films he was in a well-known band. The band was called The Buggles whom were famous for their song Video Killed the Radio Star. After the Buggles Zimmer played in other bands but never had another hit. As Zimmer has progressed as a film composer so has his list of nominations and awards. Zimmer has won 4 Grammy Awards and 2 Golden Globes and many more for his outstanding film scores. The reason I chose to write this essay on Zimmer was that his genres and music score are extremely versatile ranging from animations to comedy to dark thrillers. This is important to highlight as it shows Zimmer can create almost any atmosphere with his music whether it be sad or creating tension that all cause us to engage with the film. Zimmer's use of themes and introduction of different instruments allowed him to create these wonderful engaging film score. In this essay I will look at three films by Hans Zimmer these are The Holiday Rush and Rain Man.
Musically, Humoresque is a masterpiece. There is so much art to be found in putting individual pieces together to create a new, bigger piece of art. In this film, the scorer picks meaningful music that will certainly resonate for the viewers in order to not only provide music for the film, but also to convey the story in spite of the dialogue. I think the music is so strongly tied to the storyline that it could potentially stand on its own and still tell as compelling of a story as with the dialogue. Foray’s music penetrates the minds of the characters, and the viewer gets to see it all weave together through beautiful transitions and beautiful music. This film is as interesting musically as it is in its story, and that shows a true mastery of film scoring and how music induces emotion.
The CD hit number one on Billboard charts almost immediately. This album reminds me of my childhood because I watched the movie over and over. All of the songs have a magical feeling to them. The orchestra in the background of the songs is absolutely beautiful. Some of the songs are just the orchestra and it's amazing that you can tell exactly what emotion is happening in the movie without seeing it. I love every track but my favorites are “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo” by Walt Disney Records and “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes” by Walt Disney Records which are both Disney
In conclusion, music role in the selected clip from the godfather represents a great use of both diegetic sounds and non-diegetic music that help the viewer of the narrative film to illustrate and interpret the dramatic events as they unfold. Moreover, Setting the mood, providing continuity between scenes and intensifying rhythm and pacing were the principle functions of film music that were used in the selected clip to achieve the overall goal of the use of music in the scenes.
Many songs were incorporated into the story line, such as “The Sound of Music,” “My Favorite Things,” and “So Long, Farewell.”
Overall, the score was beautiful and appropriate, adding suspense and mystery at all the right times. The sound effects added psychological flavor to the story without drawing too much attention to it.
Dir. Julie Taymor. Perf. Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 1999.
The music suited the movie very nicely. By the type of music playing, you could determine what sort of scene was coming up, either fast and light...
Sound is what brings movies to life, but, not many viewers really notice. A film can be shot with mediocre quality, but, can be intriguing if it has the most effective foley, sound effects, underscore, etc. Sound in movies band together and unfold the meaning of the scenes. When actors are speaking, the dialogue can bring emotion to the audience, or, it can be used as the ambient sound. Music is one of the main things to have when filmmaking. The use of Claudia Gorbman’s Seven Principles of Composition, Mixing and Editing in Classical Film gives audiences a perspective of sound, and, how it can have an impact on them.
The importance of music in movies is highly regarded for manipulating the viewer’s emotions and helping them immerse into the story. Music is one of the prime elements in cinema. Without it a movie would feel dull and unexciting. There are three elements in a movie: one is acting, the second is picture, and the third one is music. It is a holy trinity; if incomplete, there would be a lack of sensation and excitement. Both acting and picture can stand independently from one another, but music is the one that makes the movie memorable.