conclution and bib

Conclusion

I have come the conclusion that music puts so much emotion and feeling behind a film or a certain scene , from the notorious shower scene by Alfred Hitchcock to the seduction of Elizabeth in Bram Stocker’s Dracula, music had a grip on the viewer and takes you there into the film as if you were there your very self.

I have looked at three different film all from different time periods from the early 60’s to 2006. These all share the same genre but all have different styles of music. They all are horrifying and do a really good job of making you feel either scared or in pure horror.

If take the earliest film “Psycho” this was setting a milestone for all horror films either to live up to this or go home and try again, this film for its time was amazing and very influential. Throughout out the years so many films have taken the music and used it to either represent a killing (the classic shower part) by either take the 3 note staccato or the high pitched violins. The music in all 3 of the films case studied here has one key thing in common- it acts as a motif to emphasise the entrance of the anti-hero and his evil doing. For example if you take Dracula when Lucy is in the red dress and is looking for Dracula when he bites her the violins come in. This is to represent the teeth sinking into her neck and in Psycho they share high pitched note represent the knife going into Mariana. Also the title is used 3 times in the film to represent panic and to show her fear. You can see this again in Texas chainsaw massacre at the beginning where the title music is a variation of Leatherface’s motif since the film is pretty much about him you can see why they use it a lot more.

The motifs for all the films are done extremely well. If we take psycho’s motif this comes into play when he is killing some body or he is the “mother”. The first time is when kills Mariana in the shower and then when he kills the PI. When he attacks the victims the music comes in almost straight away with music being so sharp and fast to reflect the manner of the killing. The music comes out of nowhere make the viewer jump, because they are not expecting it, also as if Alfred Hitchcock uses the element of surprise on the viewer. Again this is proven when Marina goes into the fruit cupboard and finds the corpse of his mother. When she turns the chair round soon as you see the decrepit face of the mother the music comes in and then it builds up as the Psycho burst into the room wielding the knife. This is a perfect example of the point being made- music heightens horror as well as signalling its advance.

The motif in TCM is very different as it’s a build up and sounds extremely evil and twisted to represent the personality of Leatherface. This comes into play again either when Leatherface is killing someone or he has been called for. We see this when he acquires his chainsaw and for example he kills the biker that infiltrated their house, the other music in it is extremely evil as well as e.g. when Leatherface is first found the music is unbelievably evil. This to represent the fact that Thomas Hewitt was found in a bin, that he was so deformed that not even any body in the factory would look after him as there own epically when his mother died in labour!


Another horrifying piece of music in this film is when the new sheriff Hoyt is re-born the music as he is putting his uniform on has a grate sense of wrongness about it as he is now the new sheriff and only law enforcement in this small dammed town, and the fact you know what he is going to add to the fear and horror of this. When he gets his new mask from Dean this is a variation of Leatherface’s, motif as is probably to mark his new mask and a new chapter in his life, because the mask he now has look more like the one in the original Texas chainsaw massacre . The music is so evil, even more than his motif seems. This is a variation and not his actual motif. This could be to show how truly disturbing he actually is by the music changing slightly shows how Leatherface is changing as well by getting his new mask almost a new level of evilness and who truly sick he is. The greater the horror here; the louder and more imposing the music become. In Texas Chainsaw Massacre we can see the use of music in varied way- volume and amount of music are manipulated to express levels of evil doing. This contrasts with the conclusions drawn about the music in Psycho which, it could be argued, is more subtle until the moment of death/horror when the staccato notes come into play.

Now Dracula’s motif is more to show his emotion as we see. The first piece of music is his motif and as it starts out slow and soft with Chellos and other string instrument it then builds up and all the other brass instruments come in and show the full power of it. Then again through out the film it comes in and it does make you scared for example when Harker is get seduced by the vampires at the end of that scene he throws them a baby to eat and the motif backs up the sheer horror of them eating a baby. The music in Draculas is not just his motif but goes a stage further- it represents his feelings and psychological state as well as his evil doing. This is very deep and a lot of emotion is attracted to it do with his past life, for example how Elizabeth is a reincarnation of his wife from centenary ago. Through the music in Dracula we see his emotion as well as his fear, but it also works to put fear into the viewer.

Another common link between these films, and others of their type, is that most of the music used in these horror films is orchestral and not actual song done by bands. This works very well as it adds more of a fear/horror fact to them. A lot of emotion in films is portrayed by music either to represent the emotion or to back the feeling up. The most effective ways, it could be argued, are demonstrated by taking the part in Dracula when he is reminiscing about his love for Elizabeth and the sad pathetic music comes in and contrasting this with the scene in TCM where Leatherface removes Dean’s face to create his mask and shows his truly evil nature. This shows orchestral music representing 2 ends of the emotional scale: horror and romance. Both of these pieces of music are done orchestrally and work both very well even though they are to represent complete opposites. They are done with the same instruments but work in completely different way, showing how wide the rage of an orchestra is. We can see from this study that music plays a vital role in signalling and portraying the development of emotions, feelings and horror in 3 key films.

Bibliography

Wells, P (2002) The Horror Genre from Beelzebub to Blair Witch. Great Britain, Wallflower Press

Altman, R (Ed) (1992) Sound Theory and Sound Practice. Great Britain, Routledge

Pirie, D (2008) A New Heritage of Horror. London, Tauris

Audio Visual Sources

Hitchcock, A (1960) Psycho. (film)

Coppola,F,F (1992) Dracula (film)

Liebesman,J (2004)Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Beginning (film)

Electronic sources

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