Of Narration in Film of of Narration Narration in Film in Film Steps Across the Border
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HELDT GUIDO HELDT MUSIC AND LEVELS MUSIC AND LEVELS MUSIC AND LEVELS OF NARRATION AND LEVELS OF NARRATION MUSIC OF OF NARRATION NARRATION IN FILM IN FILM STEPS ACROSS THE BORDER This is the first book-length study of the narratology of film music, and an indispensable resource for anyone researching or studying film music or film narratology. It surveys the so far piecemeal discussion of narratological concepts in film music studies, and tries to (cautiously) systematize them, and to expand and refine them with reference to ideas from general narratology and film narratology (including contributions from German-language literature less widely known in Anglophone scholarship). The book goes beyond the current focus of film music studies on the distinction between diegetic and nondiegetic music (music understood to be or not to be part of the storyworld of a film), and takes into account different levels of narration: from the extrafictional to ‘focalizations’ of subjectivity, and music’s many and complex movements between them. IN FILM The conceptual toolkit proposed in the first part of the book is put to the text in a series of case studies: of numbers in film musicals; of music and sound in horror films; and of music and narrative structures in, among others, films by Sergio Leone, The Truman Show, Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Far from Heaven. STEPS ACROSS THE BORDER Guido Heldt is a Senior Lecturer in Guido Heldt Music at the University of Bristol. http://stepsacrosstheborder.blogs.ilrt.org/ intellect | www.intellectbooks.com Music and Levels of Narration in Film 06258_FM_pi-x.indd 1 9/25/13 12:11:58 PM 06258_FM_pi-x.indd 2 9/25/13 12:11:58 PM Music and Levels of Narration in Film Steps Across the Border Guido Heldt intellect Bristol, UK / Chicago, USA 06258_FM_pi-x.indd 3 9/25/13 12:11:58 PM First published in the UK in 2013 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK First published in the USA in 2013 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA Copyright © 2013 Intellect Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Cover designer: Holly Rose Copy-editor: Michael Eckhardt Production manager: Jelena Stanovnik Typesetting: Contentra Technologies Print ISBN: 978-1-84150-625-8 ePDF ISBN: 978-1-78320-209-6 ePub ISBN: 978-1-78320-210-2 Printed and bound by Hobbs, UK 06258_FM_pi-x.indd 4 9/25/13 12:11:58 PM Contents Preface ix Chapter I: Introduction: Film Music Narratology 1 i. Laughing with film theory 3 ii. Film/music/narratology 6 The plan of the book 9 A note on the choice of films 10 A note on ‘the viewer’ 10 iii. Principles of pertinence 11 Chapter II: The Conceptual Toolkit: Music and Levels of Narration 17 i. Fictional worlds and the filmic universe 19 ii. The ‘historical author’: extrafictionality and the title sequence 23 iii. Extrafictional narration and audience address 39 iv. Nondiegetic and diegetic music 48 a. Narratology, the diegesis and music – some considerations 49 b. Nondiegetic music and narrative agency 64 c. Diegetic music: storyworld attachment and narrative agency 69 d. Diegetic commentary and the implied author 72 e. Diegetic music: further options 89 f. Transitions, transgressions and transcendence: Displaced diegetic music, supradiegetic music and other steps across the border 97 v. Music on my mind: Metadiegetic narration and focalization 119 06258_FM_pi-x.indd 5 9/25/13 12:11:58 PM Music and Levels of Narration in Film Chapter III: Breaking into Song? Hollywood Musicals (and After) 135 i. Supradiegesis 137 ii. Superabundance: Top Hat and the 1930s 139 iii. The classical style: Night and Day, An American in Paris, Singin’ in the Rain 147 iv. Transcendence lost and regained: The aftermath of the classical style 155 v. The next-to-last song: Dancer in the Dark (and The Sound of Music) 162 Chapter IV: Things That Go Bump in the Mind: Horror Films 171 i. Of implied authors and implicit contracts: Six little bits of theory 174 ii. ... and thirteen examples 182 Chapter V: Beyond the Moment: Long-range Musical Strategies 195 i. Music and memory in Once Upon a Time in America 197 a. Precursor 1: For a Few Dollars More 198 b. Precursor 2: Once Upon a Time in the West 201 c. Precursor 3: Duck, You Sucker! 205 d. ‘Most melancholic of films’ – Once Upon a Time in America 207 e. Once Upon a Time in America – Three musical themes 210 f. ‘I say it here and I deny it here’: Conclusions 217 ii. Life’s troubled bubble broken: Musical metalepses in The Truman Show 217 a. True life or false 217 b. Pre-existing music and the world of Seahaven 223 c. Nondiegetic music and levels of narration 224 d. Music on the level of the film (or not?) 226 iii. Far from Heaven, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Hollywood melodrama and the retrospective prolepsis 228 a. Present film 228 b. Dancing to the music of time: Far from Heaven 231 c. Urban pastoral: Breakfast at Tiffany’s 236 vi 06258_FM_pi-x.indd 6 9/25/13 12:11:58 PM Contents d. The language of melodrama: Antecedents in All That Heaven Allows and Imitation of Life 238 e. Singing the king: A retrospective prolepsis in The Adventures of Robin Hood 239 Chapter VI: The Future’s Not Ours to See: Outlook 243 Bibliography 247 Filmography and Index of Films 261 Index of Names 275 Index of Terms 283 vii 06258_FM_pi-x.indd 7 9/25/13 12:11:58 PM 06258_FM_pi-x.indd 8 9/25/13 12:11:59 PM Preface A monograph may promise a solid summing-up of a topic, but this book finds itself in an uncertain place. It has grown in a time of vertiginous development in film musicology, and as satisfying as it has been to watch that development, it means that the shelf-life of whatever insights the book may offer is likely to be limited. But perhaps one should welcome that, not deplore it. Time is an aspect of the uncertainty in yet another sense. In some ways, it is an old- fashioned book, harking back to discussions in narratology and film scholarship of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. It tries to put that scholarship to use to address questions that are still bothering film musicology, and I can only hope that its (tentative) conclusions will remain of interest for a little while. Uncertainty also describes its academic place. Film musicology is by definition interdisciplinary, but that means that it is done not by film musicologists, but by musicologists who do film studies or by film scholars interested in music (or by scholars who have come to film from yet other disciplines). On one side that means that everyone has different things to contribute, on the other side everyone has gaps and disciplinary blind spots. My background is in musicology, but this book is not specifically aimed at a musicological audience; I hope that it is of interest for a wider range of scholars and students interested in film music. Musicological terminology has been used sparsely, though I hope not to the detriment of the book. The book was helped along a lot by the University of Bristol and the Arts and Humanities Research Council, which allowed me to take time off teaching. Beyond that, I owe thanks to many people who have influenced this project in one way or another. Albrecht Riethmüller at the Free University Berlin provided an academic setting that re-kindled an interest in film music that had lain dormant during the years of my PhD (in a very different field). A bit later, that interest found a home in the Kieler Gesellschaft für Filmmusikforschung (Kiel Society for Film Music Research) and its journal and conferences, the most enjoyable an academic can hope to attend. I thank all of my colleagues and friends in the Gesellschaft, but especially Hans Jürgen Wulff, who once upon a time saw my first, stumbling steps into film musicology in my student days in Münster. Here in Britain, I want to thank my fellow film musicologists Annette Davison, Miguel Mera, Nicholas Rayland and Ben Winters for ideas and discussions (and across the Atlantic James Buhler for a late exchange about focalization). More than 06258_FM_pi-x.indd 9 9/25/13 12:11:59 PM Music and Levels of Narration in Film anyone else, I thank my students at the University of Bristol Department of Music: my PhD students Timothy Summers, Jonathan Godsall and Hans Anselmo Hess, the students on the MA in Composition for Film and TV, and my undergraduate students, on whom I have tried out ideas and who have contributed numerous observations, ideas and questions. They have been a crucial part of the nicest university department I know. Finally, my thanks go to the staff at Intellect (especially to my editor Jelena Stanovnik and my copy-editor Michael Eckhardt), who have supported this project with patience and professionalism. x 06258_FM_pi-x.indd 10 9/25/13 12:11:59 PM Chapter I Introduction: Film Music Narratology 06258_Ch01_p001-016.indd 1 9/25/13 12:11:26 PM 06258_Ch01_p001-016.indd 2 9/25/13 12:11:26 PM i. Laughing with film theory book written and published in Bristol might do worse than to start with a scene from a film by Bristol’s second-best claim to cinematic fame, animation studio Aardman.1 The film is Wallace & Gromit in ‘The Curse of the Were-Rabbit’ (2005), and the scene showsA the villagers gathered in the church, anxious because of mysterious goings-on in their vegetable gardens.