Chapter 5 DRAMA

How Film & TV Music Communicate – Vol. III – text © 2015 Brian Morrell Chapter 5 DRAMA Films and music analysed include: Pierrepoint (Martin Phipps) Harry (Martin Phipps, Ruth Barrett, Pete Tong, Paul Rogers) Let Him Have It (Michael Kamen) About a Boy (Damon Gough, as Badly Drawn Boy) The Ides of March (Alexander Desplat) The Impossible (Fernando Velazquez) The Shawshank Redemption (Thomas Newman) Too Big to Fail (Marcelo Zarvos) The Last Days of Lehman Brothers (Kevin Sargent) Prime Suspect 7 (Nicholas Hooper) Olympus has Fallen (Trevor Morris) The Newsroom (Thomas Newman) Falling Down (James Newton Howard) How I Now Live (John Hopkins) Kon Tiki (Johan Söderqvist) PIERREPOINT (Martin Phipps) Albert Pierrepoint became one of Britain’s most famous hangmen; he was known for his efficiency and compassion and rose to become 'the best’. From 1933 until the end of his career in 1955 he executed 608 people, including infamous WW2 war criminals. He hanged Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be executed in Britain, but by then the public appetite for such draconian punishment had waned. Pierrepoint had changed too; in his retirement he became a prominent abolitionist. The film charts important moments in his life and work and is a poignant reminder of the history, evolution and controversies of the death penalty in the 20 th Century. It is also a journey through the life of an extraordinary man. The following cue comes eleven minutes into the movie following an execution, overseen by Pierrepoint and an associate. The associate froze under the pressure of taking another person’s life, resulting in Pierrepoint having to take over. Afterwards on their way out of the prison the associate thrusts his own fee into the hands of Pierrepoint, shouting “I don’t want it.” As the man storms off the camera stays on Pierrepoint (played brilliantly by Timothy Spall) and the cue below begins. The piece starts on piano as we see Pierrepoint stood alone on an outside staircase. The scene cuts to the inside of Pierrepoint’s home as we see him return later that same day. This once again underpins one of the central reasons why music works; it creates a seamless continuation of the narrative. Without music the cut from the prison yard to the hallway of Pierrepoint’s house is quite abrupt; music makes the edit smoother and more natural. Although the addition of music in both environments is unnatural and against the reality, authenticity and believability of the scenes, had they were real, it emphasises and augments the reality and authenticity of the story as it is told on screen because it creates a bond between the viewer and the film. Film music is a paradox; it works when in theory it shouldn’t. As I have alluded to at other points in this series of books, life does not come with its own accompaniment but the telling of it in two- dimensional moving images needs music for it to be convincing; for it to connect with us and to forge an emotional bond. As I have said earlier the reason this works so well is precisely because music is so unknown . Most people cannot rationalise and understand how harmony works and creates an emotional reaction within them, which means they are influenced, persuaded, prompted, induced and ultimately emotionally manipulated by something they don’t get. If people were able to understand and interpret harmony in the absolute way they understand, say, colour, its effect would be less subtle, less delicate, too obvious, too absolute and too rapid. Pictures we interpret straight away; dialogue we understand immediately, but music is this strange, extra emotional additive which, although we don’t understand how or why, helps us subtly understand the story. Fig. 01 Film - 00.14.10 Piano How Film & TV Music Communicate – Vol. III – text © 2015 Brian Morrell Music which tries to make people think needs to provide time for this process to happen. It needs to breathe. It needs to contemplate, to deliberate. This is where the importance of phrasing and structure is almost more important than the statement itself. Sometimes music simply says too much, or what it says is spoken too quickly for its message to sink in. Sometimes there is simply too much music in music , which can overplay the emotion in a scene. Imagine the strange image below being a template for a musical idea; first we have the statement, followed by time for this statement to sink in. If you apply this ‘map’ to the piece which accompanies the scene from fig.1, you can see the gaps, the pauses, which enable the music to convey its message (fig.2, below) How Film & TV Music Communicate – Vol. III – text © 2015 Brian Morrell Fig. 02 Contemplation Contemplation Statement Reflection Reflection Statement C & R Statement C & R C & R Statement Statement Contemplation Contemplation Contemplation Reflection Reflection Reflection When the string section arrives it functions as an interesting textural evolution which deepens the mood; but essentially it is the same musical message. If we look at the same cue again, this time from a purely harmonic perspective, we perhaps begin to appreciate how the message is delivered; the 6 th interval (major and minor) has long been used in music to create emotion. Before we see how it is employed in the theme from Pierrepoint, let’s take a minute to observe how other composers have used it in perhaps much more overt ways. Fig. 03 In fig.3 we have examples of the maj6 interval, contained in the opening bars to My Way (Paul Anka, Jacques Revaux and Gilles Thibault Claude Francois). Underneath we have the opening bars to Music of the Night (Andrew Lloyd Webber) from Phantom of the Opera . The third example is from Angels by Guy Chambers and Robbie Williams. In fig.4 we have the opening bars to the theme from The Incredible Hulk TV Fig. 04 theme (‘The Lonely Man’ by Joe Harnell), a beautiful, haunting and emotional piece which makes great use of the min6 interval. In fig.5 we In fig.5 we have the opening bars to the theme from the movie 1492 – Conquest of Paradise, by Vangelis, which also makes great use of the min6 interval. see the melody from Vangelis’ Conquest of Paradise How Film & TV Music Communicate – Vol. III – text © 2015 Brian Morrell Fig. 05 So, having established the min6 and maj6 have a peculiarly emotional and beguiling quality, let’s look at how Martin Phipps uses them in the cue from Pierrepoint . Intervals can communicate a sense of character and emotion, horizontally as well as vertically. As we can see from the examples given above, it is the horizontal harmonic movement (the melody) which creates the distinctive min6/maj6 ‘sound’. With Pierrepoint (fig.6, below), apart from one or two examples (marked with ) most of the 6 th intervals (which happen almost on every note) are vertical, resulting in two-part harmony throughout (denoted by ). To ensure we don’t disappear completely up the emotional flagpole, there are a few isolated bits of vertical intervallic tension (denoted with ). Fig. 06 th 7th 9 b9 th th 9 Rarely will you find a piece of TV drama music which communicates 6 th intervals so specifically but so subtly. As to why the intervals are so effective; the minimal two-part voicings italicise and exaggerate the character of the interval. The lack of a third voice in each vertical chord isolates the notes that are there. Also, with the 6 th intervals being so exposed, the individual chords they suggest or allude to are not quite as concrete as they would be with an emphatic three-part chord. At the beginning of the cue (transcribed yet again, fig.7, below), the 6 th intervals theoretically are suggestive of more than one chord. In the version below, the implied chord symbol is at the top as usual but underneath I have placed symbols in red to denote alternate chords that could be implied. So why don’t we hear the first chord of bar two as a Bb? And why don’t we hear the second beat of bar two as an Eb chord? The answer is that harmony communicates cumulatively. Fig. 07 It is only the first quaver (A and D, bar one ) which acts as a chord V in Gm and the second quaver of bar two (the G and D creating a bare 5 th interval ) which tends to suggest an overarching Gm feel, and even Bb Eb F those chords are incomplete. The point about this phrase, for the reasons I have given, is that it communicates harmonic colour softly, subtly, despite having a strong 6 th flavour, vertically. In many ways of course this is all typical of the way music communicates; the effects harmony creates in ‘colouring’ music are born partly of an immediate experience but also of a cumulative, gradual experience which radiates out through the course of music. Of course there are signposts everywhere telling us how to feel and how to react, but it is the cumulative experience which soaks into us and which we remember. How Film & TV Music Communicate – Vol. III – text © 2015 Brian Morrell HARRY BROWN (Martin Phipps, Ruth Barrett, Pete Tong, Paul Rogers) Harry Brown is a 2009 British vigilante film starring Michael Caine. The film centres on Harry Brown, a widowed war veteran living on a crime-ridden housing estate descending into anarchy. After his friend is murdered Harry takes the law into his own hands. A scene around sixteen minutes into the film depicts the hallway of the inside of a flat, in front of the letterbox, showing something burning on the mat.

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