An Analytical-Psychology Approach to Music in Film
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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by WestminsterResearch MUSIC AS IMAGE: AN ANALYTICAL-PSYCHOLOGY APPROACH TO MUSIC IN FILM BENJAMIN NAGARI A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the University of Westminster for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2013 I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted for any other award. It is presented in accordance with academic rules and ethical conduct. As required by these rules and conduct, all materials that are not original to this thesis have been fully and properly cited and referenced. The content of the paper submission is identical to the content of the electronic submission. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Had I wanted to thank every single individual involved in this way or another in the evolvement of this thesis I would have to contemplate a second volume. Hence I would better humbly and respectfully try to condense the list of those individuals, allowing the spirit of gratefulness to reach each of them while mentioning central individuals. Sowing the seeds of this thesis started in walking together along a corridor in Goldsmith University with Prof. Roderick Main, then a lecturer at the Centre for Psychoanalytic Studies (Jungian and Post-Jungian Studies) at the University of Essex in Colchester. In that conversation I asked him whether he believed that Music was an Image. After a short pause he said he thought it was. I am very grateful to Prof. Main, due to whose positive comment this thesis started and developed. I also owe great respect to the then heads of the Jungian School at Essex University, Prof. Andrew Samuels and Prof. Renos Papandopulous, who broadened the roads into a recent understanding of Jung’s original work. Working on this thesis I was lucky to have two supervisors, coming from different universities and different academic disciplines, to whom I am totally grateful, both for their knowledge and their patience. Dr. Christian Kennett, a senior lecturer in Music Sociology from the University of Westminster and Prof. Luke Hockley, professor of Media Analysis at the University of Bedfordshire; both took great care of their specialties in the different aspects of my studies, thus helping combine allegedly opposing disciplines such as music, film, media studies and analytical psychology. Mr. Mike Fisher, the Research Degrees Manager at Westminster University and Miss Fauzia Ahmed, the administrator at CAMRI (Communication and Media Research Institute), have been of great assistance in walking through the day-to-day academic life throughout my long study period. Special thanks to my good friend Prof. Nitzan Ben-Shaul of Tel Aviv University’s school of Film and Television in the Faculty of Arts, for helping me by i raising questions that had to be addressed thoroughly in order to cover the full scope of this multi-disciplinary thesis. Last but not least are my big thanks to a best friend, Mr. Thomas Aron, for standing by me during the whole period of my studying and especially throughout some bad times of illness, by supporting and encouraging me not to give up. And finally, a great many thanks to Joanna Baron for her meticulous and devoted proofreading of this thesis and to Dr. Peter Goodwin for his great moral support. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ……………………………………………… i Table of Contents ……………………………………………….. iii Abstract …………………………………………………………. 1 Introduction …………………………………………………...... 2 PART I: ……………………………………………………………………….. 12 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL IMAGE: IMAGING & IMAGINATION - A JUNGIAN PERSPECTIVE …………… 12 1. Jung, Image, Archetype and Complex ……………….. 14 2. Jung, Opposites and Psychic Energy ………………… 24 3. Jung’s Psychological Types …………………………... 27 4. Jung, Sign and Symbol ………………………………… 32 5. Image, Imagery, Imagination: A Perspective of Placement ………………………………………………. 37 6. The Autonomous Ways of Images: Dreams and Synaesthesia …………………………………………..... 41 6.1 Dreams ……………………………………………. 41 6.2 Synaesthetic Imaging …………………………….. 43 7. The Non-Visual Image ………………………………… 46 PART II: ……………………………………………………………………… 48 MUSIC AS IMAGE: THE ENCOUNTER OF VISUAL AND NON VISUAL IN FILM ………………………………………. 48 1. Music as Image: An Emotive Introduction ………….. 48 2. Music as Image: Its Placement in Film ………………. 55 2.1 Music and Emotional Sub-Placement …………… 60 2.2 Volume: Relative, Internal and External …......... 62 3. Music as Image: Its Realities and Functions ………… 65 iii 3.1 Music as Image: Some Functional Observations … 73 4. Psychological Dimensions of the Film-Music Functions ……………………………………………....... 76 4.1 The Uses of the Overlapping Music Functions …... 79 4.2 Local Conditioning Through Music …………........ 82 4.3 Time, Space and Transition ………………………. 89 4.4 Music as Effect: Encountering ‘Real’ Sound ……. 94 5. Film Music: Type, Style, Original and Non-Original Music …………………………………………………… 96 5.1 Time, Jazz, Pop and Independent Songs ………… 100 6. Film, Music, Archetype ……………………………….. 106 7. When Image Turns Hero ……………………………… 110 8. Conclusion: The Music-Image – Inside and Outside Film ……………………………………………………… 115 PART III: ……………………………………………………………………. 118 CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE MUSICAL KIND: AN ANALYSIS OF THE MUSIC-IMAGE IN THREE FILMS …. 118 Introduction ………………………………………………… 118 1. Taxi Driver ……………………………………………… 124 Plot Synopsis …………………………………………… 124 Music …………………………………………………… 126 Conclusion …………………………………………….. 143 2. Nuit et Brouillard (Night and Fog) ………………….. 147 About the Film ………………………………………… 147 Documentary, Facts and Visuals …………………….. 147 Fog, Darkness and Music …………………………….. 158 3. Eyes Wide Shut ……………………………………….. 171 iv Plot Synopsis …………………………………………… 171 Psyche, Sexuality, Fantasy ……………………………. 174 Tom & Nicole, Alice & Bill ………………………….... 182 Kubrick and Multiple-Reality Music ………………… 189 FINALE (Conclusion) ………………………………………………………… 208 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………………….. 217 FILMOGRAPHY …………………………………………………………….. 240 DVD CLIP INDEX ………………………………………………………….. 243 v Abstract Sound and music, both independently and inside film are sometimes considered to be secondary to the visual. Some disciplines wish to classify them as triggers to neurological systems while some others will emphasise their affect-inflicting capacity; in both cases these remain as secondary functions and in the case of film as nothing but accompanying elements. Yet, observed psychologically sound and music have a unique and wholesome function in the human psyche. Carl Gustav Jung’s analytical psychology opens the door for the understanding of both as images, far beyond the consensual acceptance of image being of a visual faculty only. Understanding music as image puts music in a different position inside a film as well as a stand-alone phenomenon in the every-day life. Analytical psychology, in both original Jungian and contemporary Post-Jungian versions, using the core ideas of archetype, opposites, functions of the psyche and image - supports the very concept of music/sound as image. This thesis will approach the consequent understanding of the role of music in film beyond the decorative-accompaniment task attributed to it and as an image on its own right. The work is divided into three main parts: Part I will introduce general Jungian aspects to build the case of a Jungian psychological account of the music-image. Part II will attempt to combine theory with practice in analysing how the auditory image (mainly music) works (or sometimes clashes) with the visual (picture) to create the ‘film as a whole’ experience. Part III will implement a specific understanding of three individual film cases of different genres, eras and styles as psychologically scrutinised ‘case histories’. - 1 - Introduction Even though we usually refer to image and the concept of it as relating to the visual only, other non-visual phenomena can carry a similar weight if we approach them psychologically. Thus sound and especially its ‘organised’ form of music can bear the scrutiny of the concept. This thesis will focus on music in film, when the visual and the non-visual images stand together, whether in complementary or contradictory manners. Although it will strive to show that music in general possesses an image quality by itself, the case of music in film shines through as such due to its inseparable connection, collaboration and comparability with the visual image1. Modern psychologies point to different directions and paths in their endeavour to understand and apprehend behaviour, responses, emotions and structures of the psyche, and therefore can offer different routes to our response to sound and music. Yet, the effect of music on the human mind has intrigued humanity long before the establishment of the 19th and 20th Century scientific/empirical discipline known as modern psychology. Early speculations regarding sound, music and mind were a mixture of scientific (mainly mathematical) and philosophical endeavours (attempting to understand both psyche and the divine); early ‘singing birds’ can be found in Pythagoras in the sixth century B.C.: “He is said to have demonstrated that the perceived pitch of a vibrating string varies inversely with its length, and is also credited with establishing that the musical consonances of the octave, 5th and 4th correspond to simple ratios 1 The term ‘music in film’ denotes any music used inside the film, whether specifically composed or otherwise, diegetic or non-diegetic, as the common usage of ‘film-music’ mainly (and maybe wrongly so) refers to film-score especially prepared for