Music in Movies

– Episode 3 – What’s this guitar player doing in my bathroom? – Sources – Buhler, James, and Hannah Lewis, eds. Voicing the Cinema: Film Music and the Integrated Soundtrack. University of Illinois Press, 2020. – “Film Score,” Wikipedia, edited December 29, 2025, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_score – “Sound Film,” Wikipedia, edited January 11, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_film –

Transcript

Hi, I’m Wayne Jones, the host of Different Shapes. Today my topic is Music in Movies.

Before I get started, I want to define and clarify what I’m talking about. I’m referring to what is sometimes called the film score or the soundtrack, the music that plays in the background as the action of the movie takes place. I have to say right from the start that, with a few exceptions, I’ve always found it completely unnecessary, but the theory or purpose behind it is championed as a big benefit by many.

One source says that the score “consists of a number of orchestral, instrumental, or choral pieces called cues, which are timed to begin and end at specific points during the film to enhance the dramatic narrative and emotional impact of scenes.” The key point there is that the music is intended to enhance, to add to, to emphasize, and it’s an accurate description of the reason that most directors use music at all. It’s not just a pretty add-on; it helps the audience identify and understand and appreciate what is going on in the movie.

On the other hand, the soundtrack in a movie can sometimes feel inappropriate or even jarring. A scholarly book on the topic mentions two examples of this, referring to one movie where “hear[ing] the voice of a young girl sitting alone in the forest accompanied by a large orchestra, [the audience] quite rightly wonders how such luxury comes to exist in the wilderness.” The other example refers to a 20th-century music composer and conductor who mocked the “‘wandering violinist’ found in the back of a love scene.”

Even setting these authorities aside, if you’ve ever watched a movie, you know what I’m talking about. When there’s something light or funny going on, the music will be playful and tinkly. When there’s suspense, the sound gets lower and ominous. When there’s frenetic action—someone running away from a killer, or a fight taking place—then all instruments of the orchestra kick in and if a character says anything, you can sometimes barely discern what it is.

In the movies I’ve seen, this is a glaringly noticeable, yes, problem, especially in movies between, say, the 1930s and the 1950s. These are decades of film that I don’t like very much, partly because of the overbearing soundtrack. It’s a bit of a stretch to say that the music enhances the action. It often feels like the director doesn’t trust the viewer to figure out for themselves just what is the tone or the emotion of what they are seeing, and so the orchestra or sometimes just the piano player is dragged in to make it clear.

If you’ve never seen a movie with absolutely no sound track, no music to cue you to what’s happening, no violin player in the bedroom—if you haven’t, you should try watching one and see what the effect is for you. I find that with the distraction of a desperate orchestra banging and stroking and blowing along, you tend to concentrate more. You tend to notice more. It’s like being in a minimally decorated space, a huge loft apartment, say, all brushed concrete and just a few pieces of furniture. A couple of examples of excellent movies that come to mind that lack soundtracks are Funny Games, Caché, of many hundreds and perhaps thousands.

You may have noticed that the examples that came easily to my mind are all what are called in the US and in Canada foreign films. It is true that the practice is more common in Europe and in Asia. In the United States especially, you see directors of so-called art films or experimental films going without music, and of course unfortunately most of us don’t ever get to see these movies. They may be excellently made and win awards at festivals, but often they don’t get a general or a wide release to regular theatres or even streaming services. They are the undiscovered genius in a universe of frauds and fakes.

I find the desire for music in movies at all a kind of odd obsession. Movies without any sound were pretty much all there were to see up until about the 1930s. Silent film, Charlie Chaplin and all of that, was how cinema started in the first place. But even then people wanted the player piano, wanted sound, wanted noise, and so the damn piano was called on to chirp during the happy scenes, hit all the low notes if a distressed damsel was tied to a railway track and it was looking like the hero might not get to her to unravel the rope in time, and so on.

I find the blatant musical messaging of silent films is replicated in our own century, a hundred years later, by the cartoon hero junk that occupies so many of the screens these days. Everything is big, big, big. Explosions, space ships, armies running forward into other armies, and it’s all amped up usually by an orchestral music score that’s just awful. Yes, things are a matter of taste to some extent in these cases, but I just can’t watch these movies. There’s too much of everything, none of it of very high quality.

These are loudly obvious examples of the problem. In a sense though, the worst cases are the normal domestic dramas where there are just family problems, relationship problems, everyday life being shown on the screen. I’ve seen so many scenes where there’s not much going on at all, just, say, everyone walking into the living room for some coffee, and there will be a light musical accompaniment to the whole thing. Why? It’s almost as if a scene in a movie without music is for many people like a silent pause in a conversation: it’s awkward, and so somebody has to clear their throat or get out the cello.

And that’s all for today, episode 3 of the podcast. Thanks for listening and please join me again next Wednesday.