The (high) Impact of Music In Movies And Story-telling

For many people in our dear world, there’s nothing like music. Every note they hear has an enticing effect that will most likely leave them smiling for the rest of the day. As the great Bob Marley once said: One great thing about music is that when it hits you, you feel no pain. Good music, or at least music that connects with people’s fibers, has the power to heal, as some experts say.

And there’s a great deal of evidence regarding that assessment, since it’s also quite easy to experiment with. Just turn up the volume of a song that you really like, and it’s really easy to see what they are talking about. The particular vibrations of every instrument have a special connection with our body and will most likely create a very pleasant sensation, in particular if we are able to find that song that creates a nexus with our body.

There is also a historical link between instruments and people, as the first percussion instruments date back to 40.000 B.C. They used it to communicate with others and, in many cases, add some feelings to the history they were expressing. That’s due to the inexplicable form that only music has of transporting us to another dimension, especially when telling a captivating story.

Music in movies

It’s difficult to imagine what movies like Interstellar would have been like if Hans Zimmer hadn’t been behind the camera. Even when a film is in the shape that Christopher Nolan gave it, it could still fail if the soundtrack doesn’t accompany it by evoking feelings of desperation, love, and fact, every single emotion a human being could feel in his life. That s the job of those very talented musicians, who have the incredibly challenging job of propelling the audience from their comfort in the theatre to a very tense position, emphasizing what is projecting on the screen.

The talented creator, Hans Zimmer, is also responsible for memorable soundtracks that accompanied great movies like Gladiator, The Lion King (which earned him an Oscar for that performance) and some other hits like Sherlock Holmes, Inception, and Dunkirk, among many other nominations. His career has also credited him with three Golden Globes, for movies like Dune, another example of an impressive combination between a great director like Denis Villeneuve and a great musician.

He also musicalized the movie Pirates of the Caribbean, proving that the talent of this great composer is not limited to dramatic movies, but also includes tracks that evoke the spirit of adventure. Throughout his career, he has musicalized films such as the Batman Trilogy, creating some of the best suspense and action tracks in history, as well as composing music for documentaries such as BBC s Planet Earth.

Another great example of a talented composer in movies is the late James Horner, the man behind scores like the music from Titanic (which included the famous track with Celine Dion), Braveheart, and Bicentennial Man, amongst many others. His ability to adapt to the different genres of the movies he accompanied with his music was one of the keys to the great success he amassed during his career.

Why is it so important in storytelling?

It was the great film composer Bernard Hermann who once said that the proper music in a film can propel the narrative swiftly forward, or slow it down. It often elevates mere dialogue into the realm of poetry. It is the communicating link between the screen and the audience, reaching out and enveloping them all into one single experience. This statement is a fundamental truth that comes hand in hand when talking about Interstellar, a movie in which time and music fuse in a very particular way, letting us know, for example, that time goes really fast when it has consequences.

The importance of music in storytelling comes from its power to engage every sense and evoke feelings that are sometimes hidden behind that chest armor that people have. A great example of this is the great work of John Williams, the man behind the music of the Star Wars saga, one of the greatest hits in movie history. These tracks, including the Imperial March, are amongst the most memorable ever created. He also composed the music for the Oscar-winning Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, and Memoirs of a Geisha, as well as many other compelling films.

All of these reasons, and many more, are why it’s critical to have the right music when making a film, especially one that claims to call to that vibe in us that makes us resonate as much as the music. But of course, the budget of a new director could never include the German Hans Zimmer, but there is a lot of royalty-free music coming from very talented musicians, which could give a project a notable touch.

Storytelling with music is a really powerful device, Randy Harrison said, and he’s right; there’s a really simple way to prove it: take a book like The Lord of the Rings, listen to Howard Shore’s masterpiece, and see if it doesn’t strike one of the body’s fibers.