Just as sitcoms got better by eliminating laugh tracks, film will get better when film scores are a thing of the past. Each is overly prescriptive emotional hand-holding, a clear example of what goes wrong when artists forget to follow the generally correct maxim: “show don’t tell.”
Film scores tell you how to feel instead of letting the scene do the work, as though a piece of art has a single correct interpretation and it’s the artist’s job to spoon feed you the correct view.
The reason we are resistant to eliminating film scores is an artifact of familiarity. That this is the case is best demonstrated with a couple of examples. What if The Office had a laugh track? Look at this abomination:
Better yet, what if books and short stories had scores?
The Metamorphosis
Franz Kafka [war drums beating ominously, increasing in volume; you should be impressed]
[lights up; drums cut out abruptly; what’s going to happen…?]
One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams [comical record scratch] , he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin [creepy Trent Reznor sounds; you should wonder how this could happen] . He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections [sounds of spaghetti being mixed in a bowl; ew, amirite?]. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment [creepy sounds increase in volume; you should be even more uneasy now]. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.
The ridiculousness of the above examples is meant to show that scores are similarily ridiculous. No one would add a score a book (not even an audio book) and no reasonable person would want to add scores back to films once we got used to them being gone.
I know too many people who do not engage with stories or any media the way you describe for me to find your claims persuasive, but I am glad to have a little insight into why you as an individual don’t like music in movies.
Your questions about what if we added unusual elements to established media forms has been answered thoroughly over the years. Would you like to discuss this?
You’re being very cryptic. Feel free to tell me which claim is dumb or how you think my interaction with media is different than most, or different from how it should be.
Are you also wanting to eliminate soundtracks as well? I guess I don’t know for sure the difference between a film score and a film with songs that maybe also has a score. Because I think songs in films can really add a ton for a variety of reasons.
Is this supposed to apply to all scores? Star Wars would be objectively worse without a score. Similarly the score for Jaws was a critical piece of the shark’s “character”.
No, you can’t just go back and take out the score. The hand-holding is baked into the final product at this point. The point is that films in the future will be and should be conceived and shot without a score as a crutch.
It’s a very strange definition of crutch. Scores play an incredibly useful role in scenes where there is no dialogue and little ambient sound. It’s like saying that chocolate chips are a crutch in cookies.
The basic argument here is that you want to eliminate one element from an audio-visual medium because it is sometimes used badly. Insisting filmmakers should completely stop using one of their tools is weirdly absolutist. Like I get annoyed when they over-salt my fries at Five Guys (seriously, they always do this), but I don’t think we should ban salt.
And scores are far less prominent now already. If there’s any audio in contemporary movies that needs to be reined in it’s the orgy of foleys anytime somebody gets anywhere near a gun.
Good, this helps me clarify my point. Film scores are absolutely not the chocolate chips. That’s the whole point. A score is more like Jamie Oliver following you around the house, narrating out loud how you ought to feel and think about the cookie in your mouth. I already know, Jamie! I’m right here! Shut up!
When I was in college they had a restored old-timey theater and sometimes they’d show silent movies with a live organ accompaniment. Those were some pretty great experiences, esp watching Nosferatu on the big screen.
I agree that scores give directors a means of signifying emotional intensity that’s too easy and is overused by some directors, but many of my favourite films of all time would be horribly diminished without the score.
How do you feel about the use of exclamation marks in writing?
