Lives of Others: a musician’s perspective 13 ENG Thursday 09 th August 2012

1. Lives of Others: a musician’s perspective13 ENGThursday 09th August 2012 Learning intention: To explore how music is a valuable film technique and to discuss its merits in essay form. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2QFPnEhF_o

2. Music is an incredibly important aspect of film. • You cannot ignore it or underplay its contribution to the success of the film as a whole. At Level 3, simply saying that “the music ‘reinforces’ the emotion of sorrow the protagonist feels”, is fairly trite. It is my hope that you will analyse the way in which music is able to ‘reinforce’ anything and to speak about it confidently in your essays at the end of the year.

3. 1) Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck’s film-making philosophy has always been to see‘big things in the little things’. • Every musical note, ambient sound, leitmotiv, piece of incidental music, and song has been carefully selected or composed to invite, evoke and create within the audience an emotional connection and response that perpetuates our experience of what has been termed the ‘psychological intensity’ of the film.

4. 2. • Music is a universal language and while we may all bring our varied memories to a film and certain sounds, a successful film score composer creates music that transcends all language barriers, social and gender divisions. • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F7qUlz1p6o (6 min German documentary, Thomas Fritz)

5. 3. • Great music speaks directly to the human soul on an affective (psychological term for emotional) level with frightening immediacy. These aspects of the nature of music are what serve to reinforce or challenge our understandings of the world and the people in it.

6. Youtube link to audio- 10 min sample of various film scores he’s composed - MUSICAL GENIUS BEHIND THE FILM SCORE! • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2QFPnEhF_o • the composer who comes on board at the last minute has to discover a whole film, he has to get involved in the story, the characters, the psychology and the action... to dig, to explore, to find, and specially to go beyond his habits. Because one of the most important things for a composer is to go beyond your habits in composing, and if you have a month or less to compose 80 or 90 minutes of music, the result can only be bad for the quality of film music and music in general (Speaking in an informal chat of composers who come in on a film at the last minute.) • ... I believe music is a grace coming from above • By his own admission he is given to composing romantic film scores but is always up for a challenge e.g. science fiction. • anyway I believe that all film composers must be composers first, and all of us are capable of compose anything we want without having a picture to give us inspiration... • As a composer my way of working implies that I have to be involved in the picture from the very beginning. When the picture has not been already shot and all are ideas and sketches. There is where I find myself more comfortable, because it's there and no other time when I have the opportunity to search and explore for whatever material I will come... • film I made the decision of not coming on a film once it's completed. That way it doesn't speak to me, when it really speaks to me is when it does not exist. My imagination works better when the thing I'm working on is foggy and not completely incarnated into pictures yet • But it makes my work very difficult. What I'm happy to know is many composers today are coming to the same conclusion as me: that is important to get involved since the beginning... if not, what we'll produce is our own habits... who can say that, for a film which production has lasted three years, he can write a good score that does ignore all that process and give in three months anything, a true creation, a work that sounds different than everything he has composed in the past?... the answer is simple... NO ONE could tell you that honestly. GABRIEL YARED

7. Task

8. Leitmotiv : A recurrent theme throughout a musical or literary composition • A melodic passage or phrase, especially in Wagnerian opera, associated with a specific character, situation, or element. • Music is also used as a form of characterisation. • Consider: Both Wiesler is characterised by the leitmotivs we hear when he appears on screen. • Wiesler has a haunting and somewhat disturbing leitmotiv early in the film when he carries out his surveillance of Dreyman. When that same leitmotiv continues while the camera pans his apartment, we are being told that Wiesler’s persona is no persona at all – he is his work, there is no separation. He is an instrument of the State. • (18.51)

9. Leitmotiv cont. • Lover’s motif • (33.49) only ever appears in two other places. • Can you guess where? (103.09) • What is the significance of this placement of Music?

10. MUSIC AS A WAY OF REPRESENTING THE STATE OF CHARACTER RELATIONSHIPS: • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4oEyLTMof4&feature=BFa&list=PLECE9BFCDFEEB9A4D&lf=BFa • (43.24) • (56.13) • Which characters do you think are involved based on the music you hear? • Listen to the way each instrument plays a melodic line. How do you describe the way the instruments are moving or relating to each other?

11. SILENCE IS ALSO A TECHNIQUE • You should note the absences of non-diegetic sound in scenes which are particularly disturbing. Notably, the scenes with Hempf and CMS in the car (where he takes sexual advantage of her) and also in the scene with Wiesler and the prostitute. • In both instances the absence of sound hammers the viewer with the such discomfort; all our senses are acutely tuned to the disagreeable and unsavoury nature of these situations. • There is no music to ease the horror of CMS predicament or to romanticize Wiesler’s encounter with the prostitute. In both instances the viewer is pertubed by the loveless interactions. They are such poor reflections of what sexual intimacy offers in its ideal form. • One could make the link that the loveless interactions reflect a society (GDR State) which is efficient and functions with regulated precision, but lacks real life and vitality that one expects of a population of diverse peoples.

12. Songs in Lives of others • Bayon is a musical group that in 1971 the GDR was founded. IhreMusikbewegtsichzwischenFolklore , Klassik , Jazz und Rock . Their music ranges from folk , classical , jazz and rock. The meditative character of the purely instrumental compositions mostly to the imagination inspire the listener • Bayon, used the poem is tryingby Wolfgang Borchert use as text for a song used in our film. (film location : 122.04)

13. Borchert • The poem "Versuches" by Wolfgang Borchert. • Borchertwas a playwright whose life was destroyed by his experience being drafted into the Wehrmacht in World War II and fighting on the Eastern Front. • (Wehrmacht -the unified armed forces of Germany from 1935 to 1945). • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2S3h0Sutgs&feature=related

14. ‘versuche Es’ Wolfgang Borchert Try to StellDich mitten in den Regen,glaube an den Tropfensegen,spinnDich in dies Rauscheneinund versuche, gut zusein! StellDich mitten in den Wind,glaub an ihn und seiein Kind - laß den Sturm in Dichhinei StellDich mitten in das Feuer - liebe dieses Ungeheuerin des HerzensrotemWeinund versuche, gut zusein! Stand in the middle of the rain,Believe in the blessing of the drops,Cover yourself in its noiseAnd try to be good! Stand in the middle of the windBelieve in it and be a child -Let the storm enter youAnd try to be good! Stand in the middle of the fire -Love this monsterWith the red wine of your heartAnd try to be good! • (Translation - Bent Sørensen) The text for the song:

15. CONCLUSIONS • I just recapped for them – will send you the amended version later