In my third week of Film Music we discussed music and film from the 50's to the present. I watched numerous clips as well as four great movies. In these clips and movies, I noticed the transition from Jazz music to Rock music. There was also a decline in the usage of a studio system and popular music rose. The new era came with versatility, compilation and jazz scores.





The first clip of the week was from 1939's Gone With the Wind. During the Golden Age, 1939 was considered the Golden Year, making Gone With the Wind the best of its time. The film contained a compilation score of a few popular songs in 39'. In the scene where the wounded are being aided and the main character is walking through all the chaos the compilation of Taps, Maryland O' Maryland and many other songs was used as the underscore.



Second and third clips were from the Wizard of Oz and Hunchback of Notre Dome. The clip of the Wizard of Oz showed the use of bright colors in the film. When there were happy and friendly scenes in the film the colors were bright and vibrant. The darker scenes contained black and green to represent evil. For the Hunchback of Notre Dame we listened for the glissando in a scene which was used for an erie sound as if someone was wacky.



Now we are entering the 50's where we notice the decrease in orchestras and the use of different instruments. In The Last Weekend the theramin was introduced. The theramin was used for the wacky effect as well.



Our first full-length film of the week's music was composed by one of the God Fathers, Dimitry Tiomkin. He did the score for High Noon which did not contain any violins. High Noon was considered a b-movie and an adult western. The film had a symphonic score. The title music was performed by the late John Ritter's father, Tex Ritter. The song was very popular in its time. It was even played over the radio. The piece was a very dissonant motive.
The title music was also used as a leitmotif for the Marshall in the film.



Second film of the week's music was composed by Elmer Bernstein. He composed the music for To Kill a Mocking Bird. His music was very smooth, yet, dissonant. For the scary scenes he used piercing, shrieking music that created an uncomfortable feeling as well as made my heart race. Especially in the chasing scene through the woods, I felt the scene, listening to the music. Bernstein used percussion and piano to compose his score. Also in the courtroom scene I noticed there was no music in the scene at all. No music made the scene seem more intense and realistic.

Our next clip we watched was from The Forbidden Planet. The score for that film was all electronic. All the music composed for the the film was done electronically, there were no sting instruments, piano or wind instruments. We then watched a clip from Psycho which was composed by the playing of string glissando or the sliding of the fingers. The famous shower scene's music and jump cuts caused the tension that the audience feels during the scene.

Third movie of the week was The Heat of the Night that was composed by Quincy Jones. Ray Charles, long time friend of Quincy, performed the title music for the film. Quincy used rock for the underscore along with percussion and recordings of sounds made with the mouth.

The last film of the week was the best film of the week. This film was the one of the first films to have a compilation score of popular pop songs. The name of the film is American Graffiti. It contains a lot of source music that transitions into the underscore throughout most of the film. It was very interesting that I knew a few of the songs in the film. I did not notice that some of the music was as old as it was. American Graffiti was also one of the most controversial films because of copyright. The score for the film was the popular music of the time for which the composer did not have permission to use. He was not able to cut any of the songs out because he had put to much work into the film already to cut anything. He wound up being sued for copyright infringement.