FILM OF THE NINETIES
Film Music in the Nineties: The Song and the Score — A Battle for Supremacy?
The film score, written with the purpose
of following the screen action with music, cannot
live independently, apart from the image, while the
song can, since it does not need to conform to the action
on the screen. In the nineties, this functional difference
manifested itself as a problem with the mutual stylistic
variance of the song and score, as a problem of their intent,
as a problem of different musical worlds that, in themselves,
are either acceptable or unacceptable to various audiences.
Previously, the song and the score had traveled along
the same film road. Over time, the styles of the film song
and the film score began to increasingly drift apart. The
score remained traditionally oriented, while the song set
off on another course altogether. However, this ever more
apparent stylistic disparity did not have the effect of
alienating either the stubborn score or the increasingly
popular song, but during the nineties, the score began
to adopt the rhythm and contemporary electronic instrumentation
of the song.
However, this popular orientation of the score
did not harm its filmic functionality, nor did it hurt
the real purpose of the song. Even though the song, during
the nineties, sometimes attempted to interfere with the
»job« of the film score, because of its rigid, already
established structure, it was never suitable enough in
a functional sense. It was, however, far more successful
than the score in the commercial sense.
Thus, the classical division of film music into the score
— which serves as scene related music, and the song, which
performs as something non-scene related, remains, despite
attempts from both sides to break these barriers. Consequently,
the combination of song-score will become ideal for film
when it creates a balance between the scene related and
the non scene related, or rather between the commercial
and the functional.
Irena Paulus |
