The Kite Runner

The movie the Kite Runner is very inspirational, and portrays tons of emotion throughout the dialogue, the plot, and also the music. The movie starts off, as the older movies did, with the credits at the beginning, setting the tone of the move prior to setting the plot. The movie has a ton of underscoring with a small amount of diegetic music, although when the diegetic music is present it has significant meaning. For example during Amir's wedding there is diegetic music, and it shows the happiness that all of the characters seem to possess at that moment in time. The music, when the kites are flying at the beginning, has a variation of string instruments, and as Hassan is running after the kite the drums seem to come in and it gives the scene emotion by mocking his motion of his feet hitting the ground, and him running to fetch the cut down kite. When the movie is trying to express a sad moment there tends to be more strings, but also the piano plays a huge role in getting this accomplished. For example when Hassan is talking to amir when they are younger, saying he would rather eat dirt than lie to him, the strings and the piano come together to show the sincerity of that conversation between the two boys. Also, When Amir wakes up in the morning and can't find Sohrab, he goes looking for him on the streets and at first the music seemed to mock his heart beating faster and faster as he panicked that he may have lost the boy, this is also a point in the movie where you really feel what the character is going through, perhaps through experience or through the music itself. Although there is sadness throughout this entire movie, there is however happiness portrayed at 3 diffferent times,when Amir and Hassan win the Kite tournament, when Amir gets married, and at the end of the movie when Amir and Sohrab are flying a kite together, and he says the same thing that Hassan, sohrabs father once said to Amir, "For you, a thousand times over."

Big Fish

Big Fish is a funfilled movie that includes many different types of stories and scenes which come alive in the music. When the father is born and he is sliding down the hallway Jazz-like music is playing as underscoring. Moving throughout the entirety of the film the use of a piano, and the strings is often heard, although there is some percusion and bass but they are not used as frequently as the other two. The strings tend to be softer but get deeper when there are intimate moments or when Edward is telling his stories. There is some micky mousing when the giant is walking out of the cave mimicking his footsteps and then when he thros a rock at Edward, it sounds like drums. Diegetic music is also used in this movie, for example when they have the parade for Edward giving him the key to the city right before he leaves, and also when he is dancing with all of the people, it almost sounds like a guitar is playing, possibly the bango. This movie has a lot of different variations of music yet the combination of the stories and the music in this film is what makes it so great.

Titanic

Ofcourse when one thinks of the Titanic they think of the theme song sung by Celine Dion, "my heart will go on," given the plot of the film it fits perfectly given that although Jack is dead, Rose still has faith in love. It is a song that keeps the viewers coming back and wanting to watch the hopeless love story for a second time. 

There are however, many other leitmotif's that are present in the film. The love between Rose and Jack is expressed in a leitmotif, it is softer than the other music expressed in the film and is played usually when the two are alone together. The Titanic itself also has it's own leitmotif, portraying its greatness and its magnificance considering it was to be the ship that would never sink; and then once the Titanic actually did sink, so did the leitmotif, given that it is no longer as great as it once was, and it is no longer in existance.

Along with some underscoring there is also some diegetic music being played in the film, for example when the ship is about to sink and the violinists are still playing on deck even though they know that they are about to die. Also when Rose and Jack go down to the lower deck and dance an Irish jig with the people on the 3rd class level.

The Color Purple

There is a lot of music in this film although it is not wall to wall. The music is mostly orchestra and strings. There is a lot of imitation where the music goes along with the actions of the characters in the movie. Although the theme and the mood of the characters is portrayed as sad, and lonesome the music however is playful, possibly showing that Celie's isn't always in a low state of being, but has high spirits when the time is right. There is plent of underscoring and Diagetic music is played every time they have a church scene, showing the involvement of the characters with religion. Usually you would find a movie portraying the same type of sound, or musical background but in the color purple the music varies and tends to be more diverse than other films we have watched. 

E.T.

The music in E.T. is mostly instruments that are in an orchestra, although some times the whole orchestra isn't used, the woodwinds seem to play a huge role in many of the themes. They tend to use the whole orchestra for more dramatic and overwhelming scenes, where a particualar message is trying to be conveyed. The mood of the music is more childlike and instead of using a bunch of different themes for each scene Williams does an excellent job of focusing on a single theme and using it in multiple ways, only changing it a little bit to give it it's own uniqueness. There is some Micky-mousing sound effects, for example when they are running away from each other at the beginning of the movie. There is a lot of underscoring in this movie, whether it be portrayed through the television, or a raidio it is often heard throughout the entirety of the film. There is what seems to be wall to wall music but there are scenes that do not have any music at all, and these scenes are trying to isolate a certain emotion that without music is better portrayed. For example when Elliot is sitting at the dinner table and he feels lonely because he just found out that his father had run off to mexico with another woman. With the sequencing, the underscoring, and the micky-mouse sound effects Williams work in E.T. can be comparable to the work of Steiner and the music in the film King Kong.

Sting

The movie Sting that is set in Chicago, uses music unconsistentely and not as frequent as you would think. It is mainly played during the transitions from scene to scene. However, there are instances where music is played during a scene and those are the more major scenes such as the scene where Luther dies. Most of the music in this movie is a piano, and most of it is underscoring there is some diagetic music in this film as well but not shown as much. It generally seemed to fade out some times when they would transition from scene to scene. Most of this music is considered to be rag-time music and it is a more up beat type of music which they seem to play often enough in the movie, and it kind of contradicts the whole idea and plot of the movie but at the same time it captures what is going on in each scene and gives the audience a better understanding and emotion as they watch the movie. Although music did not seem to play a huge role in this movie it definitely made up for it in meaning and overall was able to give the audience that feeling that was being portrayed in the film.

To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird does not follow the trend that many movies in the 1960's did, where they used minimal or no music during the story, i found that it used several different types of music, that which included piano music, diegetic music, background music that, and some typical theme music. To Kill a Mockingbid is typical courtroom movie, so in those types of scenes they did not have any music while in the courtroom. Music is used mainly to show danger, or to transition form scene to scene or from a certain emotion, such as happiness and transition it into anger. They had both diegetic music and underscoring throughout the entirety of the movie. I found that the kids theme music seemed to be lighter than everything else, and that was suprising given that the plot for the movie is quite strong and deep, and deals with such grave issues. I feel as if the movie was not entirely classical and it didn't completely follow the style of Bernard hermann, but rather I feel as if it is a mix of the two.