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Cinema and Music: Perfect Partners

The Korea Foundation Cultural Center’s new lecture series, entitled “Original Film Soundtracks,” is being presented on Thursday evenings (March 4 - May 6). The opening session featured a presentation by Choi Gwanghee, a cinema journalist, who provided an overview of the perfect match between the mediums of music and film.

About three years ago, together with Kim Tae-hun, a close friend of mine and pop-music columnist, we teamed up to a blog site on popular culture, which was named “3M Heung-Up” (http://three-m.kr). As part of an introduction to the site, I felt that music should be mentioned ahead of movies. But, Kim Tae-hun stated his belief: “It is the movie that sets the trend of popular culture nowadays. So, why do you, as a specialist on film, think that music should come first?” To this, my response was something like: “Well you know, music has been around forever, while the movie has a history of barely 100 years!”

Music and Movies: An Ideal Match
Of course, music has existed since the emergence of mankind, while the motion film genre has a history of only about 115 years, since the technology was developed to project moving images. Humankind’s cultural legacy rooted in such age-old areas as the fine arts, literature, religion, and philosophy, as well as music is a forefather of the movie. In this regard, it is not unreasonable to regard the modern film genre as a kind of “nouveau riche” form of popular art, which has seemingly captured the imagination of our modern society as a result of its ability to convey “moving pictures.”
Among the cultural achievements of human civilization, music rightfully belongs at the top the list. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that the popularity of cinema can be attributed to the richness of its musical accompaniment. From the time when the Lumiere brothers showed the first motion picture to public audiences in 1895, music has been an integral aspect of the movie theater. Even the earliest “silent movies,” with no dialogue, were enhanced with music. Thereafter, with the advent of the modern soundtrack, dialogue and music brought the screen images to life for the entertainment of viewers. It was hardly a coincidence that musical films enjoyed a golden age in the 1930s, during the early years of studio production movies in Hollywood. The musical film remains one of the most popular film genres today, with movies based on musicals being firmly established as an influential film category.
In spite of this natural blending of film and music, in more recent times the importance of music tends to be largely neglected in our discussions about cinema. Of course, it has been the case that film producers have long been more intently focused on the visual effects of feature movies, while only giving secondary consideration to the music soundtrack. As such, music is often thought of as a background element or a supplemental means to accentuate the visual images. In this way, the value of film music has generally failed to be properly recognized, despite the far-reaching influence of music on the world’s cultural sphere.

Soundtrack Is Meant to be ‘Seen’
The development of cinema eventually led to an evolution in the significance of film music. This process can be attributed to the exceptional talent of the pioneers of film music, such as Bernard Herrmann who d a new paradigm for the musical soundtracks of a number of film classics, including “Citizen Kane” by Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock’s masterful works, and “Taxi Driver” by Martin Scorsese. Other notable film music figures included Miklos Rozsas, Ennio Morricone, John Williams, and Hans Zimmer, more recently. These musical artists have shown that film music can enhance the value and popularity of movies. It is often the case that music plays a decisive role in a film’s ability to enjoy blockbuster success, beyond enriching individual scenes. The film and its soundtrack now maintain an inseparable, symbiotic relationship.
Meanwhile, the development of popular music has provided added momentum to film music. From the time that Elia Kazan introduced jazz and blues music in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” for essentially the first time, cinema has come to adopt every form of popular music, including rock, disco, electronic, and hip-hop music, as a reflection of the cultural sensibilities of contemporary society.
There was also a time when radio programs regularly aired cinema music, indicating its appeal to a wide range of music fans. For myself, I have long believed that the overall value of film music can be fully appreciated only when the soundtrack is not simply heard but “seen” as well. I also believe there might be others who share this sentiment. Accordingly, I am indeed pleased to participate in this thought-provoking lecture series on the significance of film music at the Korea Foundation Cultural Center.

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