Playing on our expectations, though, Jeunet and Caro
cut back and forth between the lovers and other
inhabitants of the building, who hear the squeak-
ing bed and subconsciously change the rhythm of
their daily chores to keep time with the sounds’
escalating pace. The sequence derives its humor
from the way it satisfies our formal expectations
for closure (the sexual partners reach orgasm) but
frustrates the tenants, who just become exhausted
in their labors.
On a far grander scale—commensurate with the
scope of the story—Francis Ford Coppola’s Apoca-
lypse Now(1979; sound designer: Walter Murch)
includes a mix of more than 140 sound tracks during
the exciting, horrifying helicopter assault on the
beach of a Vietcong stronghold (see page 420);
prominent in the mix is “Ride of the Valkyries” from
Richard Wagner’s opera Die Walküre(1856). In a
later film about Vietnam, Oliver Stone’s Platoon
(1986; sound designer: Gordon Daniel), the personal
hatreds that divide a platoon are underscored by a
montage that includes the roar of the helicopters,
voices of frightened men, screams of the dying, and
repeated excerpts from composer Samuel Barber’s
grief-stricken Adagio for Strings (1936).
Characterization
All types of sound—dialogue, sound effects, music—
can function as part of characterization. In Mel
Brooks’s Young Frankenstein(1974; sound: Don Hall),
when Frau Blücher’s (Cloris Leachman) name is
mentioned, horses rear on their hind legs and whinny.
It becomes clear in context that she is so ugly and
intimidating that even horses can’t stand to hear her
name, so for the rest of the movie, every time her
name is mentioned, we hear the same sounds.
In Jaws(1975; sound: John R. Carter), Steven
Spielberg uses a sound effect to introduce Quint
(Robert Shaw), the old shark hunter. When Quint
enters a community meeting called in response to
the first killing of a swimmer by the shark, he draws
his fingernails across a chalkboard to show his power
and bravery: he is affected neither by a sound that
makes most people cringe nor, by extension, by the
townspeople or sharks. We might also observe that
this sound is as abrasive as Quint is.
Musical themes are frequently associated with a
character’s thoughts, as in Lasse Hallström’s My
Life as Dog (1985), where Björn Isfalt’s score reflects
the melancholic state of mind of a boy yearning for
his dead mother, or in Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s The
Ghost and Mrs. Muir(1947), where Bernard Herr -
mann’s score reflects a widow’s loneliness in an iso-
lated house on a cliff overlooking the sea. Musical
themes can also help us to understand the setting
in which characters live. Miranda July’s Me and You
and Everyone We Know(2006) is an offbeat indie
feature that tells the overlapping stories of a
diverse group of people living in Los Angeles and
looking for love, affection, or whatever they can
find. These people—young, old, married, single,
black, Hispanic, and white—are poignant in their
somewhat goofy yearnings, and Michael Andrews’s
whimsical musical score—including solo guitar,
solo piano, solo organ, pop songs, and a hymn—
reflects their casual lifestyles and provides the per-
fect comment on their activities. Animals can also
be identified by a significant musical theme, as with
John Williams’s memorable one for Hedwig,
Harry’s owl in the Harry Potterseries.
Musical themes often identify characters, occur-
ring and recurring on the sound track as the char-
acters make their entrances and exits on the screen.
But music can also underscore characters’ insights.
In Sam Mendes’s American Beauty(1999; composer:
Thomas Newman), for example, Lester Burnham
(Kevin Spacey) is having a midlife crisis. Although
a wide variety of diegetic popular music helps iden-
tify the musical tastes of the Burnham family, it is
an original theme that helps identify and sustain
Lester’s longing for a different life, literally a “bed
of roses”—roses being the symbol of Lester’s lust
for his daughter’s friend Angela (Mena Suvari).
Lying on his bed, having this fantasy—shots of rose
petals floating on him are intercut with shots of
Angela naked among the rose petals on the ceiling
above him—we hear a peaceful theme played by a
Javanese gamelan orchestra. The repetitiveness
and quality of this music emphasize Lester’s mood
of wanting to escape to another world.FUNCTIONS OF FILM SOUND 419