John Williams's Film Music: Jaws, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the Return of the Classical Hollywood Music Style

Glossary

247 Glos­ sary ab­ so­ lute music: Music that is ab so­ luta (un­ tied), that is, com­ posed for a­ stand-alone lis­ ten­ ing ex­ pe­ ri­ ence freed from any ex­ ter­ nal in­ flu­ ences and ex­ tra­ mus­ i­ cal ref­ er­ ences. The term orig­ i­ nated in the nine­ teenth cen­ tury,­ within the phil­ o­ soph­ i­ cal frame­ work of Ideal­ ism. ap­ plied/func­ tional music: A mu­ si­ cal ren­ di­ tion of a lit­ er­ ary text, like a sym­ phonic poem, or a mu­ si­ cal ac­ com­ pa­ ni­ ment to an ex­ tra­ mus­ i­ cal event, such as a bal­ let, an opera, or a film. BMI: Broad­ cast Music, Inc., one of the top music ­ rights man­ age­ ment agen­ cies. CGI: ­ Computer-generated im­ agery. cine­ phile: Film buff. cog­ ni­ tive func­ tion: An in­ stance in which film music ­ serves to clar­ ify ex­ plicit or im­ plicit mean­ ings im­ plied by the film, giv­ ing clues to under­ stand de­ no­ ta­ tions and to inter­ pret con­ no­ ta­ tions. die­ getic: Music or sound pre­ sented as orig­ i­ nated from some ­ source ­ within the­ film’s world. It can be heard by film view­ ers and by char­ ac­ ters as well. em­ o­ tive func­ tion (micro/macro): Lo­ cally, film music ­ serves to en­ hance an emo­ tional tone al­ ready ­ present in a scene or to pro­ vide one by trans­ fer­ ring to the im­ ages its emo­ tional com­ po­ nent (micro-emotive func­ tion). Glo­ bally— by pre­ sent­ ing the theme in the open­ ing ti­ tles, then re­ pris­ ing it in vari­ a­ tions through­ out the film and fi­ nally pre­ sent­ ing it again at the end of the film— film music per­ forms a func­ tion sim­ i­ lar to that of a frame in a paint­ ing and 248 • Glossary uni­ fies the aes­ thetic ex­ pe­ ri­ ence of the film for the ­ viewer (macro-emotive func­ tion). “gradual dis­ clo­ sure of the main ­ theme’’: A typ­ i­ cal John ­ Williams tech­ nique that has both a ­ macro- and a ­ micro-emotive func­ tion. The main theme is pre­ sented grad­ u­ ally ­ across the film, in form of pro­ gres­ sively ­ longer me­ lodic frag­ ments. The final ex­ po­ si­ tion of the theme in its en­ tirety comes only at a stra­ te­ gic point in the nar­ ra­ tive, typ­ i­ cally in a scene re­ quir­ ing a­ strong emo­ tional re­ sponse from the view­ ers. Glo­ bally, the grad­ ual and co­ her­ ent de­ vel­ op­ ment of the music pro­ jects onto the ­ film’s form a sense of over­ all co­ her­ ence (macro-emotive func­ tion). Lo­ cally, when the view­ ers fi­ nally hear the fa­ mil­ iar theme pre­ sented in its en­ tirety, the ef­ fect is a ­ strong emo­ tional grat­ ifi­ ca­ tion that at­ ta­ ches to that par­ tic­ u­ lar scene (micro-emotive func­ tion). leit­ mo­ tiv: In music dra­ mas, and later in film music, the as­ so­ ci­ a­ tion and iden­ tifi­ ca­ tion of a char­ ac­ ter, sit­ u­ a­ tion, or idea with a mu­ si­ cal motif, which is re­ prised and de­ vel­ oped nar­ ra­ tively through­ out the work. MIDI: Mu­ si­ cal in­ stru­ ment dig­ i­ tal inter­ face. This tech­ nol­ ogy al­ lows a key­ board to be con­ nected to a com­ puter, which di­ rectly ­ transcribes the music as one plays.­ Mickey-Mousing: A film music tech­ nique aimed at ad­ her­ ing ­ closely to the vis­ u­ als ­ through a tight se­ ries of ex­ plicit ­ synch-points where mu­ si­ cal ges­ tures du­ pli­ cate vis­ ual ac­ tions. mon­ tage: A film ed­ it­ ing tech­ nique that ­ serves to con­ dense time, space, nar­ ra­ tive, and con­ cep­ tual in­ for­ ma­ tion. It is ­ mostly used to sum­ mar­ ize in an em­ ble­ matic se­ quence ­ events that would oth­ er­ wise re­ quire a ­ lengthier pres­ en­ ta­ tion, or to con­ vey con­ cepts ­ through se­ man­ ti­ cally mean­ ing­ ful jux­ ta­ po­ si­ tions of im­ ages.­ non-diegetic: Music or...