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5. The Presence of Film Music
- Baylor University Press
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127 The preSence oF Film muSic 5 Ayoung woman once attended a film discussion group that I was hosting. Although I had never met her before, in a moment of seemingly perfunctory self-disclosure, she revealed that “on her best days” she was agnostic, but that she typically lived her life according to a type of intellectual atheism. Nevertheless, she was present and actively participating in a gathering that was explicitly connected with the “twenty- and thirty-somethings” ministry of which I was the lead pastor and director. On the particular evening that she arrived, we had chosen to discuss Marc Forster’s Stranger than Fiction (2006). A subtle yet surprisingly endearing film, Stranger than Fiction tells the story of what is supposed to be the final few weeks in the life of Harold Crick, a man who, by all rational accounts, is schizophrenic. Harold hears voices. More specifically, he hears the voice of an omniscient, third-person narrator —one that not only describes every mundane detail of his life “accurately and with a better vocabulary,” but also suggests that his death is imminently approaching. As the film charts Harold’s transition from an isolated, fragmented , and otherwise lonely IRS agent to an integrated humanbeing -in-relation, it continually raises questions concerning the value, purpose, and meaning of those everyday experiences that are at once profound yet seemingly banal, transformative yet shrouded in mystery. Is there an all-knowing someone or something ordering 128 Scoring TranScendence our life and investing it with a larger meaning? Or is our fate simply predetermined? Is there an “O/other” that is present and active in the minutiae of our existence, calling out to us from a location beyond our immanent frame? Or are we just crazy? Are we simply hearing voices? Prior to our discussion that evening, we once again watched the film’s closing scene. Strictly speaking, it is a simple montage. However, rather than signifying the passage of narrative time, this particular series of images depicts the film’s various characters as they embrace their newfound connectivity . As the montage proceeds, sound effects drop entirely from the soundtrack and the voice of the narrator comes to the foreground, her words serving as a concluding reflection for the whole of the film: Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies. And fortunately, when there aren’t any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture, or a subtle encouragement, or a loving embrace, or an offer of comfort. . . . And maybe the occasional piece of fiction. And we must remember that all these things—the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days—are in fact here for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange. But I also know that it just so happens to be true. Without question, these words and images invite a theological response. Yet they are not the only means by which the film confronts the audience theologically, for the film’s final segment commences not with a particular image or a spoken word but with music. The scene begins as we hear the sound of a guitar vamping on an E major chord in 4/4 time. The occasional variations of second and third intervals that are played over this chord are constantly resolving into perfect fourths and fifths, imbuing the scene with a feeling of consonance and wholeness. As the guitar eventually shifts between E major and A major [3.236.111.234] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 14:24 GMT) The preSence oF Film muSic 129 chords, the orchestration develops a thicker texture, eventually including strings and brass instrumentation and even vocals. This music functions not only to invest the scene, which is filmed in slow motion, with a progressively rhythmic and “natural ” movement, but also to lend a sense of cohesion to the otherwise disjointed cuts. Through both its mode and its timbre, the music colors the final minutes of the film with an uplifting and optimistic quality. Moreover, as the music underscores a compilation of shots that feature both the film’s principal and secondary characters, it expresses their essential interrelatedness . In conjunction with the voice-over and the accompanying images of the montage, it signifies an unseen and unspeakable...