Music's Importance to Film and Stage

Many have remarked on how critical a film's soundtrack is to a movie's success.  It would be impossible to make a scary movie without sudden shocks and bangs, a romantic film without beautiful strings, or a comedy without a zany, light orchestral score.  Nothing better illustrates this than the last Academy Award winner for best movie, The Artist.

I saw The Artist last weekend, and while it is a tad highbrow, it is a GREAT movie.  For most of the film, the movie is a silent film like those movies before 'talkies' came out in the late 1920s.  I thought I would be bored, but I was shocked by how engaging the film was WITHOUT a single line of dialogue.  While credit must be given to the actors, the real reason for the movie's success is the incredible film score.  The music literally becomes the driver of the plot, and you simply do not need a word to be spoken - the music fills that role perfectly.

When people worry about going to an opera in a foreign language, The Artist is a great example of how music can tell the audience what is going and how the actor's are feeling.  If the acting is excellent and the music well-written, you simply do not need dialogue to create a film, or for that matter, musical or opera.

DWS