Music in Contemporary French Cinema

The Crystal-Song

verfasst von: Phil Powrie

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

This book explores composed scores and pre-existing music in French cinema from 1985 to 2015 so as to identify critical musical moments. It shows how heritage films construct space through music, generating what Powrie calls “third space music,” while also working to contain the strong women characters found in French heritage films through the use of leitmotifs and musical cues. He analyses fiction films in which the protagonists perform at the piano, showing how musical performance supports the performance of gender. Building on aspects of musical performance, and in particular the use of songs performed in films, Powrie uses a database of 300 films since 2010 to theorize the intervention of music at critical moments as a “crystal-song”. Applying Roland Barthes’s concept of the “punctum” and Gille Deleuze’s concept of the “crystal-image,” Powrie establishes the importance of the crystal-song, which reconfigures time as a crystallization of past, present and future.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

1. Introduction

Abstract

The Introduction gives the background for the three major claims of the book: first, that the composed score in the heritage film is gendered and generally functions to constrain even the strongest female protagonists; second, that the significant increase in English-language songs in contemporary French films is an essential part of the way in which French films contrast them with French-language songs, whose function is to create nostalgia; finally, that there is a special function of songs in films, which I call the crystal-song. There is a discussion of approaches to film music, including the psychological analysis of “frissons,” brief coverage of music in the thriller genre, and an appraisal of some key debates in film music (the pause, the leitmotif and the diegetic).

Phil Powrie

2. Space

Abstract

After a discussion of the concept of historical authenticity for the composed score, this chapter shows how music in the French heritage film functions. It supports the visual track by its utopian connotations of “open” maternal landscapes; it uses chamber music and classical compilation to narrow space down in dystopia; using the work of Michel Foucault (heterotopia), Homi Bhabha (third space) and Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari (deterritorialisation), it shows how music can create a “third space”, a heterotopic space of displacement that fractures the utopia/dystopia binary, creating a nomadic, indeterminate and constantly fluctuating space. Third space music opens space out laterally through temporal or idiomatic mismatch, or the introduction of “foreign bodies” that question the notion of continuity between the image-track and the music-track.

Phil Powrie

3. Gender

Abstract

This chapter explores the relationship between music and gender in the French heritage film (film de patrimoine). It shows how otherwise strong women protagonists are constrained by three procedures: disparaging references to music; the loss of the character-supporting leitmotif; the absence of music cued in by women protagonists. There is little difference between films directed by men and films directed by women. The films considered in detail are: Artemisia, Camille Claudel, Le Colonel Chabert, Les Enfants du siècle, Le Hussard sur le toit, Lady Chatterley, La Princesse de Montpensier, La Religieuse, Saint-Cyr, Thérèse Desqueyroux.

Phil Powrie

4. Performance

Abstract

This chapter explores female performance of the piano, showing how the music mediates the relationship between the principal protagonists. This can be a heterosexual relationship (Un peu, beaucoup, aveuglément; En équilibre; L’Étudiante et Monsieur Henri), a lesbian relationship (L’Accompagnatrice; La Tourneuse de pages; Je te mangerais), or a complex and violent relationship (La Pianiste; De battre mon cœur s’est arrêté). The films articulate the “coming out” from the domestic space to the public space: the woman is lacking in self-confidence, practises assiduously at home, and then demonstrates what she can do in a public performance. The “coming out” is linked to her sexuality, whether heterosexual or lesbian. Performance is not just musical in these films; it is also sexual.

Phil Powrie

5. Time

Abstract

This chapter explores pre-existing songs as groundwork for the concept of the crystal-song. It gives an account of French academic work in this field by Jean-Claude Klein and Louis-Jean Calvet and Jérôme Rossi on song taxonomies, Gilles Mouëllic on enigmatic performance and cristallisation, and Laurent Bossu on music as “intoxication” and as “drowning.” It accounts for the increasing dominance of English-language songs. Using Svetlana Boym’s work on nostalgia, it shows how French-language songs are frequently used to create nostalgia related to issues of loss, so that such songs can be called “sounds of memory,” echoing Pierre Nora’s work on memory spaces (lieux de mémoire).

Phil Powrie

6. Hearing

Abstract

This chapter shows how a song can fuse different layers of time in a moment of time out of time and affective excess, and in so doing becomes a crystal-song, echoing Gilles Deleuze’s notion of the crystal-image. This is linked to Roland Barthes’s notion of the “grain of the voice” and “punctum,” and contrasted with Amy Herzog’s “musical moments.” The chapter explores in detail mainly non-diegetic crystal-songs in two broad areas: the film in which a song is foregrounded by repetition or by mention in the dialogue; the film in which composers or singers are foregrounded by being both part of the music track and the dialogue, leading to sustained attention on one or more of the songs associated with them.

Phil Powrie

7. Seeing

Abstract

This chapter explores performances of crystal-songs, showing how they function as critical interventions. These are organised into songs to which characters dance, sing along to, sing entirely, sing while playing the piano, or a combination of the above, such as the song that a character both sings and dances to. The films covered are: De rouille et d’os, Ni le ciel ni la terre, La Vie en grand, Plan de table, Situation amoureuse: c’est compliqué, Polisse, Samba, Un début prometteur, Les Émotifs anonymes, Une nouvelle amie, Un Français, La Volante, Un bonheur n’arrive jamais seul, Les Bêtises, Par accident, Bande de filles.

Phil Powrie

8. Conclusion

Abstract

The Conclusion reprises two key issues from the Introduction: the leitmotif and its relationship with repetition, and the pause. There is an in-depth analysis of the use of Gustav Mahler’s work in Le Dernier Coup de marteau so as to propose that the “crystal-song” can be something other than a song sung. A return to Barthes’s punctum stresses the openness and mobility of the crystal-song, and its function as intervention rather than interlude or pause in the action.

Phil Powrie

Backmatter

Titel: Music in Contemporary French Cinema
verfasst von: Phil Powrie
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-52362-0
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-52361-3
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52362-0