English Media Coursework Comparing Two Musical Scenes

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Media Coursework

How do directors use musical scenes to engage the audience and create atmosphere?

        In this essay I shall be comparing and contrasting the techniques used in two musical scenes. Some of the things I shall be looking at in this essay are sound, vision (such as camera angles and colour) and emotions for both the characters and the audience viewing it. Directors use musical scenes because they can communicate feelings of the characters over to the audience far more than an ordinary dialogue scene ever can. Not only can they portray characters emotions through colour, dialogue and character behaviour, but they can use another two key factors: music and dance, as well as being able to enhance all the other aspects. Empathy for the characters can be built far more easy than with a scene without the musical aspects.

        One of the scenes I shall be studying is ‘No Life Without Wife’ from the film “Bride and Prejudice”, directed by Gurinder Chadha. The film is an Eastern and Western fusion, based on the popular novel ‘Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austin. In the film, a mother (Nadia Batbur) is trying to marry off her four daughters to wealthy men. However, one of her daughters, Lalita (Aishwarya Rai) is a strong willed young lady who decides that she will marry for love, not money. She turns down a proposal from an arrogant man named Mr. Kohli (Nitu Ganatra), much to her mother’s displeasure. Later on in the film, she meets an American businessman and they end up inadvertently falling in love with each other. In the scene I’m using, Lalita’s sisters are teasing her about the imminent proposal from Mr. Kohli, and she describes her perfect man, something which Mr. Kohli definitely is not.

        The other scene I shall be looking at is ‘Elephant Love Medley’ from the movie ‘Moulin Rouge’. It was directed by Baz Luhrman in 2001, and although it is not to everyone’s taste, nobody could argue that it doesn’t send your senses into overdrive. The film is set in the famous Moulin Rouge, in Paris. Satine (Nicole Kidman) is a high class prostitute who works in one of those clubs also as a dancer. She meets a young idealist, Christian (Ewan McGregor) and mistakes him for one of her clients. She falls for him, but when she realises who he is, she tries to pretend that it was all an act. Christian manages to persuade her to follow her heart with a barrage of love songs, all put together in a medley.

However, a Duke who is infatuated with Satine wants Satine to leave Christian and come with him, but she refuses as she loves Christian. The duke threatens to have Satine killed, so she breaks it off with him in a bid to protect him, but Christian doesn’t give up. The Duke’s plan is thwarted, but unfortunately Satine suffers respitory failure caused by Tuberculosis and dies in Christian’s arms. The scene I shall be looking at is the one when Christian is trying to persuade Satine to take a risk, and do what she really wants to do.

In ‘No Life Without Wife’ a jazzy style of music is used as it can be easily manipulated to show a wide range of feelings and emotions in just that one genre. It can be uplifting, romantic and intriguing, and pauses work well in it. No other music style can be used in such a wide range of ways Without the feel of the scene being lost, and the scene loosing its sense of rhythm.

‘Elephant Love Medley’ also keeps the music flowing, but in a totally different way. Instead of just using one style, it uses a medley to doesn’t need to keep changing around one particular style, it can do it in a totally different way; it can blend all the different styles together. As it is a medley, a completely different song can be used at any point in the scene to go along with the current ideas. For different emotions, a song with not only different words but a different rhythm and instrument set can be used, without any loss to the scene. By way of a medley, the music matches up with the character behaviour, just like in ‘No Life Without Wife’ with the music going well with the scene by using such a versatile music genre.

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In ‘No Life Without Wife’ there is a constant rhythm to the music, which keeps the audience engaged and doesn’t loose their attention. The rhythm doesn’t ever become distorted in anyway, and the pauses are used effectively so instead of losing your concentration it holds onto it with a tight grip, as you hold your breath and wait to see what will happen.

With “Elephant Love Medley” the rhythm is less consistent, with regular changes in it. This, however, backs up the scene and the mood changes. Through ‘Elephant Love Medley’ the mood and character expressionism go through many ...

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