Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Music by: Brian Webner


            In our group we decided to critique a movie based on four main elements.  As a lover of music in film I volunteered to critique the music and scoring for No Country For Old Men.  Unfortunately there was no music in the film.  Only a five second clip of a mariachi band playing in Mexico, though it had no connection to the plot line at all.  When I say there was no music in the film, I mean absolutely none.  The movie was full of high suspense moments that a “normal” film would have climatic orchestration, or popular music synced with the scene. 
            I have heard it said that the original Star Wars would not have been nearly as successful if not for the amazing score written by John Williams.  Its true, the movie is complimented amazingly by the music.  I though about this before I even started to watch the movie, what would a film look like with out any music.  Well I got my answer; it would look like No Country For Old Men.
            About fifteen minutes into the movie I said to myself, is this entire movie going to be without music?
            To review a movie on its music when it had no music in nearly impossible, but what would the movie have looked like with music in it? I feel it could have been much more exciting.  It is a killer movie, a mystery movie, a suspense movie, and how much better could it have been with some dramatic music.  In the eyes of the academy awards the movie could not have been any better since it won film of the year in 2007.
            However I think it’s symbolic that it had no music at all. The main character is heartless and some say he is brainless.  His only idea is to kill and save himself.  As they say in The Dark Knight (a movie with tremendous orchestration by the way,) “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
            There is no sound track to this movie because the killer has no sound track.  He doesn’t need a theme song like Michael Myers, because he is a different kind of killer.  There is no tune in his head and no song can relate to that.
            Like I said, it’s hard to analyze nothing, it was hard to understand the motives in the film, but I strangely learned something from the film, and am glad there was no music involved.  
 Brian Webner

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