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emotional engagement with his films (Carroll, 1999: 34-46). The importance of music in Bertolucci's films deserves a study of its own, although this volume will limit itself to an analysis of key examples of how the director uses diegetic and non-diegetic music to amplify or condition the emotion structure within individual films. Consideration will also be given to the use of non-diegetic music to orient viewers between different segments of certain narratives, as in the case of The Grim Reaper and Last Tango in Paris. To shed light on such processes, concepts by Claudia Gorbman will be incorporated into discussions of Bertolucci's use of music. In her study on the function of music in films, Gorbman indicates how, on the basis of 'Wagnerian principles of motifs and leitmotifs', music in film often 'becomes associated with a character, a place, a situation, or an emotion' (Gorbman, 1987: 3). In general, music is used to create 'rhythm, atmosphere, cinematic space, spectatorial distance, and point of view', by being either expressive or informative (Gorbman, 1987: 16). In analysing Stagecoach (1939), she indicates how rhythmic music can be used 'as a denotative tag' (Gorbman, 1987: 28) to indicate menace when it is associated with the same narrative reference, the Indians. She states that music has a range of connotative values, such as the seduction/sophistication of jazz, and these qualities are instrumental in establishing a film's emotional tone, notably its mood, and this element, in particular, reflects the way Bertolucci deploys music in his films. Gorbman's discussion of the specific case of songs with lyrics and their impact on cinematic narratives is especially interesting in the context of Bertolucci's films. When these songs are diegetic, being sung within the world of the film, Gorbman suggests that these songs 'require narrative to cede to spectacle' and that they seem to freeze the action for their duration (Gorbman, 1987: 20). However, if they are heard non-diegetically, 'over the film's images', they can function as a non-diegetic commentary of the images being viewed. An example of the first effect can be found in The Last Emperor, whereas the sequences within 36
opera houses in Before the Revolution and The Spider's Stratagem reflect the second phenomenon (Gorbman, 1987: 20). Gorbman also discusses the ways in which background music can be an accessory to the 'subjective positioning" that a film viewer undergoes, and she identifies the different roles of 'intimate "identification" music 5 and 'epic "spectacle" music (Gorbman, 1987: 68). Identification music draws spectators into the narrative and its scenarios as experienced by characters, whereas spectacle music 'places us in contemplation' of the narrative, lending 'an epic quality to the diegetic events', precisely by making a spectacle of them as in Star Wars (1977) (Gorbman, 1987: 68). These two types of music, the first facilitating an intimate, emotional form of engagement from spectators, and the second privileging a more distanced, rational perspective on the cinematic spectacle, reflect the affective/cognitive theoretical approach of this study towards Bertolucci's films, as both types of music are used by him. Cognitive Theory David Bordwell's theory of film reception is based on 'a perceptual-cognitive approach' that 'treats narration as a process' by which films are grasped by viewers 'as more or less coherent wholes' (Bordwell, 1995: 49). He identifies three schemata upon which the viewer reconstructs the fabula (story): 'prototype schemata' which are intended as the identification of characters, actions and locales; 'template schemata' consisting of 'principally the "canonic" story' which is intended as a chain of cause and effect; and 'procedural schemata' which are elaborated by 'a search for appropriate motivations and relations of causality, time, space' (Bordwell, 1995: 49). He dedicates particular attention to the procedural schemata for its importance in eliciting spectatorial analyses of films during the viewing experience; in films whose narratives are structured around processes of detection or variants of this, the 'search' for motivations and causes naturally constitutes a primary mode of viewer engagement, and this volume will outline how a range of Bertolucci's films activate such 37
- Page 1 and 2: Emotion and Cognition in the Films
- Page 3 and 4: Contents Acknowledgements 1 Abstrac
- Page 5 and 6: Acknowledgements I am very grateful
- Page 7 and 8: INTRODUCTION Over the past five dec
- Page 9 and 10: moods punctuated by emotional pheno
- Page 11 and 12: comprehensible why a nation that de
- Page 13 and 14: foreground a reception process in w
- Page 15 and 16: LITERATURE REVIEW While this study
- Page 17 and 18: film for 'jealous cinephiles or, mo
- Page 19 and 20: together' (Ungari, 1982: 51). This
- Page 21 and 22: Canby implicitly agrees with Cineas
- Page 23 and 24: it is Last Tango in Paris, and in t
- Page 25 and 26: e attributed to Paul's abolition of
- Page 27 and 28: Petri, who - in 1972 - talking abou
- Page 29 and 30: twofold aim of offering viewers sop
- Page 31 and 32: Maraini, D. (1973) 'Who were you?',
- Page 33 and 34: In discussing different narrative t
- Page 35 and 36: outcomes. The viewer and character
- Page 37 and 38: information to which the character
- Page 39: emotional state that the individual
- Page 43 and 44: manipulation, Bordwell analyses the
- Page 45 and 46: narrative schema clarifies how we o
- Page 47 and 48: to the point of drawing the spectat
- Page 49 and 50: for granted, in a 'slightly hazardo
- Page 51 and 52: passive emotionalism' (Sterritt, 19
- Page 53 and 54: Godard's approach from Bertolucci's
- Page 55 and 56: characters being stimulated into ta
- Page 57 and 58: apolitical art' in La Chinoise (p.
- Page 59 and 60: SECTION 1; Pessimism and Melancholi
- Page 61 and 62: La commare secca/The Grim Reaper: A
- Page 63 and 64: the film. Several of the suspects a
- Page 65 and 66: to reduce realism in favour of an a
- Page 67 and 68: giant publicity poster for the aper
- Page 69 and 70: mark out the sequence as significan
- Page 71 and 72: emphasizes his youth and simple nat
- Page 73 and 74: The camera movement and the frame c
- Page 75 and 76: Smith, G. M. (1999) 'Local Emotions
- Page 77 and 78: of respectability. Inspired by Cesa
- Page 79 and 80: film is/was viewed, the goal orient
- Page 81 and 82: viewers identify complicated intert
- Page 83 and 84: diegetic sound, since, except for t
- Page 85 and 86: audiovisual construction of the ope
- Page 87 and 88: evocative representations of landsc
- Page 89 and 90: Another example of this phenomenon
opera houses in Before the Revolution and The Spider's Stratagem reflect the second<br />
phenomenon (Gorbman, 1987: 20). Gorbman also discusses the ways in which background<br />
music can be an accessory to the 'subjective positioning" that a film viewer undergoes, and<br />
she identifies the different roles <strong>of</strong> 'intimate "identification" music 5 and 'epic "spectacle"<br />
music (Gorbman, 1987: 68). Identification music draws spectators into the narrative and its<br />
scenarios as experienced by characters, whereas spectacle music 'places us in contemplation'<br />
<strong>of</strong> the narrative, lending 'an epic quality to the diegetic events', precisely by making a<br />
spectacle <strong>of</strong> them as in Star Wars (1977) (Gorbman, 1987: 68). These two types <strong>of</strong> music, the<br />
first facilitating an intimate, emotional form <strong>of</strong> engagement from spectators, and the second<br />
privileging a more distanced, rational perspective on the cinematic spectacle, reflect the<br />
affective/cognitive theoretical approach <strong>of</strong> this study towards Bertolucci's films, as both<br />
types <strong>of</strong> music are used by him.<br />
Cognitive Theory<br />
David Bordwell's theory <strong>of</strong> film reception is based on 'a perceptual-cognitive approach' that<br />
'treats narration as a process' by which films are grasped by viewers 'as more or less<br />
coherent wholes' (Bordwell, 1995: 49). He identifies three schemata upon which the viewer<br />
reconstructs the fabula (story): 'prototype schemata' which are intended as the identification<br />
<strong>of</strong> characters, actions and locales; 'template schemata' consisting <strong>of</strong> 'principally the<br />
"canonic" story' which is intended as a chain <strong>of</strong> cause and effect; and 'procedural schemata'<br />
which are elaborated by 'a search for appropriate motivations and relations <strong>of</strong> causality, time,<br />
space' (Bordwell, 1995: 49). He dedicates particular attention to the procedural schemata for<br />
its importance in eliciting spectatorial analyses <strong>of</strong> films during the viewing experience; in<br />
films whose narratives are structured around processes <strong>of</strong> detection or variants <strong>of</strong> this, the<br />
'search' for motivations and causes naturally constitutes a primary mode <strong>of</strong> viewer<br />
engagement, and this volume will outline how a range <strong>of</strong> Bertolucci's films activate such<br />
37
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