How Music Impacts Film: Titanic, Essay Example

Music in film is often critical in conveying and intensifying the inner cognitions of the characters, often contributing not only to the development of the character but also to the plot narrative as well. It can fill a scene with sadness, joviality, trepidation, or a feeling of grandeur while also slowing down or speeding up the film narrative. Ultimately, music functions as the communicating nexus between the audience and the screen and envelops this link into a unitary experience. James Cameron’s seminal 1997 film Titanic showcases how music can have such a trenchant impact on the audience’s film experience by enhancing character development while also fomenting certain feelings towards characters on film. Titanic is considered to be an epic romance cinematic film that incorporates authentic and historical facets of high society and class struggles evident at the outset of the twentieth century. The narrative is structured by the seminal been in which the RMS Titanic, the purportedly unsinkable passenger, tragically hit an iceberg, causing it to sink in the frigid Atlantic Ocean waters and resulting in the demise of over fifteen hundred passengers. Cameron cogently enhanced the emotional elements of the film through his incorporation of original score and music.

While the sinking of the RMS Titanic was an actual historical event, this plot narrative of this film focuses on a fictional love story that develops between Rose, a member of the elite class, and Jack Dawson, who is penniless and happened to win his ticket onto the ship after winning a game of poker. Interestingly, the film begins in media res when a search team explores the ship at the bottom of the sea in search of a diamond necklace dubbed the heart of the ocean, rumored to be worth more than the Hope Diamond. The search team discovered a drawing of a naked young woman wearing the necklace, which and aged Rose claims is a picture of her. The search team flies her on site when she tells her story back in 1912. As a beautiful woman who belongs to the elite circles, Rose lacks autonomy and control over her life, which is evident in her strained relationship with al, her fiancé. Rose and her mother encountered financial problems, which is why Rose’s mother tells Rose that she must marry Cal so that they can survive.  Depressed and unwilling to feign her love for Cal, Rose wants to commit suicide by jumping off the boat before Jack talks her out of doing so. The friendship between Rose and Jack underscores how profoundly class and gender notions dictated people’s quotidian experiences. Despite Cal’s efforts to keep Rose away from Jack, she defies her fiancé, eventually falling in love with Jack and declaring her unwillingness to leave him behind when the first-class passengers are given priority on the lifeboats. Once the ship completely sinks, Jack saves Rose by putting her on a floating door, while he eventually dies from hypothermia.

Film represents not only just a visual experience but also an auditory one, especially because of vast technological developments in which theater and modern home sound systems enhance fidelity and clear and loud sounds. At its core, film can be discursively framed as fantasy that appeals to the human imagination to defy reality and human rationality. It is the music, or score, incorporated into the film that appeals to the unconscious human mind with its illusory nature. Music indeed as a non-verbal form of communication that plays with human emotions, as those listening to it do not need to know or understand the actually meaning of the music because what is important is the way that music makers them feel. Indeed, it is unequivocal that the musical experience of audience members when watching a films is about feeling rather than actually knowing. The dialogue and action taking place on screen undeniably provides cues and clues to the audience as to how the music that accompanies various scenes is oriented towards making members feel. It is thus important to fully understand the various categories of sound that are incorporated into Hollywood films. Dialogue is one of the most obvious and simple category of sound and consists of characters talking to one another in various styles and deliberately using certain types of languages. Sound effects constitute the second category of sound in film in order to draw in the audience to what is happening on screen. Finally, music itself—the soundtrack and the score—are the final category of sound in film. The score plays in the background of particular scenes, is of paramount importance to gin up feelings in the audience related to the dialogue or actions taking place in a certain scene.

In Titanic, the various categories of sound can be discerned throughout, as characters are constantly engaged in dialogue through daily conversation while also incorporating a voice over of an aged Rose to expound on her memories on the Titanic. The sound effects are eclectic and enhance the mood of the scene, although the majority of the background music is orchestral. In one scene when the ship is about to sink, and the orchestra opts to play one last song prior to their inevitable demise. The tenor of the music is quite melancholy, which enhances the tragedy of the scene because the audience understands that not everyone aboard the ship will be saved. The scene flashes to a scene of an elderly couple lying in bed together as the water continues to rise in their room, intimating that they have accepted that they are going to die when the ship is completely submerged under water. Despite the fact that passengers are panicking because they fear that they will die, thus ignoring the orchestra, they continue to play knowing that they will most likely never be able to play together ever again. The orchestral music played throughout the film suggests that the film took place in a different epoch since it was conventional for the orchestra or pianist to play music at dinner parties enjoyed by the social elite.

Happier and more upbeat music was involved in more joyous occasions, such as the scene when Jack convinces Rose to accompany him to a party taking place in the third-class section of the boat. Although Rose initially feels uncomfortable with the seemingly uncouth ways that third-class people celebrate and have fun—dancing in a licentious manner and drinking copious amounts of beer—she soon lets her self control go and enjoys her time dancing with Jack and drinking. In this scene, the music is very upbeat, diegetic, and frenetic, which reflects how Rose feels in this scene away from the strictures on comportment she conventionally follows. A similar sound is also utilized when the Titanic first departs from Europe on its voyage. As such, the sound in the film varies on an idiosyncratic basis according to scenes, as non-diegetic sounds are deployed in the more romantic scenes such as the famous one in which Jack and Rose are “flying” at the bow of the ship. Scenes conveying panic and chaos use similar sounds in order to enhance the tension that is present and prepares the audience for what is about to take place.