Functional Atonality in Film Music
Many people cannot stand atonal music. Before I start explaining the function of this style and its applications in film music, I’m going to assume you are not a massive music nerd like me, and you might be wondering what atonal music is in the first place.
Popular music, most classic film music (think John Williams), and the most famous classical works (Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, etc.) are all examples of “tonal” music. The best way to describe this to completely non-musical people is that in a tonal system, there is one note that is designated as “more important” than the others, and everything centers around this note. For example, if we’re in the key of F, then everything will center around F. We create tension by moving away from F, and we resolve the tension by triumphantly returning to F at the end of the piece or the phrase.
In contrast, all the notes are treated as equally important in an atonal system. This means that atonal music lacks the “center” of tonal music and doesn’t have the same sense of home. Consequently, our ears don’t really know what’s going on; there’s nothing to hold onto, and we’re thrown into a permanent state of tension that can’t be resolved. Often, when you don’t know what to listen for, atonal music just ends up sounding like random notes thrown together haphazardly.
Here are some famous examples to give you an idea of what I’m talking about:
Pierrot Lunaire, by Schoenberg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd2cBUJmDr8
Five Movements for String Quartet, by Webern: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELAKF8ZxDmg
String Quartet, by Ruth Crawford Seeger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agu5Xo7alIQ
People are often turned off from this type of concert music after just a couple minutes, if not a couple seconds. It’s simply too dense and too hard to pinpoint the connecting thread. After all, does a connecting thread even exist? It makes people uncomfortable, tense, and uneasy.
But sometimes, making people uncomfortable, tense and uneasy is exactly what film music needs to do. As a result, while atonal art music may be unpopular, these techniques are embedded in and critical to the function of many film scores.
Let’s consider the famous horror film The Shining (1980). Take a moment and listen to a few minutes of these concert works:
Lontano, by Ligeti: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEuYnI4-cyU
Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, by Bartok: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QElT9KD4uX8
Kanon, by Penderecki: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ri7MIYOWx0
These three pieces, along with others written by the same composers, are excerpted directly in The Shining. For example, the famous hallway scene uses Bartok’s music to dramatically escalate tension:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMbI7DmLCNI
The Shining is a great introductory example to the topic of atonality in film music because these atonal concert works are used directly in their original forms. In my opinion (and as a huge fan of Bartok), this is a great way to honor these composers. People don’t want to listen to these pieces for leisure, but this music is incredibly functional and contrary to popular belief, not easy to write. Trust me, I’ve been composing for years, and I still balk at the prospect of writing something atonal. It’s so hard to do well because there’s no standardized system, less precedent, and less rules–No rules, really.
Using these pieces in The Shining masterfully showcases the creativity and the technical talent of these composers, which would otherwise be ridiculed by exhausted concertgoers or simply ignored entirely. These composers and films such as The Shining have laid the groundwork for the bulk of the music heard in contemporary action and horror films.