Electronic Music in Film
October 22, 2021
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By: Allie Little
During the early 1900s, the development of sound in films provided filmmakers with a new means of storytelling. Not only did the audience now hear the actors speak, but music could be added as well, and the score of a film became yet another storytelling tool that evolved just like the movies themselves. As technology furthered and electronic music using computer-generated sound began to emerge, filmmakers took notice. The sounds that came from these “synthesizers” were completely other-worldly and would match the growing genre of science fiction in the 1950s, the psychedelic paranoia in the 1970s, and the perfection-obsessed world of the 2010s.
The 1950s were dominated by a fear of outside invaders as countries around the world recovered from the aftermath of World War II and the Cold War seethed on between the United States and the USSR, leading to large feelings of fear and uncertainty amongst the American population. This uncertainty caused the genre of science fiction to gain popularity as it almost exclusively focused on foreign invaders and unknown worlds. Watching a sci-fi movie like Forbidden Planet (1956) allowed audiences to forget about the worries of their everyday life and the growing normality of bomb threats and drills. The movie, set on the ‘forbidden planet', demands that the technology and creatures are like nothing seen on Earth, and the movie is accompanied by the first music score to be entirely created electronically, giving an unearthly quality to the film and allowing the filmmakers to push a sense of uneasiness and mystery into their movie. With little to no organic sounds anywhere in the piece, the unnatural sounds of the synthesizer placed the audience directly in the unknown world of space. In later decades, electronic music’s unearthly qualities will be turned around and used to show the mysteries of Earth as opposed to the uncertainties of outer space.
The United States in the 1970s was now a country of disillusionment. The peace and love movement that was prevalent in the 60s was gone, and in its place was cynicism and a general sense of distrust. The United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War was leading to the younger generation having little faith in a government that was there to “protect” them. The country was enthralled with news stories covering serial killers like the Zodiac Killer, Ted Bundy, and the Hillside Strangler (later discovered to be the Hillside Stranglers). The nation’s largest cities were told to be on guard for these monsters among men and media made during this time reflected this feeling of distrust. The film A Clockwork Orange (1971) is still regarded as one of the most morally challenging movies of all-time as the filmmaker, Stanley Kubrick, forces the audience to follow an antihero named Alex as he does horrible and horrendous acts to unsuspecting victims. The score to this film matches the unnerving actions of the protagonist as the theme alternates the sound from left to right over and over again to create a disorientating effect. The human brain naturally distinguishes where a sound came from by judging what ear heard the sound better, but in an artificial environment where someone can manipulate the severity of this effect, the human brain becomes confused. A Clockwork Orange is not a score entirely created by electronic synthesizer sounds either, as was the case with Forbidden Planet, but instead, there are timpani-like sounds behind the synth line made to sound similar to a stringed instrument. Using a synthesized instrument to imitate the sound of an organic instrument causes a further sense of uneasiness as it plants the music in a reality that the audience is familiar with, hiding the unnerving in plain sight. Overall, the score of A Clockwork Orange illustrates how the dystopian world that Alex lives in is not far away from the chaos that is the world in the 1970s. In the coming decades, the world becomes faster and more efficient, leading the way for electronic music to become more robotic.
It is safe to say that electronic music had reached its peak in pop culture by the time 2010 came around. One of the biggest artists in the world was the group Daft Punk who, performing under robot personas, established a brand of technically flawless electronic earworms as they took over the realm of music. When Disney decided to resurrect the perfect, shiny, and technology advanced world of Tron (1982) for a sequel, Tron: Legacy (2010), they enlisted Daft Punk to create the score for the film. This film is a feat of visual special effects with a futuristic ‘cyberworld’ that is flawless and entirely artificial. The score of the film had to illustrate a world of this kind, which is where Daft Punk comes in. The music was designed to further the excitement and intensity of each moment, unlike all the other instances of electronic music scores where the aim was to unnerve the audience or add stress. Electronic music was no longer abnormal and new, and for Tron: Legacy, the filmmakers wanted it to take this sound and use it to create something that was perfectly inhuman. Organic instruments are inherently flawed in their production of sound as they are completely dependent on humans, and humans are themselves imperfect.
Music, like film, is an ever changing art form entirely dependent on the audience and what they want to spend their time listening to, and the evolution of electronic music as a tool for filmmakers reflects the trends of society and how they cope with their collective trauma. A hero destroying an alien can be comforting to a society where they fear the world outside their own borders. Watching a morally distraught antihero become a victim to his previous crimes can help a society who are afraid to leave their front lawn. And finally, being transported to a world of artificial flawlessness can fulfill a society’s need to be perfect. The soundtracks to these experiences only further the story and allow the audience to remember the feeling of the film long after the first watch.
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