Probably the most famous example of an intrusive soundscape is the police siren at the end of Rope (1948). It is prompted by Rupert’s gunshots. Sounds of neighbors gossiping rise up, and then sirens begin, signaling that the police are on their way. The characters wait in silence as the outside world catches on and the sounds of public intrusion begin to pour into the private apartment.
SECRET SOUNDS
As you’ve learned throughout this book, the threat of a secret being discovered is key to building a suspense scenario. On top of that, letting the audience in on this secret allows our involvement to be more empathetic. Manipulating sound is another way to reveal or hide these secrets.
The interaction between public vs. private space is important in developing suspense around secretive characters. By creating private spaces to contain secret information, you prevent other characters in the Triad of Secrets from hearing it.
There’s a key element of Blackmail which exemplifies this manipulation of secret information. A phone booth inside the shop has clear glass doors that can be closed to shut out sound. Whenever a character steps in to make a phone call, no one else in the shop can hear the conversation. Conversely, no one in the booth can hear what’s being said outside of it either. Hitchcock makes clever use of this throughout the film. At one point, Frank is on the phone with police headquarters and leaves the doors open so we can hear. Then, as soon as the conversation gets interesting, he closes the doors and all we hear are mumbles. This immediately piques our interest. When the detective finishes and walks through the building, he is armed with that secret that everyone wants to know, including us.
And of course this is the whole idea behind eavesdropping. Eavesdropping is ripe for a level of storytelling that connects to people universally. When a character hears a private conversation through a door, it immediately perks up our attention as a viewer. We naturally lean in to see what is being overheard and whether someone is going to get caught. Just like the phone booth in Blackmail hides information from the audience, the opening of Hitchcock’s TV episode “One More Mile to Go” (1957) keeps the dialogue of a fight from us. The camera peers through a window as we watch a couple arguing, flailing their arms, and throwing objects. We can faintly hear the arguing, but not enough to decipher what they are saying. This absence of sound creates intrigue, and provides a sudden jolt when we suddenly appear inside the house at the moment of murder.
HUMAN SOUNDS
Characters can make a variety of sounds in lieu of talking to convey story information. These can all be used during close-call moments to heighten suspense:
Coughing (disapproval, hiding something)
Sneezing (breaking silence)
Whistling or humming (gloating, withholding information)
Clapping (assertiveness, appreciation)
Slamming a door (anger)
Dropping an object (nervousness, distracted)
Can you think of others?
As mentioned in the opening of this chapter, the sound of footsteps in “Four O’Clock” generates suspense in the close-call sequence in that film. Paul has been tied up and gagged in the basement, so he must try to make enough noise to get the attention of his wife above. He stomps his feet and moans, but his attempts don’t seem to be working. Not only does Paul need to make sound in order to be rescued, he must listen to his wife’s footsteps to time his optimal attempts. As she walks from one part of the house to another, Paul listens to the clicking of her heels, hoping that she will walk to an area closer to him. She doesn’t; she walks farther away. Close call thwarted. Then she walks back, close to the basement door. Almost saved! The audience listens to the footsteps and hopes right along with Paul.
Human sounds can also be exaggerated or replaced with the unexpected. In Hitchcock’s TV episode “Arthur” he introduces the sound of a chicken being strangled as Arthur kills it. Later, Arthur kills his ex-wife in the same way, but Hitchcock again repeats the sound of the strangled chicken in place of the wife’s screams. This automatically connects the two murders with the same sound, and makes the ex-wife seem like yet another chicken.
ABSTRACTED DIALOGUE
Dialogue doesn’t always have to be realistic, either. Hitchcock often portrayed speech from the perspective of a character’s mind—either selectively manipulating speech heard through their ears, or projecting their internal thoughts as voice-over.
In the famous scene in Blackmail, he manipulates the speech of the gossipy neighbor in the shop when she’s talking about the knife used for the murder. Hitchcock deliberately accentuates the word “knife” in a repetitive rhythm, mixed with mumblings that were literally spoken by the actress as unintelligible abstracted syllables. This way, we get a clear sense of how Alice’s mind perceives the woman’s dialogue, subjectively singling out only the one word as she slices the bread. Often a character is talking off-screen while Hitchcock’s camera pans toward an object or a reaction on someone’s face. Since the camera stays on close-up of Alice during this scene and the gossiper is off-screen, the focus is on the reaction of Alice with each utterance of “knife.”
Another ploy that Hitchcock creates with dialogue is missed information, or a sense of misunderstood language in a time of crisis. In Blackmail, the housekeeper frantically calls the police, and while she is relaying the address she thinks the dispatcher has heard the address incorrectly. We hear both sides of the conversation and know it’s correct, but she repeats the address frantically.
SUGGESTED VIEWING
Blackmail (1929)—Hitchcock’s first sound film, a sandbox of audio experimentation.
Suspicion, “Four O’Clock,” Season 1, Episode 1 (1957)—Paul must make noise to be rescued.
FURTHER READING
Auiler, Dan 2001. Hitchcock’s Notebooks: An Authorized and Illustrated Look Inside the Creative Mind of Alfred Hitchcock, Harper Collins, New York.
Weis, E 1982. The Silent Scream, Associated University Presses, New Jersey.
CHAPTER 11
THE ROLE Of MUSIC IN SUSPENSE
WHEN YOU TELL A STORY, it’s not just an intellectual transfer of factual information. Instead, a narrative evokes an emotional dance—a dramatic buildup and emotional release. You could say that storytelling is an emotional relay of ideas.
Since film is grounded in emotion, a music score is a natural component in enhancing the viewer’s reception of the story. It has the power to clarify the meaning of a scene event, but it is inherently vague and contextual. As American film scholar Jeff Smith says, music has a “lack of emotional specificity” not inherently clear until it is combined with visuals. Music arises from the context, mood, and attitude of the film rather than simply emoting on the character’s behalf.
The presence of music in film is primarily a signifier of transformation to a new state—new scene, new location, new event, new mood, etc. Often it tends to accompany temporal manipulation such as collage, slow motion, and flashback initiation (Gorbman).
Much like scenery, music is one way of expressing dramatic space. It can use a sort of “cultural coding” to evoke historical geographic setting and atmosphere (Gorbman), and it can “activate genre schemata” (Smith). Smith says music can “signify the emotional valence of a particular setting.” He uses the example of Psycho (1960) in which the old house near the Bates Motel is turned into a “spooky old house” through Bernard Hermann’s score. Likewise, the planet in Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) is turned into something more ominous by the mood-setting effect of Jerry Goldsmith’s scratchy and howling score (Smith). In some cases, music “evokes a larger than life dimension which, rather than involving us in the narrative, places us in contemplation of it” (Gorbman).
Likewise, Finnish film scholar and architect Juhani Pallasmaa said it succinctly:
Music usually has the role of reinforcing atmosphere and emotions in films, creating forebodings and surprises, strengthening a sense of reality or unreality,
and mediating between different events and scenes in order to create a sense of continuity.
But in your suspense film, how do you figure out when to use music? Trying to teach how to use music in suspense sequences presents complications. Music is hard to quantify when it is married to visuals because that synergetic combination is specific to a scene or moment. The variety of possible combinations is endless—like fingerprints or snowflakes, each one is unique. On top of that, a modern movie like The Bourne Identity is filled with various moments ranging from subtle drums to brief orchestral interludes. It’s often hard to figure out where music ends and where ambient sound design begins.
In my interview with The Bourne Identity’s editor Saar Klein, he says, “I hate watching a dramatic scene and hearing the music start at the beginning of the emotional moment to ‘help it’; it doesn’t help.” He says, “Music placed in this manner takes me out of the moment and makes me feel manipulated.” (See chapter 21 for the full interview.)
WHEN NOT TO USE MUSIC
Overall, suspense music follows a pretty easy rule of thumb: When the protagonist has to be quiet to hide from something, there should be no music. We should hear everything that they hear in real time. A music score will take us out of that moment.
Those “that was close!” moments that you created in previous chapters probably won’t need music either.
Casual Hitchcock fans may point to the famous shower scene in Psycho (1960), but may be surprised to find out that most of his murder scenes contained no music. The shower scene in Psycho is the notable exception, and apparently he resisted using it there. Perhaps the presence of the iconic violin strums in the shower made the scene easier to watch, making it edge more toward fantasy rather than harsh reality.
That’s what Hitchcock believed—that a music score evokes an element of fantasy, and therefore the absence of a score is more realistic (fig. 11.1).
Figure 11.1. Using a music score tends to bring the viewer into fantasy rather than stark reality.
When the viewer can clearly hear everything the protagonist hears, they are more easily able to feel they are sharing the moment in real time. They can put themselves fully into the scene. Any music score imposed into that is going to become a distraction from those sounds.
Interestingly, if you take a look at Hitchcock’s very first sound film, Blackmail (1929), the murder scene didn’t include a music score. With this silence, he was able to demonstrate that the policeman outside was unable to hear Alice’s screams. He cuts to a view of the policeman happily walking down the street as Alice calls out. When the cop doesn’t seem to notice, it creates a sense of anxious frustration that builds the suspense of the moment. We ask, “Why didn’t the cop hear the screams?” That’s a question that may have been lost with the presence of a score.
When a music score is present, our minds tend to stop listening for background details in the scene. Music transports our perception of events into a more emotional and abstract realm, and away from the stark realism of the scene. We are no longer purely present in the scene. The effect of this is that our feelings of suspense are dissipated.
Because of this, “that was close!” scenes in the Hitchcock world tend to have no music. These scenes, which are built surrounding a secret almost getting out, benefit from the cold, stark reality of silence. They mimic the biological response that we have in these situations—we breathe softly and swallow quietly in an attempt to hide our anxieties. We get very quiet behind the savanna grass when hiding from the hungry lion.
As an example, major “that was close!” moments in North by Northwest (1959) are all silent—as the protagonists share a hotel elevator with the antagonists, they hide from the police in the train station, the crop-duster scene where one protagonist faces the antagonist, and the auction scene. While all these moments are tense, they benefit from utilizing the ambient sounds of the setting to enhance tension. Once the suspense has been relieved, however, music kicks in.
Family Plot (1976) stops its suspenseful music for dramatic effect as Arthur walks into his office to find that Maloney has escaped through the window. As the camera pans to the open window, the music suddenly stops, emphasizing the emptiness of the room and the sound of the wind blowing the curtains. According to composer John Williams, who was still new to scoring at the time, he had written music over the entire window scene. Hitchcock taught him that silence was often more effective than music (Bouzereau).
WHEN TO USE MUSIC
If all of the key suspense scenes in your film are absent a score, when, then, should music be used? Music is good for opening sequences, journeys through geographic space, romantic encounters, and when any plot revelation causes a big shift in perspective for the audience. At least, that’s what we can surmise from surveying the music used in Hitchcock’s body of work. Here’s a breakdown of common film moments that can benefit from music score.
OPENING SEQUENCE
Music in your opening scenes can help to establish both the mood for the film and the attitude of the director. The mood that Hitchcock often planted was playful, cartoonish, and flamboyant in order to evoke the teasing relationship between him and his audience. He also believed that scary, dramatic films should open as comedies so the audience will feel good before drama enters. Not only does this allow the drama to have more of an impact when it arrives, comedy helps the audience like the characters before something happens to them (Gottlieb, 1995).
BEGINNINGS OF SCENES
Subsequently, as the film plays out, openings to new scenes rarely need to use music to reestablish an existing mood. Hitchcock preferred to use ambient sound to begin a scene. This is especially true if the characters begin the scene leisurely, awaiting more tension to appear. But if a protagonist is nervously entering a new location, such as an ominous house on a hill, music can emote their feelings of anxiety.
MOVING THROUGH GEOGRAPHIC SPACE
Hitchcockian music is most prominent when the protagonist is in motion, traveling to a new location or running from a previous one. During these trips, often shown in montage or point-of view (see chapter 4), the music represents the forward action of the protagonist, as they change the story’s progression. The protagonist has made a choice and set out on a path to change something, thus the music emulates that sense of adventure or nervous power play against the antagonist. Conversely, music helps embody the forward motions of the antagonist as well—think Jaws or Star Wars.
CHASE SCENES
Chase scenes are also packed with fast, anticipatory music, often grandiose and even playful. The busied, adventuristic music of North by Northwest (1959) by Bernard Herrmann is probably one of the most memorable scores of Hitchcock’s body of work. It gives the chase scenes a feeling of cinematic, at times comic, grandeur. The music here is, again, an arm of the director’s teasing attitude toward the audience. Rather than setting a predictable, ominous tone, the music is more about evoking this director/audience game. (See chapter 7.)
PLOT POINTS
As expected, major plot turns—such as the inciting incident—generally have a music score, usually mirroring the reactions of the protagonist to these shifting events. Sometimes, though, the music is more about the shift in perspective for the audience rather than the character on screen. Whenever time and space shifts in a film’s transitions from one scene to another, music helps the viewer feel it, and this includes shifts in plot as well.
ACCENT A SURPRISE
Hitchcock would often use short bursts of horns to accent a surprise. Just after a surprising moment, the horns would punctuate the reaction shot. This style was very common in the early days of comedy, and Bernard Herrmann used it frequently in Hitchcock films as well. It is a reminder that comedy shares an important balance with tension. (See chapter 14.)
LOVE SCENES
Romantic scenes also include a music score to amplify the emotional connection being shared by the couple as they are falling in love and embrace. These love scenes are full
of abstract, passionate emotion amplified through the music. With the presence of music, it brings us out of the reality of the scene and into a fantasy mode.
DIEGETIC MUSIC
Instead of a score, Hitchcock preferred to use diegetic music from within a location wherever possible—that is, music that is heard by the characters. Often this would be from a radio or record player in restaurants, hotel lobbies, dining cars of trains, and carnivals. Or the music could be coming from a live band in the restaurant, for example. Even though diegetic music is supposed to be part of the locale, it can be made to either emulate the mood of the characters in the scene or contrast with it.
Rear Window (1954) uses diegetic music almost in its entirety. Hitchcock cleverly built a struggling piano composer into the story, so that his practice sessions would provide the neighborhood with a score. This diegetic score, of course, was manipulated by Hitchcock to comment on the events.
In North by Northwest (1959), Hitchcock used the train whistle as a type of natural score to demarcate the passage of time between scenes and keep the tension alive.
Location music can also be used to contrast with a dramatic scene, where happy music accompanies a dreadful scene. Since Hitchcock loved to make light of dangerous situations, this was a way to avoid being obviously flamboyant with a music score and instead using the setting to do it organically. A scene in The 39 Steps (1935) is a clever example of this contrast. After gunshots are heard in an auditorium, the band is instructed to keep playing happy music to prevent a panic.
In Hitchcock’s TV episodes “The Crystal Trench” (1959) and “Revenge” (1955), the settings include happy waltz music during some of the most ominous scenes. In “The Crystal Trench,” Stella is being told about the death of her husband while the band is playing happy music in the background. She stares off into the distance in shock while the band keeps playing. It’s almost as if the music is mocking her tragedy. A similar moment in “Revenge” puts happy music from a hotel lobby against a murder in one of the rooms upstairs.
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