Are Movies the New Operas?

[jochanaan]

I got to thinking about this recently, and I've realized that film scoring shares many of the challenges and rewards of composing operas.  Like opera music, film music wants to add to the drama without calling too much attention to itself; it has to "set the scene" and suggest feelings and reasons behind the action.  And at its best, film music is very challenging to play; the Star Wars music is harder for me as an oboist than any Beethoven symphony except perhaps the Ninth (and that's just because I get almost no rest in the Ninth! ).  I haven't played the Robin Hood music by Korngold, but it sounds hard and fun too.

What do you think?  Can movies be considered modern operas?

[Wendell_E]

Like opera music, film music wants to add to the drama without calling too much attention to itself

I think (and would hope) that opera music wants to call attention to itself to a much greater degree than film music does.

[Brahmsian]

For me anyways, I watch a movie for the visual story, rarely with a goal to pay particular attention to the music.  The music is always secondary.

When I listen to an opera, it's the reverse.  The music is #1 as the reason I listen to the opera.  Any stage action is secondary.

I'm sure there are many others (but not all) who'll be in the same boat as me.

[knight66]

I am with you there, I don't watch a film for its music, though it can be improved a great deal with first rate music.

Opera is a way of heightening the emotions. In film the music often comments in various ways on the action or characters, it also heightens emotion and like in opera manipulates it. But where is the voice? No, perhaps film music can at times be said to be the new medium for tone poems.

Mike

[Opus106]

No, perhaps film music can at time be said to be the new medium for tone poems.

Mike

Doesn't the composer of tone poems rely entirely on the music to (intentionally) create images in the listener's mind? While in films, as already stated in a few different ways, the music plays only the role of a subordinate to the visual element. It is probably more close to the case of Beethoven's 6th in terms of "extra-musical associations": music to evoke certain feelings rather than to build stories around itself.

[david johnson]

    
'Are Movies the New Operas?'

no, they are not.

dj

[CD]

There must be something to be said about the increasingly epic length (just look how many are two and a half hours long now) of popular films and the soundtrack swelling to a deafening crescendo if the characters in the film so much as brush their teeth. If the soundtrack is by Philip Glass the music even drowns out the dialogue.

[Renfield]

No, perhaps film music can at times be said to be the new medium for tone poems.

Mike

I think incidental music would likely be the best fit.


Regarding movies and opera, I feel that by virtue of the relationship movies have to purely visual dramatic forms such as the theatre, the 'opera' analogy would be ruled out from the get-go. After all, you can have a movie without music at all; but you can't have an opera.