Abstract
Aesthetic incongruence describes when assumptions, values, and ideologies associated with music are perceived as incongruent with filmic images or narrative. Influenced by individual and societally shaped attitudes, such judgements echo those frequently made about the (in)appropriateness of music in various everyday contexts. A sequence from The Shawshank Redemption in which an operatic aria is played over the prison intercom is used to further explore these issues. Intradomain incongruities between this sustained diegetic presentation of classical music and the rest of the film’s soundtrack are discussed. The benefits of reframing the characters’ responses and existing analyses of this presentation of music in a seemingly atypical context as aesthetically incongruent are considered. Empirical data demonstrate the varied interpretations and potential perceptual implications of this audiovisual pairing.
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Notes
- 1.
Not all of the examples discussed in Ireland (2012) featured the characters diegetically engaging with music. However, the implications on audience interpretation of the character and narrative were considered in light of whether the characters were diegetically permitted the agency to make these listening decisions, or whether these remained more directly attributable to the director or composer through keeping the musical selection seemingly non-diegetic .
- 2.
In this sense, Andy’s use of the music resonates with Chion’s (1994) notion of anempathetic music.
- 3.
The diegetic /non-diegetic binary has been much debated in film–music studies (e.g. Kassabian , 2013; Neumeyer , 2009; Smith , 2009; Stilwell , 2007; Winters, 2010), not least because of the complex relationship between diegetic /non-diegetic status and different levels of narration (e.g. Heldt , 2013). However, the term diegetic is convenient to use when discussing the origins of this episode from The Shawshank Redemption given the clear presence of the music in the film’s narrative world. That said, Chua’s (2011) analysis of the sequence does highlight that the fidelity of the sound quality of the music does not reflect the sound system through which it is heard: ‘what we see and what we hear are in contradiction’ (p. 353). The sequence clearly depicts the LP containing the music being started, stopped, and the characters’ continual engagement with the music’s presence whilst it is playing, emphasising its diegetic function. However, for Chua , the discrepancy between the quality of the amplified sound and reality reflects the themes of the film and the listening experience signifying ‘an intersubjective hearing that is simultaneously real and ideal’, as will be discussed later in this chapter (p. 354).
- 4.
See Ireland (2012, p. 101) for further evaluation of this research.
- 5.
See Fig. 6.4 in Hunter (2002, pp. 100–103) for a version of the score with annotations about key moments in the camerawork and dialogue at the corresponding points in the music.
- 6.
It is interesting to note the influence of potential familiarity with the extracts on some responses to these stimuli. For example, two responses to film extract 1, which were different to the majority of responses provided for this extract, used the words uplifting and awe to describe the images perhaps suggesting awareness of the narrative context of the sequence: many of the other responses were more negative interpretations of the images. Equally, the main outlying response for film extract 2 was rebellious, which was provided by the same participant who described film extract 1 as uplifting, again perhaps suggesting that this participant had some prior insight into Andy’s character and motivations in the sequence due to familiarity with the film.
- 7.
Hunter uses a Beethoven symphony as her point of comparison to support this argument, although the point could equally apply to the work of other composers. I substitute Beethoven for Mozart here to suggest that even work by the same composer might not have quite the same effect in the sequence. For Hunter , the specific dramatic context of the work and the fact that it is an operatic number are the significant reasons for its particular effects in the film.
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Ireland, D. (2018). Mozart, Harmonicas, and Aesthetic Incongruence in The Shawshank Redemption. In: Identifying and Interpreting Incongruent Film Music. Palgrave Studies in Audio-Visual Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00506-1_6
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