MOVIE MUSIC

Kathleen Norris on MUSIC BY JOHN WILLIAMS

A delightful documentary, Music by John Williams got me thinking about movie music. When I watched the seven-hour-plus marathon of Bela Tarr’s Satantango, the most difficult thing was hearing an accordion play the same inane phrase for some twenty minutes. There’s true horror in the film — a little girl kills a cat to make sure a poison works, and then uses it to kill herself — but the onslaught of that accordion “music” was horrific in its own way.

I appreciate films that maintain a balance between silence and sound. The silence helps us hear the actors speak their lines, advancing the story. But a bit of music helps us decide what kind of story is unfolding: will we soon be laughing, or screaming? The tension established with a fierce, frantic piano and brass instruments at the opening of The Grifters tells us we’re in for a rough ride.The film is based on a Jim Thompson thriller, and that music elicits something similar to what I experience reading him; I know from the first few sentences that something terrible will happen.