Cinema cannot exist on a blank screen, no matter how good a 4K or 8K screen is and how deep the black is. We must project something on the screen and this something is most often a movie. Movies are a key form of art, an important source of culture, education and entertainment.
Unfortunately, there are several movies that are a total waste of time and money. Why? Because the script sucks, the acting is under par, the direction is indifferent, the music is not engaging, the atmosphere is lacking, etc.
An excellent example is the now classic Basic Instinct when compared to the totally indifferent Basic Instinct 2. The success of the former was the result of the synergy of a plethora of factors.
It had an excellent script by Joe Ezsterhas, an exemplary direction by Paul Verhoven, and an engaging atmosphere, created by Jan de Bond, set in San Francisco, with a clear reference to Hitchcock’s masterpiece ‘Vertigo’. The music score by Gerry Goldsmitha was grandiose. Finally, it had a riveting cast: from the protagonists Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone to the excellent George Dzundza and Jeanne Tripplehorn.
Unfortunately, one swallow does not a summer make. Thus Sharon Stone was not enough to save ‘Basic Instinct 2’, simply because everything else was lacking.
And each element is equally crucial for the whole experience to be immersive.
The following example suffices to show how important, for instance, the music score is for dragging you into a movie.
Many years ago, in 2005, I had a famous university professor and his wife staying over my house for about a week. Me and my colleague were writing a scientific paper in my study room. His wife was watching movies on my 150 inches screen with sound coming out from my 11.2 speaker setup.
Occasionally when the tension of the plot was intensified the music also became very dramatic, tense and loud. Every time this happened my friend, who is also a cinephile, was jumping out of his seat and run very quickly to the living room to see what was going on in the movie.
This is the power of music in cinema.
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