Music cognition and the cognitive psychology of film structure

Canadian Psychology, Nov 2002 by Annabel J Cohen

A CASE STUDY OF THE STRUCTURAL COMPONENTS OF THE FILM THE RED VIOLIN AND THEIR MUSICAL ANALOGUES

The Red Violin

That the film The Red Violin is about a musical instrument is almost inconsequential to the present argument. The film could have been equally about a red rifle or a blue balloon. However, Rhombus Media Inc., the film company that produced the film, together with film director Francois Girard, have often explored musical themes, including the acclaimed Thirty-Two Short Films About Glenn Gould. In fact, Girard has been quoted as saying "Making film is making music" (Stragow, 1999). So perhaps this company and director tend to imbue their productions with musical structure. The first purpose in the present argument, however, is simply to find a narrative film, any such film, in which the film structures resemble music structures. If one film can be found, perhaps there are others; but if none can be found, then there are no others, and the argument for the similarity in processes of music and film has then surely failed.10 Examples of generalization to other films will be provided in a later section.

The Red Violin tells a fictional story about the fate of a specially crafted violin over a period of 320 years. Created in 17th century Italy by eminent violin maker, Nicolo Bussotti, for his expected child, the violin travels a winding path: to a monastery in Austria; via a band of gypsies to a spirited violinist at Oxford; via an oriental servant to 20th century revolutionary China; and from Shanghai to a violin auction in Montreal. The violin possesses a quality that when coupled with an outstanding talent produces inspirational music. The unique character of the violin may be attributed either to its unusual red varnish or to a spell cast on it by a fortune teller.

Tonality and Central Reference

Pervading a musical work is the structural principle of tonality. As stated earlier, psychologists can agree on an operational definition of tonality. For example, the tonality of a piece might be defined as the key signature assigned by the composer, or the first and last chord of the piece, or the best fit of the distribution of the tones in the piece to a distribution characteristic of prototypical tonal works, and so on. These definitions all imply a central reference tone, one tone that stands out as most important. This is characteristic of most Western European music and some music from other cultures. In the simplest case, finding an analogy to tonality in film, requires finding a central reference. It might be a central character, or theme, to which all other aspects of the presentation relate. Psychological research reveals that sequences of tones that have tonality, or central reference, are memorable (Cohen, 1975, 2000d; Cuddy, Cohen, & Mewhort, 1981). Hence tonality in music is functional, and if a similar property were found in film, information in the film itself might be more easily followed and remembered.

In The Red Violin, the violin, though inanimate, has been referred to in film reviews as the main character of the film (e.g., Basora & Chang, 1999; Gilman, 1999; Johnson, 1998; Sragow, 1999; Sterritt, 1999; Sylva, 1998). As illustrated by classic psychological research of Heider and Simmel (1944) on social attribution, humans naturally personify inanimate objects. In their study, audiences who were presented with a short animation judged a large and small triangle and a small circle as bully or victim depending on the motion and size of these objects. Personification is also a common literary device. Thus, it is not far-fetched to suggest that human-like characteristics are attributed to the violin. Almost every aspect of the plot focuses on it. It is the central reference, and, in the analogy to music, it is the keynote, the tonic, simply due to its frequent and lengthy appearances and its presence at significant points in the film (e.g., beginning and end).