Music has always been a mystery to me when it comes to my own narrative films. It’s often been the case that I’ve left music out of my narratives. I’ve worked with the belief that images are stronger when paired only with sound design; the absence of music seems to have a focusing effect. I’ve told myself while editing that music is both manipulative and extraneous in my narratives.
Yet, some of my most beloved film viewing experiences are awash in music.
Sorting through these inconsistencies, I serendipitously came across another director grappling with similar considerations.
I’d forgive you if you haven’t seen I Was at Home, but… or any other film by Angela Schanelec, a contemporary German film director. Her films are more than difficult to find in the United States. Having learned about her along with the rest of the Berlin School during my obsessive viewing of the films of Christian Petzold, I began my search for any of her films to watch. Lucky for me, her latest film I Was at Home, but… is currently available for rent on Apple TV.
I found I Was at Home, But… a challenging viewing, and one that would likely offer more on a second viewing (or when paired alongside any of her other films). Despite the challenge, I took notice of the film’s austere approach to sound and music. The film was awash in sound design without accompanying score. However, about midway through the film, Schanelec pairs her images with one song: M. Ward’s cover of David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance.”
The sequence stood out as one of the highlights of the entire film, indebted in part to the strategic use of music.
I sought out interviews with Schanelec and found a trove of interviews with her conducted during a 2020 Film at Lincoln Center Retrospective of her films.
Late in an interview conducted by Dennis Lim, Schanelec is questioned about her approach to music:
For me, music plays a very, very important role, and when I do a film, I don’t do music. I’m not able to do music. So when I use music - when you hear music - it’s because I am sure that the scene would also work without it. So the scene doesn’t need the music as the music doesn’t need the film. These are two completely parallel things. And if I decide to bring them together, this means it happens with the wish to make the music really hearable, so it’s not like a soundtrack where the music just comes and goes and in the end you feel that you heard music but you’re kind of overwhelmed. I want to make the music hearable. And the music doesn’t influence the editing. If you find the right music then it goes together with the edit. I don’t remember any moment where I change the editing because of the music. And also, I use very [little] music. If you have the feeling that there is music in my films, it’s not because there’s so much music - there’s very little music. I’ve made films without any music and in most of them there’s only one piece but this doesn’t mean that I’m not interested in music, it means the contrary. If I use music, I want to find a way to work with it and this is difficult.
I feel like a second viewing is in need of scheduling. And maybe challenging myself to watch the musical sequence in the film with and without sound to experience the edit without the score.
There is much more for me to think about when it comes to my relationship with music in film. I find it curious that I can love the musicality of some of my favorite films, yet stand so opposed to it in my own.