Sound-Image and Image-image Relationship

go to----the legend of 1900-The Origin of 1900's music


        “The Legend of 1900” is my favorite movie. It is about a pianist named 1900. He has spent his entire life on a ship and has never gone to the ground. Because this is a story about pianist, the movie uses a lot of piano music. The style of this movie is soft, mellow, and serene.

         The short piece I chose from this movie is when 1900 plays the piano in the lobby with different music styles and explains why he plays these styles to his friend Max Toony. The light of this scene is very soft and beautiful. It uses warm color to emphasize the whole environment. It is luxurious, voluptuous, and makes people feel that they can really enjoy their short life in this ship. This scene begins with a very bright and merry jazz music. The shot from the luxurious golden light moves to dancing people. The wide shot can gave us a basic idea and background about this scene. Then, the shot goes to the band. The shots just move from “big topic” to “small topic”. Finally, the shot goes to 1900 and gives a long time shots of playing piano. When I combine the images and sound together, I can really feel the environment and people’s mood of this scene. The sound and image really match each other. When the cantor starts to introduce the pianist 1900, the sound of music changes from trumpet and sax to the piano solo. Every time, when the shot zooms in to 1900, the music of piano will become louder.  Therefore, people’s attention will move to the pianist with the music automatically.

        There are four basic sound changes in this scene. When 1900’s friend Max asks him how to get the music inspiration, he starts to change his music style. First, when the shot moves to a very old woman, the piano music changes to a serious, dreary style. The background piano music plus 1900’s explanation of that woman, we can see the image of that woman seems more visible and obvious. Second, when the shot moves to a sad man, the piano music also changes to a sad style. Third, when the shot moves to a makeup and unhappy dancing woman, the music changes again suddenly. The piano music with 1900’s explanation and this woman’s face, it makes the environment of that shot totally different. We can really feel the unhappiness in this woman’s mind. In the meanwhile, the shot also gives the piano couple extreme shots. I think this is used to emphasize the effect of the piano. Fourth, when the shot moves to a young man who wants to find “chance” in this lobby. We can find that the music changes again. The music temples just follow this young man’s steps temple. When the man walks fast, the music runs fast. When the man walks slowly, the music runs slow too. The sound and image are just as coordination as perfect. Our eyes follow the scene. Our ears follow the background music. And our mood follows both of sound and image. We cannot ignore either.

        Furthermore, when 1900 explains his ideas and inspirations, the shots move between 1900 and his “inspirations”(those men and women). The order of these people is old woman, rich man, young woman, and a poor man. Because of this order, the change of music is obvious but softly. Furthermore, the shots changes softly and smoothly. Therefore, we have a basic construction about this scene. We know what are they talking about and what are they doing. We can find a balance between sound and image. Every single musical notes and every single shot is significant, beautiful, and indispensable.

        In conclusion, the balance between sound-image and image-image is very important. When we combine sound and image together, it could be very descriptive. The image will be very obvious and vivid. Sometimes, sound and image match each other. The sound just follows the image or the image just follows the sound. However, sometimes, the image and sound could go totally different ways. It will make a very different ambience and mood to the audiences. We always can find out more deeply aspects when we put sound and image together. Furthermore, image-image relationship is also very important. The different time span decided which part is important, which part we need to pay more attention. The shooting angles and the colors elements also affect the whole scene.