Contrasting music with image is one of the oldest techniques in film. It has been used to great effect over the years. While some have been simple and direct, others have been somewaht less so.
   
    One the direct side is the closing sequence for "Dr. Strangelove (or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb)". Repeated images of mushroom clouds are shown while the credits roll and a rather syrupy arrangement of the WWII vintage song "We'll Meet Again" is played behind them.

    On the less direct side is the song "Do Not Forsake Me (Oh, My Darlin')" which is used as a running musical theme throughout the film "High Noon".

    As songwriters we use a similar technique which has much the same result. We create a flowing, beautiful melody and set dark and forbidding images in the lyrics. "Suicide is Painless", the theme to the film "M.A.S.H.", or "Harris and the Mare" by Stan Rogers come to mind as examples.

    Painters and sculptors use the idea by assigning titles to thier work which seem diametrically opposed to the images they have created.
In a coffeehouse called Escape Java Joint, which is here in Madison, WI, there was a painting which hung on one wall or another (they kept moving it) for nearly a year that was done in dark shades of blue in accrylic and oil paint. It was roughly two-and-a-half feet high and about a foot wide. The painting depicted a close-up of the face of a man cught in the middle of a primal scream. The title was "Inner Child". When contrasted with the title, the work was, at once, chilling and hilarious.

    It's all part of making art, in whatever medium one is best able to use. Sometimes, in order to make a point clear, or to stimulate thought or discussion of a given point, one is obliged to push the emotional button rather than the intellectual buttons in order maximize the impact.


Just a thought.

Stephen Lee