This thesis concerns itself with a phenomenon found in film music that can be described as audible diegetic transitions. In short, an audible diegetic transition occurs when film music shifts from one implied musical placement to another by changing its presented sound quality. This occurs predominantly through the employment of music that is pre-existing in relation to the release of the film where the music is utilised. These audible diegetic transitions are categorised as aural displacements and transaural displacements which are both anchored in previous research concerning stable musical placements. In order to answer the research questions regarding technical aspects and narratological implications, the thesis is centred around a film music analysis. The demarcation of said analysis uses pre-existing songs from the film Joker (Philips, 2019) as its main focus. In order to provide a colourful and meaningful discussion the selected material also contains a variety of examples from other films. The analysis shows that the selected audible diegetic transitions can provide narratological implications both for a film as a whole and for a specific scene or sequence in any film. In Joker specifically, the audible diegetic transitions arguably contain the narratological implication of adding to the retrospective and unreliable narration, which is important for the story of the film. The thesis also argues that the technical aspects of the analysed audible diegetic transitions can be condensed into being either diegetic to commentary, or vice versa. Diegetic music is, in this context, defined as music that is implied as being heard in the acoustic space of the story-world, whereas commentary music is an umbrella term defined as music that is not implied being heard in the acoustic space of the story-world. The analysis shows that these transitions can transpire either instantly or gradually with the change of sound quality from being either narrow or wide. These technical aspects contribute in understanding the narratological implications of said audible diegetic transition by categorising them as either emotive or grounding. Both of these narratological implications can be concluded and described as swift enforcers of the relationship between the one consuming the film and the characters, or locations, of the film they are consuming. Audible diegetic transitions figuratively breach the fourth wall that is the screen.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-507143 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Danstål Skiöld, Martin |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för musikvetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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