Music and Emotion in the Classic Hollywood Film

This academic article by Samuel L. Chell analyses the role of music in cinema while using the classic movie "The Best Years of Our Lives" as an example. The article explores the relationship between the viewer and what is happening on screen through the lens of music. Music represents the "character's internal being" and promotes the viewer's belief in the fiction happening on screen. While we watch movies we unconsciously see what is happening as if it were happening to us, and music helps to decrease the distance between us and the screen, making us be closer to the action. The different music throughout helps close the gap between seen and unseen, as we do not usually see inside the mind of someone, but because of music we may, for example, know how that character is feeling. The tonal properties of the music, major or minor, loud or soft, serve as audible images of the viewer's own reaction to what is unfolding on screen, and furthermore the music gives the two dimensional photographed images human depth. This depth is created through emotions, empathy, and the connection between the spectator and the action in the movie. Another interesting fact in this article is that most viewers do not remember if a film had any music at all, which shows the ability for a score to put itself in the subconscious.
This source is very useful because it backs up what is found in the movie "The Best Years of Our Lives" with scientific facts and studies. It proves, like my other source, the great influence music has on the viewer and the movie's reception. My other source said that depending on the music the viewer would interpret the scene differently, and this source proves that even more by saying that music can represent the viewer's reaction to what is on screen. So not only does different music cause a different interpretation, but also a different reaction. A lot of emotions the characters feel in the melodrama are hidden in order to have a plot twist later, but the viewer may know these emotions not because of words spoken but because of the emotional impact of the music, which closes the gap between what the viewer sees and does not see (or hear from the character).
I will use this source in order to have concrete evidence of my interpretations of how music affects the movie. I may begin to explore the unconscious effect that music has on the viewer that the viewer does not realize but which affects them and how they view the movie. This source has also intrigued me to learn more about how much we really connect with a movie and in what way and why, and how we close that gap and analyze and add together what we see and hear in order to create our own interpretation of the movie.