Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Music tracks

Describing components of certain music tracks is impossible. Or perhaps very difficult. So I will try. The tune that starts Hey Ya! (of the Bollywood/fiction film Karthik calling Karthik) is a dance which is joined after a few seconds by the singer of the track's lyrics. A peak is repeatedly climbed by the singer. The climb is a very fast one, so I am exhilarated every time it climaxes. But the singing does continue beyond the climaxes. Otherwise the song portion of the music track could have been incomplete. Uff Teri Adaa (also of Karthik calling Karthik) also has some lovely sentences. It is started by Shankar Mahadevan's familiar voice and a nice tune but the first lovely bit starts after SM takes a break. Alyssa Mendonsa, from whose name I assumed that she couldn't sing in Hindi, sings all three lovely bits in a way that forms a sexy synergy with the visuals choreographed on it. Karthik calling Karthik (ditto) is a track that I have listened to repeatedly as well as call boring. B n B (of the Bollywood/fiction film Bunty aur Babli) is a track that I feel like tagging as belonging to the rhythm n rumble genre, because from that you can understand the reason behind its title. By the way, the film contains one great shot. The hands of the hero's father are shown joined and raised in mock respect towards the hero, but I felt that the hero is showing mock respect to his father rather than the other way round. I mean the hero seems to be doing a mock namaste to his father though it is actually the latter doing the mock namaste to the former. Khudaya khair (of the Bollywood/fiction film Billu Barber) is very engaging because of the singing as dictated by the lyrics. Take A Look Around (of the Hollywood/fiction film Mission Impossible 2) is full of great sounds produced by two guitars and a drum set. Its essence is hummable, but is one among several components of an earlier music track composed by some one else. Nyah and Ethan (ditto) is engaging as well. It is well synchronised in the film with the tragedy of the heroine going to her death, and is continued with the saving of the heroine's life. The Call (of the Hollywood/fiction film The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian) is synchronised with the departure from Narnia to Earth of the protagonist siblings, and is continued with the initial portion of the credits roll. Lyrics in it are sung by a very nice voice, which I call cute rather than grand. Into the West (of the The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King) is synchronised entirely with the film's illustrations displaying credits roll. Lyrics in it are sung by another very nice voice, which I call grand or majestic and which the music's composer called "like the voice of" the elf queen "Galadriel". Vide Cor Meum (of the Hollywood/fiction film Hannibal) is very disgusting because of its synchrony with the titular antagonist's preparations to cook and eat another human. By the way, the portrayal of the non-titular protagonist by an actress other than the one who portrayed her in The Silence of the Lambs struck me as metaphorically real because some individuals change a lot in ten years. A Dark Knight (of the Hollywood/fiction film The Dark Knight) is parts of the music during the credits display, starting explosively with the display of the film's title. By the way, the film also has a primary character portrayed by an actress other than the one in Batman Begins. But I will not state that the replacement is metaphorically real in this case as well, because the time gap between these two films is shorter both release and story wise. The Tragedy of Omkara (of the Bollywood/fiction film Omkara) is a very engaging music track. It has a bit of powerful meaningless singing, which is synchronised in the film with some violent events as well as one event or some events presented as starting paths of violence. So I did not think of this music track as tragic. Come to think of it, I also did not think of it as violent. I thought of it as a higlighter of violence and violent intentions. Taare Zameen Par (of the Bollywood/fiction film Taare Zameen Par) describes "being in space" according to one friend/colleague of mine, hence the word "stars" in the title. Or at least the starting tune of this music track mimics floating through space, having been impressed by many earlier audiovisual works of art on viewers+listeners with the visual highlighting of stars. Saawariya (of the Bollywood/fiction film Saawariya) has multiple climaxes executed by the main singing as dictated by the lyrics. By the way, I think the film must be very unengaging. Behti hawa sa tha wo (of the Bollywood/fiction film 3 Idiots) has a very good synchrony with the visuals during roughly the twelfth to seventeenth minute in the film. A tune that I associate with Ladakh or some other Indian region containing Mongoloids starts it, and is followed by a song that has an exhilarating start in synchrony with a frame tracking towards then over a cluster of mountain trees. By the way, Aamir Khan's wide eyed look as the technology-development-wise most brilliant character in the film has been criticised by at least one film reviewer as being an unsuccessful attempt to appear more than two decades younger than he actually is. But many viewers+listeners may have instead considered his wide eyed look throughout the film a believable portrayal of a very special mind. I certainly considered the look to be so. The Theme of Maqbool (of the Bollywood/fiction film Maqbool) did not chill me, perhaps because I considered it a piece of fiction. But some other music tracks have chilled me, for instance the above referred Vide Cor Meum. So this situation proves I am erratic in my instinctive/subconscious considerations. The theme of the killing (also of Maqbool) is heard while we see the titular gangster frame another for the murder he is about to commit, and concludes with two murders -the second being of the one who is framed [unsuccesfully, it is later seen+heard in the film] as the perpetrator of the first murder. The visuals, music, and sound of gunshots and thunder constitute a very chilling piece of cinema that did not chill me because I considered it a fictitious killing of only two gangsters rather than the death of many adivasis, the latter having made me cry when I first saw+heard it happen in the Hollywood/fiction film Avatar. By the way, I now consider the two or three frames containing Pankaj Kapoor's crying in Maqbool great cinema, because starting to cry at the precise moment asked for by a film is a challenge. Particularly if you are not Shah Rukh Khan, whose inflexibility and stardom dictate when should the precise moments be. Beera (of the Bollywood/fiction film Raavan) has some Hindi lyrics that reconstruct the myth of the demon king Raavan, calling his modern version -fictitious Naxalite leader Beera Munda, whose name is based on that of the adivasi struggler for Indian independence Birsa Munda- a possessor of ten foreheads {or faces, as dictated by ten different sorts of make up applied in the film by the character himself} and one hundred names {seems impossible since he is a person about whom people living in many regions other than his linguistic homeland would know nothing about}. This track also has lyrics in a language I presently know nothing about, dictating a gentle singing that the music's composer A. R. Rahman may be trying to pass off as adivasi. Behne De (also of Raavan) is synchronised in one trailer of the film with unpromising spectacles -namely a make up encrusted face of Beera, Beera sliding down a rock slope beside a waterfall, Beera and the film's modern Sita climbing up ropes suspended over a cliff, and Beera standing on a cliff beside a waterfall. By the way, one poster of the film shows a silhoutted Beera a symbol of violence-based authority -namely a shawl. This image is also present in several frames of the above referred Omkara, that film's titular political muscle man having a shawl wrapped around him in those frames. The Flower of Carnage (of the Hollywood/fiction film Kill Bill Volume 1) disgusted me because it starts immediately after the heroine slices of the long haired cranium of a female with whom she was having an epic samurai battle, revealing the unscraped brain of that female and expressing the relief felt by the heroine on having victoriously finished the battle. Twisted Nerve (also of Kill Bill Vol. 1) disgusted me because it conveys the strong determination of the heroine to kill certain dangerous individuals. The other music tracks also disgusted me because the film shows violence to establish certain characters as either cold-blooded killers or evil and the heroine as justified in killing some of them. The tune heard while the "Dev" portion (of the Bollywood/fiction film Dev. D) starts made me laugh a lot, because it made me think that the film was once again about to focus on the idiotic behaviour of the titular character. Which the film then did. By the way, both 2009 releases co-written and directed by Anurag Kashyap have a music track about the human world. And both music tracks are titled "Duniya", though the one in Dev. D is heard during the third last sequence and the one in Gulaal is heard during the last sequence and credits roll. And the one in Dev. D is a bit comical whereas the lyrics of the one in Gulaal are sung mournfully. However, a lyric of another music track in Gulaal was earlier mistaken by me as among the lyrics of Duniya. That music track is chilling and its title is Raat Ke Musafir. The lyric is "Insaan ke sheher me insaan ko khoj le tu" -a technical translation of it being Find human in city of human. I Can't Hold It (of the Bollywood/fiction film Love Sex aur Dhoka) is a music track that makes me want to laugh. Or it makes me laugh in my mind. I think its titular lyric is about the singer facing difficulty at holding a man's penis in her vulva because the penis is becoming limp. By the way, I have only heard it. I haven't seen+heard the film it belongs to. Aahun Aahun (of the Bollywood/fiction film Love Aaj Kal) is a music track I have enjoyed every time that I have heard it. By the way, I used to not think that the picturisation on it had a message, which according to the Love Aaj Kal page on wikipedia is "even though people these days try to make themselves believe that love is just an infatuation that goes away with time, in their hearts they still love each other with" the passion that earlier generations had. I also used to not think that any concepts are being represented by Jai and young Veer Singh, who according to the wikipedia entry respectively represent "Aam Janta/common man" and "Pratigya"/promise during the picturisation. I've Just Seen A Face (of the Hollywood/fiction film Across The Universe) has rapidly sung lyrics. This singing and the music collaborating with it are energizing. Maula Mere Lele Meri Jaan (of the Bollywood/fiction film Chak De! India) has a very nicely piercing start that sometimes has almost made me cry. The start is a piece of lyricless singing. Or it is singing of words in a language that I don't know, perhaps Urdu or Arbi or Farsi. Wings of Liberty (of the PC video game Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty) has a starting tune that is meant to generate adrenaline in viewers+listeners of any Matrix film, but then switches over to a different tune and thus goes on a path different from that of the Matrix music track containing the first mentioned tune. I Remain (of the Hollywood/fiction film Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time) was labeled boring by me when listening to it the first time, while watching the end credits display and walking out of the auditorium. But I later labeled its singing's collaboration with its instruments sexy. This happened perhaps because I was awed by the memory of my first experience. Now We Are Free (of the Hollywood/fiction film Gladiator) has been enjoyed by me every time I have heard it because I don't understand the lyrics, which are in Hebrew and seemed very boring when translated into English. By the way, I keep engaging with the lyrics of a music track even when they are in English and/or Hindi as long as I am not sure what some of them mean. I also have done similar or the same things with the dialogues in some films. During my first viewing+hearing of the Hollywood/fiction film No Country for Old Men, I thought at one point that the symbol of violence said "I didn't hear what the coin said" with one sort of glare but a later viewing+listening revealed that he said "Well the coin and I traveled to this place the same way" with one sort of smile. While viewing+hearing an advertisement of the Hollywood/fiction film Seraphim Falls the first time, I thought one protagonist's response to another protagonist's pleading question "Why are you doing this?" was "It revolves", which I understood as tit for tat. But while watching+hearing the entire film I realised that his response was "Seraphim Falls", which I understood as the site of a past grievance he had against the other protagonist. During my first viewing+hearing of the Hollywood/fiction film The Dark Knight, I thought at one point that the Joker said "...brought him down to arlampul", which I understood as having brought Harvey Dent down to a state of existing in Arkhum mental asylum. But one draft of the film's script contained "...brought him down to my level". So I eventually understood that the final cut of the film contained the altered version "...brought him down to our level". Main Title (of the Hollywood/fiction films Spiderman and Spiderman 2) exhilarated me when I heard it during the the main credits display before the start of the first film and made we want to see what came next. Its starting tune excited me even during the main credits display before the start of the second film. I was not as excited by the rest of the music track. But I labeled the few extra tunes in the second film's Main Title a declaration of progress. You don't dream in cryo (of the Hollywood/fiction film Avatar) partly exhilarated me. I mean the parts of it that stood out in my mind during the starting sequence of the film exhilarated me. Bella's Lullaby (of the Hollywood/fiction film Twilight) doesn't engage me in its uninterrupted entirety. But it is present throughout the film as bits that make some sequences of visuals and ambient sounds more interesting than they would be with some other category of music. Welcome to Jurassic Park (of the Hollywood/fiction film Jurassic Park) is very nice and exhilarating. I remember some of its parts more than any other piece of music played in that first film as well as its sequels. I don't know the title of the music track that plays during the starting sequence (of the Hollywood/fiction film Braveheart). It is certainly not the Main Title. But what should be noted is that it contributes to making the starting sequence a presentation of Scotland's physical/geographical beauty.

3 comments:

  1. For starters, I have neither heard nor seen a majority of these tracks so I'm not qualified to comment upon them.

    But then, even though I haven't, I can still point out that those parameters with which you judge these compositions are in themselves flexible and may connote very many things, some drastically different from what you concieve them as. For example, something that you find chilling might not be felt so by another, as also that chilling in itself may be concieved as a different emotion by that, or yet, another.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have certainly failed to make readers of this blog post familiar with the music tracks I have tried to describe and/or have opined about.

    You are correct about the diversity of opinions=perceptions. Some one other than me may perceive a music track I considered chilling as something else. I considered the decision to synchronise Vide Cor Meum, which contains opera singing, with one human's preparations to cook and eat another disgusting. And I felt dread while hearing it and seeing the preparations. But what I am calling dread may be called something else according to another taxonomic system.

    ReplyDelete