Film and its music cannot exist without each other – that’s why I love seeing films in a concert hall

A loved activity of mine is experiencing one of my favourite films with a live orchestra in a concert hall.

Even though I’ve seen these films many times, either in the theatre or at home, and listened to their soundtracks countless times too, I am still willing to pay extra money to revisit them with a live orchestra.

I am not alone. These events regularly sell out. Most people around me in the concert hall are also fans of the film in some way, either dressed up, applauding at every classic scene, echoing every line of dialogue they love, or humming along.

We are no longer spectators to a screen; we are an audience to a performance.

The orchestra as spectacle

This year I took my partner to see Singin’ in the Rain (1952) live in concert at the Sydney Opera House. She hadn’t seen the film before and (thankfully!) loved it, but she confessed she hardly looked at the orchestra performing the score during the film. This fascinated me. Why didn’t we just see the film at home, then?

Experiencing film in a concert hall is an atypical way of “seeing” a film. The live orchestra in front of the screen divides the spectacle between orchestra and screen; the sound is divided between recorded sounds (including the sung voices) and the live orchestral music.

If I looked up, I saw the silver screen and the film’s visual image. I also heard the characters talk, the ambient sounds and sung voices – and the soundtrack. I could, like my partner, forget there was anything different about this screening.

However, if I looked down towards the orchestra pit, I saw the orchestra performing. I could connect the orchestra with the film’s music – part of the film, but also apart and raised in prominence over the dialogue, ambient sounds and singing.

The orchestra was competing with the screen for my visual attention, and competing with the sound system for my aural attention. If I looked away from the orchestra back to the screen, the music was still synchronised to all action unfolding there, the orchestra physically isolated and unseen.

If I just looked at the orchestra the entire duration of Singin’ in the Rain, have I experienced the film?

Similarly, since my partner didn’t look at the orchestra, concentrating instead on the screen, did she experience the film and not the live performance?

Making musical meaning

Another popular concert hall experience is experiencing a film music concert without the screen, typically excerpts from fans’ favourite film scores and themes.

This is treating film music like a soundtrack, or an album from their favourite composers. It’s an experience that relies solely on musical meaning and experience.

Film academic Claudia Gorbman’s definition of film theme music is:

any music – melody, melody-fragment, or distinctive harmonic progression – heard more than once during the course of a film.

When the same music repeats in a film, there is a memory associated with the preceding usage. These are the pieces of film music most likely to be listened to in isolation from the film due to its repetition.

However, in Music as an Art, philosopher Roger Scruton says:

When the favourite [music] passages are extracted from their original context and presented in the concert hall […] it sounds as though something is missing.

Indeed, these film music concerts without the screen are a different type of experience altogether – the film is missing.

The film music replayed in isolation from the film still bears a strong association with the film due to memory. The concert audience will remember not just the music from its repetition, but the film from which it derived.

With this film music exiting the film it now exists in isolation, and can be heard and perhaps appreciated for its pure musical codes without having experienced the film.

However, instead of film music, it becomes music – and thus an incomplete film music experience.

The holistic experience

Returning to Singin’ in the Rain, it’s a film musical, which film academic Rick Altman has influentially argued are films with music emanating from the fictional world created by the film.

However, in my experience of the film at the concert hall, the film’s music came instead from within the space of my world – that is, the space of the concert hall.

As I watched the film, I became aware that the music from the orchestra pit of the concert hall appeared to be manipulating the actions unfolding on screen.

Of course, music can’t physically do this and, as Singin’ in the Rain was filmed and constructed 70 years before my concert hall experience, there was no way the music could have had that effect on the film.

And yet, in this process of experiencing Singin’ in the Rain in a concert hall with the music source physically and visually separated from the screen in the orchestra pit, I realised film music and the visual image were interacting through my holistic experience.

We “watch” films, yet enjoy hearing them as well. Even though it separates and isolates film music from the screen, experiencing film in a concert hall reveals the true nature of film: that film and its music cannot exist without each other.