We found a match
Your institution may have rights to this item. Sign in to continue.
- Title
The Life of the Heart: Music and Narrative in The Beat That My Heart Skipped.
- Authors
Pangborn, Annabelle
- Abstract
Jacques Audiard's The Beat That My Heart Skipped is an intense character study of a young man's relationship with his father and his mother, and the need to break away from both. Audiard favours the moody visual language of vééritéé, constantly choreographing the camera to respond to the neurotic energy of the film's central character Thomas Seyr. If the visceral immediacy of the film's visual language enables us to connect with Tom's manifestation of himself in the world, it is the intricate threading of music throughout the film that enables us to enter into and understand the internal world of this complex character, whilst also constructing a deftly articulated back story which connects Tom to his parents. There are three different musics in the film: composed score, popular source music, and classical piano music which is played by the characters in the film, mainly Tom. All three musics stay true to the dynamic of the film which is all from Tom's point of view. The music is constantly informing us about the protagonist, a layer of storytelling which tells us about him and his emotional development. It is the music which enables Audiard to deliver so rich and convincing a psychological study of this complex character.
- Subjects
MOTION picture music; AUDIARD, Jacques; DESPLAT, Alexandre, 1961-; PIANISTS; INSTRUMENTALISTS; MOTION picture industry
- Publication
New Soundtrack, 2011, Vol 1, Issue 1, p89
- ISSN
2042-8855
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3366/sound.2011.0008