Studying music in a movie is sort of like tasting a bar of candy. No animal in the world, no matter how smart or adorable, would stop and roll over candy in his mouth just to find out what it feels and tastes like, because the experience is of no consequence to them. Animals eat when they're hungry and stop when they're full. But humans are different, because we like beautiful things and sometimes allow ourselves the most secret pleasures so we can take time to enjoy sensations. And as we can take a break from our busy lives to enjoy a Hershey's kiss so also we can listen to and appreciate the art of musical storytelling.


Not that we have to. Music, more than almost all other things in cinema, has a way of influencing emotive response. Sometimes this comes from an intellectual understanding of what the composer's trying to communicate by using leitmotif to compare circumstances, relationships, and characters with each other. In other words? We hear the duh duh duh duh duh duh, we know the shark's coming.


But other times music serves a deeper and older purpose, the sort of music coming from slaves chanting work songs and mothers humming lullabies: music brought forth to express and articulate joys and sorrows of the human experience. It is this essence of creative spirit that remains the driving force behind the greatest artistic achievements, and the cinema is no stranger to artistic achievement. Very often a composer's understanding of a film he's about to score is hugely influenced by his emotional understanding of the film's topic, and if left to his own devices the resulting score will often reflect his personal views. It is from this difference between experiences that we have varying musical styles: from the audience's standpoint, one gets to know the artist by getting to know his work. The result (disregarding the equally important elements of anticipation, irony or congruence, and other more calculated aspects of a musical score) becomes part of the film's collective effort to move its audience. Most importantly, it enhances the world of a story, until a film's visual appeal is intrinsically linked with its vivid aural counterpart.
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