TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

The two very long final shots show Alex plunging into a hallucinatory phase as the tempo of the music slows in order to better spring back at the beginning of its final section. And then the astonishing vision itself is filmed in slow motion while the orchestra continues on its mad, frenzied course. This exhilarating density leading to the doors of sexual pleasure accentuates the slowness of the action, which seems to go on for so long that it leaves a considerable impression on the viewer’s memory, like a key image from a dream or from sexual pleasure itself. More classically, the music taking the place of the image by virtue of its tempo and brilliance is typical of classical printed opening credit sequences such as in the Michael Curtiz films Casablanca and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). This convention, in a manner somewhat related but more elaborate and immersive, is found in the modern or even neo-classical^[3] era, for example in George Lucas’ Star Wars (1977). Here the music generates the tempo which will begin and carry the narration that opens the film before the narrative itself.

In addition, this separation of the music’s tempo and that of the editing can take place without such a clear delineation. What was similar to a mere uncoupling will see its effects last that much longer when it is not “unmasked” by the viewer. Above we discussed the opening of Kurosawa’s Ran, whose editing caught the music off guard and whose example is relevant here as well. The opposite can be seen in Pedro Almodóvar’s Parallel Mothers (Madres paralelas, 2021) when Janis learns that she is not the mother of the child she brought home from the hospital after giving birth. The music by Alberto Iglesias, unlike that of the opening when it unfolded in synchrony and in the same temporality as the image, here chooses a slightly faster tempo. The increasingly expressive phrases of its strings, launched by a harp which rushes its arpeggios with each of its interventions, convey the sense of panic we can read in Janis’ face before it becomes manifest in her actions (she gets up, telephones, moves about). The sensation of being caught off guard becomes entirely in synch with the dramaturgical elements by means of a simple technique of having the music foretell events, both by its placement and in its slightly faster swell than that of the other streams.