FILM, May 2008: Sound in film (Edit sample #17): THE PUBLIC ENEMY

SOUND IN FILM:
"I'M FOREVER BLOWING BUBBLES"
and Public Enemy

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THE SONG, "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" was featured in The Public Enemy. The main chorus of the song can be heard here.
    As we study film editing and sound, notice how the source music (music from within the story) reflects the theme of the film as a whole, especially at the key moment at film's end when the public enemy's dreams, which once did "fly so high," now "fade and die" (check lyrics below).
    Usually in a film the entire sound mix (including sound effects, natural sounds, source music, and score music) is keyed to the film's subject and theme. This is true even if only the melody of a song is played, because the viewer is expected to know the lyrics and fit them to the film's theme.
    For example, just the melody of "Silent Night" will evoke religious feelings in a viewer based on the known lyric; while the melody from the famous church chant, "Dies Irae" ("Day of Wrath") instantly evokes the thought of death in a viewer. That's why it's used often in movies, as in the death scene in Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941). Check its use in the credit sequence of The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) here. To hear the original church chant, click here.

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I'M FOREVER BLOWING BUBBLES

CHORUS: I'm forever blowing bubbles, Pretty bubbles in the air, They fly so high, nearly reach the sky, Then like my dreams they fade and die. Fortune's always hiding, I've looked everywhere, I'm forever blowing bubbles, Pretty bubbles in the air.

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