What You Can Learn from These Memorable Diegetic Musical Moments
There are few moments in nonmusical films where the musical numbers are just so good.
Movies are a powerful tool used to create an emotional response from the audience. When diegetic music is added to a scene, the audience gets to experience a character’s emotional state through song.
Unlike musicals that use music to motivate the story, diegetic music, or music that exists in the world of the film, can reveal another layer to a scene, creating an audio-visual cinematic moment that will last with the audience long after they’ve walked away from the theater.
Music performed by characters in a scene can punctuate a sequence’s meaning and importance to the rest of the film. The music serves the emotional tone, highlighting the motifs of a film and the changing relationship between two characters. Here are some of my favorite movie music moments, and what we can take away from them.