Essay On Seabiscuit

Music plays a huge role in todays society, as the music-in-film world progresses along side the improvements and changes in the musical industry we as viewers often underestimate the usefulness of music, in any form, can have over even the most unresponsive kinds of people. In almost everything we do and see music is involved in some form or another. Like a piece played at a wedding, a funeral, or even just a song played on the. Because of this, most great movies use music (or an absence of music) to illuminate the scenes and draw up the emotions the viewer needs to feel to make it a truly magnificent film. The 2003 Film Seabiscuit, which was based on the best selling book Seabiscuit: An American Legend by Laura Hillenbrand, is a famous film

depicting the life of an unlikely racing star, a small horse born with crooked legs. Known for its score, written by Randy Newman, it is a low key, mellow, over all pleasant experience all wrapped in Americana spirit. The score is effective at its task, all the while remaining anonymous in its charm. Randy Newman's work for the Americana genre of films has been both significant and applicable. Newman created a pleasant, sporadically exciting, instrumentally innocuous environment within this particular film.
In the, well executed but unoriginal score of Seabiscuit, Newman curbs his orchestra in all but maybe a just a few cues in the more intense racing scenes. Acoustic guitars provide a basic, relaxing dimension of history and “heartland” sentimentality often linked to Equine Americana related films, to the drama. Randy actually used his own piano performances to add an additional layer of character depth to the film. Not only that but he also used his own woodwind solos throughout most racing scenes help to heighten the feel of the horse racing events, especially of the past. The music played as the title music is similar to that of the music used for emphasis throughout the entire film. The music playing at the scene where Red Pollard first realizes his passion for horse racing, when he’s watching these seasoned jockeys exercise their horses, where the soft string music is playing in the background, making us as viewers feel sentimental.

Seabiscuits’ first race is an important scene, the music and score should reflect that wholeheartedly.

The music and musical cues while still reflecting the feel of the rest of the film, adds a layer of excitement and importance through the use of horns and upbeat tempo to make the viewer feel a connection to the scene. The trumpets at the beginning of the race not only signal the transition into more serious music, but it is also a reference to horse racing traditions. High tempo, risky feeling music starts playing as the race ensues, use of heartbeat tempo and pounding noises to create anticipation of the end of the race, the music then slows down into long drowsy notes and Seabuscuit is defeated. The use of string instruments, and longer woodwind notes emphasize the frustration being felt in this scene and really reflect the disappointment felt by the

characters.
The function of source music is to use objects within the film to enhance the musical score, source music can be a radio/band etc. an example from earlier would be the trumpets playing as at traditional race tracks, we know its source music because the characters react to it showing the viewer they can also hear it. Incidental music or atmospheric music is used throughout the film to add an atmospheric touch to the action. Aside from a few heart pounding race scenes, Newman's work is, for the most part, in Seabiscuit is kept to average levels of intensity. On the soundtrack, the consistently laidback score is only interfered with by the one or two source songs in the middle. I feel that leitmotivs are used in scenes like the above mentioned where Red finds his love for racing, similar score and musical instruments are used in similar realization scenes throughout the film Seabiscuit, I’m sure Newman did this purposely to subconsciously remind the viewer of their earlier felt emotions.
When Seabiscuits’ next race comes up, Red Pollard is more prepared, as he gets a pep talk before the race soft, but intensifying music is playing in the background.

The conversation moves into the the scene where Seabiscuit is taken into the starting gate and the music pauses and they emphasize the sounds of the source music playing: the gates closing, the crowd roaring, then a long silent pause- all of the sudden the gates slam open and jubilant music resonances in the background. Triumphant music plays as the race continues, percussion and brass instruments reign over the noises in the crowd as Seabiscuit pulls towards the

front.

If I could relate the score in Seabiscuit to another film we studied it would have to be Finding Nemo, coincidentally, the score for Finding Nemo was written by Thomas Newman also known as Randy Newman’s cousin. Randy Newman was known for mellow, almost Disney-like scores. In fact, often reviews relate Randy to his 7 features in Disney films including famously, Toy Story. The score for Finding Nemo is also subtle- yet animated, its use of emotion drawing instruments is similar to that of Seabiscuit. Randy Newman was maybe the more obvious choice for the next it Disney film, but since the subject matter in Finding Nemo coming from a different perspective, director Andrew Stanton insisted that the more well known for his serious work, cousin, Thomas, should write the score for Finding Nemo. Thomas Newman is best known for his work in The Shawshank Redemption (also studied in this course) and when it came time for him to enter the realm of animation, himself and directors alike thought of his as an odd choice. Especially considering the fact that many of his scores of recent time were mostly electronic focused work. Andrew Stanton the director of Finding Nemo, also a writer and was also used as voices on the previous Pixar films, even states that the reason he chose Thomas over Randy was because he he wrote the story for Finding Nemo while listening to Thomas Newman scores, resulting in him realizing that Thomas was the Newman for the job.