Polarization (film music)

According to the musicologist Hansjörg Pauli, polarization is a technique of film music : ambiguous image content is clearly defined by an accompanying film music. For example, a movie character whose mood cannot be seen is marked as happy by happy music.

According to Pauli, polarization stands in contrast to counterpointing , in which the music obviously contradicts the image, and to paraphrasing , in which the music acoustically doubles the meaning of the image.

Pauli later distanced himself from his original theory, but his classification is widespread in literature.

literature

• Hansjörg Pauli: Film music: A historical-critical outline, in: H.-Chr. Schmidt (Ed.): Music in the mass media, radio and television. Perspectives and Materials, Mainz: Schott 1976.