Titanic

Anyone who was old enough to remember cannot think of "Titanic" without thinking of Celine Dion belting out "My Heart Will Go On" on the radio.   It is a classic example of a song being used to mass market a film and increase it's popularity.  The film's iconic score can also be heard instrumentally at several parts throughout the film.  For example, during the scene where Rose and Jack are at the bow of the boat, "Flying".  Also, the song can be heard instrumentally when an adult Rose drops her necklace in the ocean at the film's climax.

Other than "My Heart Will Go On", music plays a huge role within the film.  The music, beginning with Rose's flashback, is light and characterized by an almost humming sound.  The human sounding whispers convey that Rose's memory is akin to a whisper from the past.  The music becomes more vivid and intense at times when strong emotion is conveyed; for example, excitement when Jack watches the Dolphins jump alongside the ship, or fear when Rose wades through the sinking ship to rescue Jack from the Master of Arms.

In addition to conveying emotion, music in "Titanic" also serves to establish time and place.  It also serves to highlight the contrast between the passengers in first class and those in steerage.  When Rose is in the company of her mother and their group, the music is soft chamber music, waltzes, mostly played by string quartet, which incidentally plays a large role later in the film.  In contrast, during the party below deck, the music is loud, with foreign instruments to convey that the people listening are not of one nationality.  Also the instruments heard are less "traditional" than those in the string quartet; things like fiddles, bag pipes, and drums.  

Diegtic music plays a large part in "Titanic."  The earlier mentioned String Quartet serves as a powerful and emotional reminder of the power of music when they play together even as the boat continues to sink.  Another interesting little quirk of the music in "Titanic" is the little song, "come see Josephine in her flying machine..." which Jack sings to Rose during the height of their love affair, and which Rose sings to herself, as she clutches to life and freezes on the floating door.  

The music within "Titanic" is both powerful and poignant, and it serves the purpose of conveying emotion as well establishing time and place.

The Color Purple

Just like the plot of the film, the music within "The Color Purple" is characterized by emotional lows and joyous highs. The music in the beginning of the movie is innocent and childlike, characterized by instruments that invoke emotion, such as strings and woodwinds. Underneath the seemingly childlike music, the music has a deep emotional complexity that foreshadows the trials and tribulations Celie will grow through.

At the beginning of the film the music is mostly underscoring,with the exception of a wedding scene in which the organ music is diegetic. Also, to establish time and place, some more folksy instruments are used, such as the harmonica which can be heard clearly during the scene in which a young Celie cleans the house, or the banjo, which is present during the cloudy day when in Celie sees a drunken Shug Avery for the first time.

Certain characters don't necessarily have a leitmotif, but the music changes drastically to represent them. Sofia, for example, spunky and sassy, especial in comparison to the meek Celie, is represented with equally spunky music. Shug Avery, the sexy jazz singer, is characterized by a saxophone music. One hears her music even before she appears on screen, when Mister gets ready to visit Shug as he leaves, the nightclub music is played. Throughout the film, that nightclub music is played whenever Shug is around, and sometimes it is diegetic, such as the record player when she's in the bathtub or when she sings to miss Celie at Harpo's club.

As the Miss Celie grows and the time period changes, the music also matures to indicate the passage of time. When the time is shown as 1922, I first noticed that the music began to change from the strings and woodwinds of the beginning of the movie to Ragtime music, which is more appropriate for the time period.

In another scene to establish time, a record player plays "Noel" over the radio and then the diegetic music changes to underscoring and plays during the period when a considerably less spunky Sofia, broken by circumstance, is greeted by her family.

Overall, the music in "The Color Purple" reflects the joie de vivre of certain characters and moments while simultaneously representing the tragedy of the characters lives.

E.T.

The Music from E.T. is a a return to the classical Hollywood score. Instead of using popular pre-existing music, an odd combination of only a few instruments, or extreme dissonance, E.T. uses a full orchestra. One could also recognize that E.T.'s score was composed by the same man who composed the Star Wars score, John Williams, because in several scenes they sound very similar.

Throughout the movie the music is most often whimsical and childlike, characterized by many woodwinds to emphasize innocence. I was not able to pick up on noticeable leitmotifs, but there was most definitely a theme, and it is varied throughout the film. The first time we hear this E.T. theme is when Elliot looks out the window. The whimsy of the music represents the way in which E.T. symbolizes wonder and childhood innocence.

In addition to the more magical aspects of the theme, it is also used to convey sadness and tragedy, such as during the death scene, and also to convey fear, such as in the scenes in which Keys and the Federal Agents are chasing after E.T.

The most memorable scene from E.T. is the scene in which the children ride bicycles which E.T. then makes fly. The music is a full orchestral bicycle theme, one that is easily recognized as one of the most famous in all movie music.