Adjectives and Incidental Music

I know some of my blog friends are really into movie soundtracks. Great movie music can really help to enhance the story and the whole cinema experience. Could you think of “Star Wars” without the epic John Williams score? Or, indeed, the equally brilliant “Harry Potter” theme that captures the mood of the series so well? And incidental music, the orchestral flavoring behind the action, can serve to heighten the tension, or give atmosphere to the scene. Done well, incidental music will enhance, underscore, and draw attention to the acting. Done badly, incidental music will take over. It will become front-and-center of the movie. The action on-screen will cease to be as important, like in a music video.

Have you ever watched an emotional scene in a movie, or a TV show, and wondered if that scene would have the same effect without the music? Imagine a man and a woman at a railway station saying their final goodbyes. Their faces soaked with tears, their voices straining with emotion as they declare their undying love for one another. Usually, the music behind is full of passion, longing, yearning, with trembling violins, and so on. Here’s the question. If you take away the music, is the acting strong enough to elicit the same emotional reaction from the audience? Are the words the writer put in their mouths powerful enough to not need the aid of an orchestra to convey the feelings? In a number of cases I truly wonder.

Here’s an interesting example of a highly emotive scene with not a single note of incidental music, except at the very end. The most tear-jerking part relies on the quality of the acting. You may not think this is the best–and it probably isn’t the best example–but I think it illustrates my point. It’s from Doctor Who, the final episode of the classic series “Planet of the Spiders” (1974). The Third Doctor returns from Metabelis 3, his body broken by radiation poisoning. He’s at the point of death, and says farewell to his companion, Sarah Jane Smith, and the Brigadier:

In movies and television, incidental music can become a crutch when the acting isn’t quite up to evoking the necessary emotion. Similarly, in writing, we can use adjectives to save us the bother of being creative with dialog and description. We can use cliches to get around having to come up with inventive turns of phrase or metaphors. When we write, we should approach every adjective and every writing “trick” with a similar challenge: if I remove that adjective, that phrase, that cliche, does the quality of the writing stand on its own? If not, then we need to work harder to make it work without those crutches.

What are your thoughts–both about incidental music, and writing short-cuts?