Musical As Selma example essay topic

Life is sometimes rugged and gloomy that makes us feel frustrated. We always complain about the society or the people around us. We give up easily when we have difficulties in our lives. We despair when we separate from our lovers. The world becomes dark and hopeless when our lives are clustered with many nasty elements, like tiredness, depression, failure or poverty, etc. But what we often choose is to shun the harsh facts.

However, despite these bad elements, life can still be made beautiful if we try to observe everything around us. Life can become fantastic if we pay attention to the ambient noise or the rhythms made from our environment, for example, rhythms produced by the vehicles, machinery, our body parts, or even something more trifle, like the flow of river water, the sound of the wind, or the hitting of the raindrops at the windows. These rhythms can inspire a serious of musical tones, or even a set of dance routines, that they have the powerful stress-relieving effect in life. Just like the protagonist, Selma in the film! SSDancer in the Dark!" , her dreadful life is enlightened through her fantastic world of musicals. Therefore through musicals, bad elements in life can be redeemed and beautified.

When we have been working day and night exhausted ly, our tiredness can be eased through musicals. Like Selma in! SSDancer in the Dark!" , after she has been placing steel plates into the machine for the whole day, she still has to do the more dangerous and tiresome tasks for the night shift. Selma works that hard is to earn as much money as she can for his son Gene's operation fee. Selma has passed a disease on to her son that both of their eyesight will diminish soon. But Selma keeps that secret from Gene.

So Selma has to take several jobs in order to accumulate adequate money to cure her son's eyes. That night Selma is on a night shift in the factory, but by that moment, she can see dim and blurred images only. Though it is quite dangerous and stressful for her to control the machines, she can relax in her dream of musical by listening to the rhythms made by the machinery. The hissing and clanging of the machinery create a sequence of industrial rhythms of consistent mechanical structures. Such structures producing steady beats function as the foundation of Selma's musical. The rhythms also resemble the beats of the drums resonate in our belly and diaphragms that it can unconsciously lead you to move along with it (Laningham).

Thus physical exercise, like dancing may be inspired. With musical, the monotony in life is eliminated and stress and tiredness can be relieved. Similarly, the darkness in blindness can be enlightened through the spiritual resonance in musical. In the film when Selma walks back home along the railway track, she is completely blind. Her suitor, Jeff chases her and questions her if she can see. At the same time, a train drives pass them.

The rhythms made by the train's engine, the air siren, and the clacking of its wheels with the track inspire Selma's another musical. In musical, the scripts act as a kind of language for communication and music is a spiritual perception. Anyone can be touched if the music resonates with your heart or emotion, regardless of your eyesight. Even though Selma is blind, she can enjoy herself in her imagination. Music is hearing, but not seeing. Therefore musical has the healing power to enlighten the darkness in blindness, and create a colourful world of fantasy, in which Selma can see with her heart, her memory and her private musical.

In musicals, other nasty elements like enmity and painfulness are harmonized through the sweet melodies. When Selma discovers her savings have gone, she immediately goes to ask Bill. Selma and her son live in the trailer of Bill and his wife, Linda's apartment. But Bill is recently obsessed with some financial problems that Linda doesn! |t understand.

After he realizes Selma's secret of having a large amount of savings and having inherited a family disease, he evilly steals her money and denigrates her for stealing his! Shown!" money. Bill rejects to give them back to Selma and threatens her to shoot him. Selma reluctantly shoots him and strikes him to death. The violence brings the film to a climax until the music of the music box on Bill's desk distracts Selma from painfulness and inspires her private musical. The music box plays a sequence of sweet melodies that these pleasing musical tones attract our attention and drag us away from physical awareness (Laningham).

We will forget to hate and to hurt. The rhythms made by the string of the flag hitting its pole and the flow of river water outside the apartment also create a restful harmony (Laningham). Under the influence of the harmony, Bill's physical pain is reduced that he can get up and dance with Selma in the musical. Selma can also release her psychological suffering by gaining Bill and Linda's forgiveness. Thus the hatred and painfulness in reality are harmonized through musical. Other than the melody, the gradually accelerating tempo in musical helps cheer us up when we are in great hopelessness.

After the police arrests Selma, she is accused in the court of killing Bill violently and stealing Bill's money. Selma conceals the truth that she has to save a large amount of money for her son's operation, and she lies that she has sent all her income to her fake father, named Oldrich in Czech. It is because she has to protect her son from knowing about his illness. However, Selma is terribly condemned as a liar when the once very famous Czech tap dancer, Oldrich is invited to the court, saying that Selma is a stranger to him. Selma feels deliberately hopeless and frustrated until the regular meter, made by a boy who sketches the picture of the court with a pencil fascinates her.

Selma then jumps up and taps along with the beats in her musical. The tap dancer whom Selma appreciates so much joins her and tap around the court. All the people in the court play the beats for them that the music gradually accelerates in tempo along with the tapping. The increasing pace speeds up our blood circulation and makes us excited. Therefore the pleasures manufactured cheer up our mood with energy and strength, and overwhelm our previous despair and frustration. The fear of death can also be alleviated not only through the systematic rhythms, but also the light quality of sounds in musicals.

After Selma is announced guilty in first-degree murder, she is going to be hanged very soon. But just before the day of the execution, new evidence is found that Selma has paid the money to a hospital for Gene's operation. That night Selma feels very anxious in her cell to wait for the result of applying for a stay. Being unable to seek for any rhythms in the extremely silent environment, Selma places her ear close to the ventilation. With the rhythms produced by the muffled whirring of the wind in the ventilation, Selma can comfort herself by humming her magical song. She jumps up and down the table and the bed, using the toothbrushes as the percussion instrument.

The rhythms created by the vibration of the air are lighter and softer in sound qualities. They are useful in tension dispersing and the decrease in nervous reaction (Huebner). Therefore music of lower intensity achieves in calmness and relaxation that the fear of death is eliminated. Different from soft rhythms, uniform pattern of beats, like footsteps, can also ease the fear of death. Though Selma finally gets a stay, she gives up appealing when she realizes that the amount of the operation fee is paid to the new lawyer as wages. Selma chooses to accept the punishment for the sake of her son's future.

At the time when Selma is going to the gallows, she is terribly scared to walk by herself. However, she can finally make it by listening to the rhythms made by the footsteps of the good-hearted prison warden. Selma follows the beats and dances 107 steps to the gallows and gives the film a wonderful finale. The footsteps actually create a sequence of uniform beats, which duplicate our heart rhythms.

When we are paralyzed with fear, we keep shivering and our hearts beat so fast. If we follow the rhythms of the footsteps, our heartbeat may gradually slow down to pace with the rhythms. Thus the repetitious rhythms have a hypnotic effect which can alleviate our tension and fear. In addition to the unfavourable elements mentioned above, the problem of randomness in life can be redeemed through musical. In reality, the issue of hopelessness and monotony, and the lack of energy always prevail. But all these elements can be resolved and beautified through musicals.

This idea is successfully assisted in this film, by the completely different film techniques applied to the scenes in reality and the musical scenes. The director uses a handheld camera that makes the pictures shaky throughout the whole film, except the musical scenes. Instead fixed cameras are applied in the filming of musicals that is more stationary (Trier). Therefore a sense of randomness is created in reality. Besides, the effect of filming with handheld cameras is somber in tone, with natural lighting, less colorful scenery, and non-musical background. This results in a filtered and whitewash audio-visual effect to the audiences.

These qualities then help reinforce a sense of hopelessness and monotony without strength and energy. Contrarily in the filming of the musicals, the qualities suddenly become much better. It is much sharper and brighter, clearer in focus, richer in colours, and with more eye-catching background and scenery. These contrasts can successfully outstand the beauty in the world of musicals. The idea that tragic elements in life are made meaningful in musicals, is assisted not only by rhythms and film techniques, but also the crucial lyrics of the songs. Unlike the rhythms of the music in musicals, lyrics convey the conception linguistically.

We can see that the beautified nasty elements in life are once again reinforced by the lyrics if we investigate into some of the major musical scenes. In the previous part of the film, Selma performs the song! SSCvalda!" when she's working hard in the factory. Tiredness is eased through this musical as Selma sings that! SSIt's the clatter machines: They greet you and say! SSW e tap out a rhythm and sweep you away!" (Bjork)!" .

The machines which make Selma tired are personified to dance with her. The rhythms cheer up her exhausted muscles. There's no more stress and pressure. After that, Selma performs another musical on the train and sings a touching song! SSI! |ve seen it all!" .

As Selma is completely blind then, she sings, ! SS You " ve seen it all and all you have seen. You can always review on your own little screen. The light and the dark, the big and the small, just keep in mind. You need no more at all (Bjork)!" . She has seen everything worth seeing.

So she can review anything that is in her memory or her imagination. The! SS screen!" in the lyrics refers to Selma's musicals. Blindness means nothing to her as it is eliminated in musicals. At the end of the film when Selma dances to the gallows, she sings another song! SS 107 steps!" : !

SS 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10! K 79, 83, 86, 89, 93, one hundred steps (Bjork)!" . The numbers resemble the heartbeat as well as Selma's footsteps. The counting depicts a steady pattern of the heart rhythm so that fear is alleviated. Therefore, the lyrics help reinforce music's ability of redeeming harsh elements in life. Music can be a miracle remedy if we use it effectively for healing purpose.

Rock music can excite our emotion but blues is useful in releasing pain and suffering. Violin music can resonate our compassion and piano music can evoke our emotion. Folk music can disperse our stress while lullaby can guide us to a nice dream. Music can also combine with dances like in a musical or a drama as a catalyst for people to create positive inspiration in our lives. Therefore we can still sing and dance even though our lives are that dreadful and unbearable.! SS Bjork.

Selma songs Dancer In The Dark lyrics. !" Todo musica. org, 5 Feb. 2003... Huebner, Peter.! SS Scientific Studies and Clinical Observations - Fear. !" Micro Music Laboratories, 2001, 14 Feb. 2003... Laningham, E.D.!

SS The Music Of E.D. Laningham. !" EDLANINGHAM, 14 Feb. 2003. web. Trier, Lars von.! SS Lars von Trier on Making Dancer in the Dark. !" Fine Line Features presents Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark, 2000, 20 Jan. 2003. web.