Diegetic Music

[Raxivace]

This is a question for the film nerds out there. I apologize in advance for the lack of an easily accessible specific example to use.

Let's say we have Film Scene A where there is what appears to be nondiegetic music playing. Let's say we cut to Film Scene B, in a completely different location miles away with different characters but with the same music continuing. If the music is revealed to be diegetic in Scene B (Let's say a character is playing guitar or something, and that's the source of the music), the music would be nondiegetic still in the context of Scene A, correct?

[Unvoiced_Apollo]

Diegetic?

[Chuckles_Otoole]

Yes, but more importantly, who cares?

[Raxivace]

I care. It's an interesting subject to me.

Now I'm wondering if there's a term for music that alternates between being diegetic and nondiegetic between scenes.

Diegetic?

Diegetic music is music that comes from a source within the world of the movie.

[Gendo]

Cool, I didn't know there was a name for that distinction!

Related, but not quite the same, I've wondered if there's a term for the difference between a song in a musical that makes sense in the world of the musical vs one that doesn't... that is, most songs in musicals are outside of the normal world of the musical, characters have no logical reason for suddenly having a choreographed and memorized song and dance routine.

But "Think of Me" in Phantom of the Oprah is actually Christine singing to audition for a role. "Steam Heat" in The Pajama Game is a routine the characters perform as entertainment at a meeting. In a way, I think those songs could be considered diegetic, while most musical songs are non-diagetic.

Do you have some examples of mixed diagetic and non-diagetic film scenes?

[Raxivace]

Musicals are another iffy area I'm not too sure about myself (Unfortunately I haven't seen Phantom of the Opera so I can't comment on that). In Bob Fosse's Cabaret, IIRC all of the music numbers are performed on stage in the club so that would be diegetic, as there would be an actual reason to hear everything that's going on. The singer is actually aware she's singing and performing etc.

The song and dance numbers in many other musicals are certainly more...abstract I guess, so I don't think they're meant to be taken literally. If they're non-literal (Like the opening to La La Land for example) I would call them nondiegetic.

There's also the case of All That Jazz where there are dream sequences done as musical numbers. The dreaming character choreographs big dance numbers in the story anyways so it makes some sense for him to dream of them, but that's another grey area.

Do you have some examples of mixed diagetic and non-diagetic film scenes?

Like I was talking about in the OP? I can't think of easy example off of the top of my head. What spurred the question for me was an episode of Macross 7 but there's no easy to get a clip onto YouTube without it immediately getting taken down I'm afraid.

I'm also 90% asleep posting, so take all of this with a grain of salt.

[Blade Azaezel]

Do you have some examples of mixed diagetic and non-diagetic film scenes?

Here's one:



Finally my film studies degree comes in handy...only took 8 years

[maz89]

This is a question for the film nerds out there. I apologize in advance for the lack of an easily accessible specific example to use.

Let's say we have Film Scene A where there is what appears to be nondiegetic music playing. Let's say we cut to Film Scene B, in a completely different location miles away with different characters but with the same music continuing. If the music is revealed to be diegetic in Scene B (Let's say a character is playing guitar or something, and that's the source of the music), the music would be nondiegetic still in the context of Scene A, correct?

In the context of Scene A, yes, it would be nondiegetic. Are you writing an essay?

[phe_de]

This is a question for the film nerds out there. I apologize in advance for the lack of an easily accessible specific example to use.

Let's say we have Film Scene A where there is what appears to be nondiegetic music playing. Let's say we cut to Film Scene B, in a completely different location miles away with different characters but with the same music continuing. If the music is revealed to be diegetic in Scene B (Let's say a character is playing guitar or something, and that's the source of the music), the music would be nondiegetic still in the context of Scene A, correct?

Not sure.
Let's suppose a romance movie, where one character is an orchestra player.
The lovers are separated at one point of the movie, we see the non-musician thinking about the other person, and an orchestra piece starts to play (nondiegetic), and then we cut to an orchestra scene where the musician is performing the piece, with the music playing seamlessly.

I'd say it's at least a grey area.

[Gendo]

Now that I know the term, I checked out a couple videos about it. So I guess it's not just music; things like sound, dialog, and visuals can be diegetic or not also.

This one video gave a cool example, talking about how in general, narration is a common form of non-diegetic dialog would be when there's narration in a film. But then it gave the example of Stranger Than Fiction... you have non-deigetic narration, that suddenly becomes diegetic when the character starts to hear his own narration.

[Raxivace]

Are you writing an essay?

Nah, it was just something I started thinking about randomly in the night and thought it might make for a good thread here.

[Chuckles_Otoole]

According to the Wikipedia description of "diagesis," I think musical theater falls into the "extradiegetic" category, as it is a form of narration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diegesis" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Chuckles_Otoole]

Here's a really excellent article discussing several hypotheses as to how one could categorize the musical aspect of musical theater:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... Hypotheses" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;"

There was a great episode of "Scrubs" that made use of the "All In Their Heads Hypothesis":

[Eva Yojimbo]

the music would be nondiegetic still in the context of Scene A, correct?

Correct. There's even a term for a cut in which the music/sound from one scene links to the music/sound in the next: L-Cut.

Now I'm wondering if there's a term for music that alternates between being diegetic and nondiegetic between scenes.

If there is I don't know about it. I'm guessing it would just be called a diagetic transition.

Related, but not quite the same, I've wondered if there's a term for the difference between a song in a musical that makes sense in the world of the musical vs one that doesn't... that is, most songs in musicals are outside of the normal world of the musical, characters have no logical reason for suddenly having a choreographed and memorized song and dance routine.

I also don't think there's a term for this, but John Carney is making a career out of doing musicals where the songs make sense inside the dramatic world. I've seen Once and Begin Again and they were both pretty good, but I feel like it's a formula that'll wear thin over time. One of things I find interesting about musicals is precisely their "abstract" (as Raxi called it) nature; the impetus for making them make sense inside the dramatic world makes the comparison to porn even more obvious.

[Chuckles_Otoole]

Musicals make sense if you consider the history, which is minstrel shows. In medieval times, basically you had minstrels wandering from village to dell, harp or lute in hand singing "lays," which are basically epic tales set to music, in exchange for food and shelter. Over time you would have groups of minstrels traveling together for safety, and when they arrived at their destination some of the minstrels would play music while other minstrels told the story in song while acting it out, and that's how modern musicals were born.

I would classify modern musicals as in-universe phenomenon, where the musical component is an element of the narration mechanism. The songs are a break in the fourth wall, and the actors are participating in the narration process, so "extradiegetic" is definitely the best description.

[Raxivace]

the music would be nondiegetic still in the context of Scene A, correct?

Correct. There's even a term for a cut in which the music/sound from one scene links to the music/sound in the next: L-Cut.

Awesome. I wasn't aware of this term, but it will be an important part of my film nerd vocabulary from now on.

[Eva Yojimbo]

the music would be nondiegetic still in the context of Scene A, correct?

Correct. There's even a term for a cut in which the music/sound from one scene links to the music/sound in the next: L-Cut.

Awesome. I wasn't aware of this term, but it will be an important part of my film nerd vocabulary from now on.

There's also the related J-Cut, which is basically the opposite. Here's a short, explanatory article: https://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/what-i ... o-editing/ They more typically refer to in-scene cuts (as in shot-reverse-shot dialogue), but the idea works just as well with scenic transitions.