Last night we combined 2 forms of media into one experience by watching the Wizard of Oz on Mute while listening to the Dark Side of the Moon turned up loud. I personally have done this many times before, but half of the people there had never done it, and one had no idea why we were.
Here's why we did it:
There is a widespread rumor that when Pink Floyd made Dark Side (1974) they wrote it as an alternate soundtrack to the Wizard of Oz (1939). Some Pink Floyd members refuse to comment on the rumor, and some have denied its validity. Either way, there is mystery surrounding it, and we wanted to see it for ourselves.
How we did it:
At the very beginning of the film, the MGM lion comes on and roars three times before the start of the film. right after the 3rd roar, you press play on the album. then mute the TV. So it begins. But the album is only 42 minutes long, while the film is an hour and 40 minutes. So you play the album on a loop and watch it 2.5 times through, all the way to the end of the film.
What we discovered:
We discovered several connections between the album and the film sporadically throughout the film. The main meat of the connections is found the first time through the record. I'm not going to go into detail as to the connections themselves; you'll have to come up with your own. We didn't have any conclusive evidence to support the rumor. At the same time, we found enough to make denying it difficult.
We also discovered that the album changes the mood of the movie dramatically. Compared to what we typically took from the movie, the new soundtrack gave us new impressions. Likewise, the album takes on new life when heard in conjunction with the film. But if our minds are in a duel as to how we're to feel while we're experiencing these 2 medias at once, the audio tends to beat the visual. Meaning that we tend to interpret what our eyes see by understanding what our ears are hearing rather than the other way around. Very fascinating. Especially since we are familiar with the film enough to KNOW what is going on and our minds are still pulled into interpreting it differently because of the change in sountrack.
Who all has tried doing this?
If so, what did you discover?
Jillmarie, thank you for bringing the coffee from Greenleaf, always a big hit!
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2 comments:
ha! i did it a long time ago so i don't have any fresh revelations, but i do remember how crazy the connection was between the two.
Hey Kirsten (I mean, Kiki... which is what I usually call you)!!! An interesting note is that there is a professor of film who has compared several different films synched with Dark Side of the Moon and only gave Wizard of Oz a 3 out of 5 score. He gave 2001: A Space Odyssey and Forrest Gump both 4's. That made me kind of want to try it with those movies... but I've seen Dark Side of the Rainbow so many times that it might be difficult to switch films this late in my life. :)
How the heck is DC? Also, have you ever seen any laser shows set to pink floyd albums? they can be pretty cool, as well
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