A few weeks ago while researching which past student K-film I wanted to write about for my film essay, I came across ‘Life is a Musical’ (2012).
Something pretty powerful happened inside this work for me, and that was recognising the power of the pause.
The piece is primarily about sound, and uses looped clips to create somewhat of a ‘soundtrack’ to life. However, where I really struggled was in thinking of the piece as conceptual overall (I think it makes more sense for me to say ‘continuous’ here instead) when there are breaks in the sound patterns. I found the flow constantly disjointed once I was within the rhythm that the fragments were giving me.
But then I stopped to think about what the film was actually doing, and I realised that this could be another really important way that the user can interpret meaning: through the spaces in between sounds.
An outstanding favourite lyric of mine is:
The only thing of worth you can learn from mine is that the spaces between words deserve to shine.
Junctures. Caesuras. Pauses. Rests.
They give the audience time to reflect, consolidate and appreciate. That’s powerful.