Music in Krzysztof Kieślowski's Film "Three Colors: Blue". A Rhapsody in Shades of Blue: The Reflections of A Musician

Music in Krzysztof Kieślowski's Film "Three Colors: Blue".
A Rhapsody in Shades of
Blue: The Reflections of a Musician
Author(s): Irena Paulus and Graham McMaster
Source: International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music , Jun., 1999, Vol.
30, No. 1 (Jun., 1999), pp. 65-91
Published by: Croatian Musicological Society
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3108380
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I. PAULUS, A RHAPSODY IN SHADES OF BLUE, IRASM 30 (1999) 1, 65-91 65
MUSIC IN KRZYSZTOF KIE8LOWSKI'S FILM THREE COLORS:

BLUE. A RHAPSODY IN SHADES OF BLUE: THE REFLECTIONS
OF A MUSICIAN
To a dear friend and editor
Dra2en Movre
IRENA PAULUS UDC: 778.534.4
Original Scientific Paper

Izvorni znanstveni dlanak
>>Franjo Luei(< School, Received: October 12,1998
Slavka Kolara 39, Primljeno: 12. listopada 1998.
Accepted: April 15, 1999
HR-10410 VELIKA GORICA, Prihvaeeno:15. travnja 1999.
Croatia
Abstract - Resume
In the film Three Colors: Blue by Polish di-not only scripted, but scored in advance. Com-
rector Krzysztof Kiedlowski, music has very im- poser and director found common language in
portant role. Composer Zbignew Preisner de- shaping film and music. The task of the music
fined Blue as >...a musical, not, of course, in the
was, according to the composer Preisner >...to
Hollywood sense. It talks about a composer who
depict the film, but cleverly so. This means that
there is no need to deal with the external events
composes for the sake of uniting Europe.<<
Kiedlowski required of the composer Preisner that
to we look at on the screen, but what is there
compose music on the basis of the film script in the people, what is in actors, and at the same
before film was shot. So the film narration was time in us ourselves, in the audience that is...<<
>The music should depict the film, but cleverly so. This means that there is no
need to deal with the external events that we look at on the screen, but what is
there in the people, what is in the actors, and at the same time in us ourselves, in
the audience that is...<<' These words, spoken by the film composer Zbigniew
Preisner, express the essence of the way he worked with Krzysztof Kieslowski. They
were spoken just a few months before the death of the Polish director who, after
' Katarzyna BIELAS, 6. 1. 1993, >Kompozitor, niestety Polak<<, Gazeta Wyborcza, Internet article
(translated into Croatian by Janina Welle).

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66 I. PAULUS, A RHAPSODY IN SHADES OF BLUE, IRASM 30 (1999) 1, 65--91
work on the trilogy Three Colors, significantly announced >that he was goin
shut himself into a room and smoke for the rest of his life: that he was finished
with filmmaking.<<2 Although he dedicated part of that life to Biblical themes, and
even broke his vow by starting work on the film Hell, Purgatory, Heaven, fate was
not kind to him: he died on March 13, 1996.
Kieslowski was fond of running polemics with established standards and >eter-
nal<< truths through a documentary and most frequently gray form of realism; he
understood the French national motto in Three Colors in inverse proportion to their
eternally idealistic interpretation. >>Blue, liberty. White, equality. Red, fraternity...
We looked very closely at these three ideas, how they functioned in everyday life,
but from and individual's point of view. These ideas are contradictory with hu-
man nature. When you deal with them practically, you do not know how to live
with them. Do people really want liberty, equality, fraternity?<<3 wondered
Kieslowski.
And so these three unusually titled films, with their still more unusual lead-
ing ideas, turned against themselves in their contents. Blue genuinely put on the
intimate uniform of blue, but Julie's infinite grief, her flight from reality and con-
cealment within herself became a synonym for a very unusual kind of freedom.
Neutral white very likely most successfully managed to reconcile the contrast be-
tween the real idea of equality and the distraught cry of the Pole Karol Karol in the
French court: >>Where is there equality here?<< Finally, the contradictoriness of red4
corresponds with such perfection to the film Red (the film is interwoven with sym-
bols of the past, present and future) that we no longer know whether the phrase
fraternity relates to the unusual relationship between Valentina and the elderly
judge, to one of the numerous subplots about Valentina's brother, or just indicates
the close connection that exists among the three films.
An inseparable combination: Kieslowski and Preisner in Three Colors: Blue.
The film Three Colors: Blue won a Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for
the best female role and the best photography. Unfortunately, it was disqualified
in the Oscar nomination processes because it was presented as being Polish, while
the commission decided that it was too French. Since something similar happened
with Red, Andrzej Krauze, the brother of the Polish director Antoni Krauze, could
not refrain from saying: >>Kiedlowski was a very Polish artist. A lot of people said
his Three Colors were not very good because he had lost the Polish soul. I do not
think this is true. He just wanted to be out of the Polish context. Generally, Polish
2 Eric C. PARKINSON, 1994, >Blue<<, Time Magazine, Internet article.

3 James BERARDINELLI, >Red&, Internet article.
4 When talking of the contradictoriness of red, we are thinking primarily of a sentence of Johannes
Itten: >>From demonic, uninhibited red-orange on a black background to cloying angelic pink, red can
express all transitions between the infernal and the exalted.<< (Johannes ITTEN, 1973 The Art of Color, (in
Serbian: Belgrade, Art Academy, Belgrade, p. 102).

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films suffer under the weight of this Polish culture and history. When I see a Wajda
film, I see all these symbols which only a Pole could understand.<<s
Irrespective of the prizes that Blue won or did not win, we shall deal with that
aspect of the film that is usually unjustly neglected, one that constitutes one of the
most important, if not the most important, elements of its success. For >>Blue is in
sense a musical, not, of course, in the Hollywood sense. It talks about a compose
who composes for the sake of uniting Europe.<<6
If the film's composer Zbigniew Preisner himself understands the film as
musical, then we do not need for a moment to consider the real significance of t
music. Of course, its importance was always underlined by director Krzyst
Kieslowski, who often demanded that the composer should write the music ac
cording to the script, before the shooting of the film. >>He said at once what h
needed,<< relates Zbigniew Preisner. >>I wrote the music at once, and when he started
shooting he had everything, the theme, the songs, the concerto... Shooting th
film, he knew exactly what we would do and what kind of emotions the musi
would create.7< According to Preisner, Kieslowski's attitude to music was reall
quite distinctive: >>It was not conceived only to underline atmosphere and am
ence. Krzystof wanted it to have strength to be an element of the film's narrati
This started happening in the Decalogue, but was really made use of in Veronica
double vie de Veronique - I. P.) and the Three Colors series, which allowed the mu
to work alongside the performances, to become part of the stor(ies). Sometim
there was no need for words or dialogue when he used my music.<<8
The dreamlike nature of the Dead March
It is in precisely this way that Van den Budenmayer's Dead March works i
Blue. Only once, at the beginning of the film, does the Dead March appear to pr
vide source music, as funeral music in the strict sense of the words. This is t
scene of the funeral of the famed composer Patrice and his little daughter, bot
killed in a traffic accident. Patrice's widow Julie watches the funeral on televisi
from hospital.
Apart from the scene being important for the first appearance of the De
March, it is also significant for being the first appearance of music in the film at al
In the beginning the film is filled with silence and realistic sounds, so that eve
appearance of music makes a particular impression, giving deliberate accent to t
scene.
We will very soon become aware of the fact that the March
film, one that, like an extended motif, represents Julie's sufferin
ries of her dead husband. This theme is connected with the darken
M Geoffrey MACNAB, Chris DRAKE, >>Working with Kieglowski<, Sight an

6 Katarzyna BIELAS, ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Geoffrey MACNAB, Chris DRAKE, ibid, p. 20.

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the >black hole< in her soul. Although the blackouts and blanks overturn >all th
rules of filmic punctuation<<9 they do, together with the music that is an essent
element of the suppression of recollections, ideally describe the weight of Julie
emotions.
No verbal explanations, in the shape of long scenes of dialogues, are required
alongside the >>black holes<< and Preisner's (or Van den Budenmayer's) music; this
is shown by one of the scenes of Julie swimming in the pool (it is impossible not to
note that these scenes are always bathed in a most gorgeous blue).
After having borrowed a neighbor's cat to kill a mouse and its young in her
flat, Julie swims in the pool weeping. After her comes the prostitute, Lucille, and
asks anxiously: >>You're crying?<< Nothing except the sudden blackness and the
sound of the March could at this moment have better described the abrupt influx of
memory and pain felt by Julie. The music and the black hole say it all. Julie is
afraid of the mice, but sees in the mouse with her young a mother with children
she has had killed. Here we begin to feel that Julie blames herself for the tragic
accident, although she really could have done nothing to save her husband and
daughter.10 The sounds of the Dead March on the one hand are just a small but very
effective comment to go with the blackness and the mental pain, and on the other
are a very powerful expression of the internal life of the main character.
An element of the detachment from reality and the flight into the self, the
Dead March in Blue represents one example of oneiric or metadiegetic sound in the
film. Mladen Milikevii has spoken of the dreamlike elements of the film; >At the
level of pure film, the oneiric implies a filmic pictorialness that stimulates para-
doxical experience. While at the rational level the event on the screen is under-
stood as absurd or impossible, at the same time it is accepted as >>reality<< and
engages the audience's full psychological and emotional involvement.<1" Accord-
ing to Milikevie there are five ways in which the metadiegetic impression is at-
tained:
1. Usual filmic noises are omitted, composed music appearing instead.
2. In places where the visions of the past are very short, no more than flashes,
the sound is made dreamlike by transformed noise (transformed by a special sound
processor).
3. Non-diegetic music can be considered metadiegetic when from the view-
point of the protagonist it is played very expressively, nourishing his subjectivity.
9 Dijana NENADIC, 1996. )>Three colors: blue<< (review), Croatian Film Chronicle, Zagreb, Croatian
Association of Film Critics, Croatian National Archives - Hrvatska kinoteka; Filmoteka 16, II, no. 5. p.
106.
10 In confirmation of our conclusion we should note that after the prostitute leaves the pool, a
group of children come running, arriving for training, which cannot be a coincidence. It is also not
accidental that Lucille asks )>Are you afraid of returning?< She is here thinking: back to the flat, where
the dead mice are. But Julie is thinking: to the world, without husband and child, and nods her head.
11 Mladen MILICEVIC, 1995, )>Film sound beyond reality: metadiegetic sound in the narrative
film, Croatian Film Chronicle, Croatian National Archives, Hrvatska kinoteka; Filmoteka 16, no. 3/4, p.
103 (quote from Vlada PETRIC, 1995: Oneiric Cinema: The Isomorphism of Film and Dreams, Cambridge,
Mass., HUP, printout for lecture Oneiric Cinema, p. 1).

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I. PAULUS, A RHAPSODY IN SHADES OF BLUE, IRASM 30 (1999) 1, 65--91 69
4. A metadiegetic sound is obtained by an increase of the volume of the soun

and
5. by the conflict of two different kinds of sound (through, for example, a
combination of diegetic and non-diegetic music).12
The first definition best corresponds to the role of the Dead March in Blue. This
is, then, composed metadiegetic music in front of which other noises retreat. The
concept of the hypnagogic image corresponds to the appearance of the >>black hole<
and the loss of all contact with reality (Militevik links it with this kind of metadiegetic
music). Psychology calls the moment of coming back to reality the hypnopompic
image; naturally, it exists every time Julie collapses into blackness.
Although in each one of these points music and image behave according to all
the rules, the academic principle is lost as soon as we observe the way they come
in. According to MiliCevik's research, that is (he demonstrates it with reference to
the music of Empire of the Sun), the hypnagogic state usually comes in gradually,
while the hypnopompic returns suddenly and rapidly. In Kieslowski, both states
occur suddenly and unexpectedly, but very carefully thought through, so that every
member of the audience experiences Julie's pain still more strongly.
Metadiegesis: sound in the head
With the progression of the accident/unhappiness - suffering - voluntary

isolation - gradually return to reality, a parallel progression appears in the film,
the creation of a work of music. Just as both narratives actually speak about shifted
states of consciousness, so in the second layer of the film we can find examples of
metadiegetic sound.
One of the earliest phases of a work of art takes for granted the origin of the
idea. The writer thinks of the idea inside himself, the painter sees it, and the musi-
cian hears it in his head. How, if at all, can a film director experience, understand
and then transfer to the big screen the way a melody, or a whole work of music,
comes into being?
The short but significant scenes that together with parts of one theme extend
through the film and within which the parts gradually grow into the Concerto for
the Unification of Europe show that Kieslowski himself either had the experience of
or in some way had a feeling for the sensibility of a musician and composer.
The scene in which for the first time a part of Preisner's beautiful theme is
heard goes like this. Julie, after coming back from hospital, stands on the gallery
and looks at scores. She flicks them over, as if looking for something. From some-
12 Ibid., p. 103-108. MiliCevif defines diegetic and non-diegetic music as follows: >>Sound that the
protagonist can perceive and understand all the time can be called diegetic, such as dialogue, sounds
and music that derives from the diegetic space (the scene). Non-diegetic sound is the opposite of this
for the protagonists are not aware of its existence, and cannot hear it. It includes, for example, voiceovers,
narration and composed music."< (Ibid., p. 103) I keep to the concepts given by Hrvoje TURKOVIC in
his conceptual dictionary of film music (Croatian Film Chronicle, II, March 1995, no. 5, pp. 80-86).

132.248.9.8 on Fri, 07 Oct 2022 17:31:29 UTC
where or other part of the theme is heard, yet this is a sound that no one e
Julie should be hearing because it is in her head. She quickly comes down fro
gallery, goes to the piano, takes a piece of paper from it and looks long at it. We
not see what is written on the paper, and can only just see that it is music
but we can hazard a guess: the theme we are listening to is written on it (
played on a piano, which makes us think this). Julie slightly nods her hea
folds the piece of paper, and at the same time the music suddenly stops, as
short. The manner in which the music disappears completely convinces us th
theme we have just heard is written down on the paper.
If the theme had not been played on the piano or had not suddenly en
together with the folding of the piece of paper, one would have no hesitati
saying that it was background music. But in this scene Julie was very consci
the music the source of which we did not see (we saw the piano, but not the
ist). This is, then, background music that can be considered metadiegetic b
?from the point of view of the protagonist it is played very expressively, no
ing her subjectivity?.
Confirmation that the piece of paper really was music paper and that the bac
ground theme played was actually written on it can be found only a few m
later in the scene in which Julie once again takes the paper into her hand
time, the camera carefully follows the score with her. The scene represen
internal moment of the musician, and everyone who can read a score and ca
low the theme will see how deeply it is thought out. Alternations between
score and Julie's face are edited according to the thematic structure, that is, acco
ing to the alternation of musical phrases and sentences. This leads to the co
sion that composer Preisner was constantly present not only in the filming
also in rehearsing the actors and finally at the cutting table.
Switching from the score to Julie's face (according to all the rules of m
form) will end at the moment when there are no more notes on the paper,
however the theme (in the echoing, unearthly performance on the piano) stil
ing. Julie follows the empty paper with her eyes, and the music still goes on in
head. She, then, is composing, imagining the continued progression of the m
Thus here, in the earliest phase of the film, for those who know how to list
answer to the journalist's question >Did you compose the music for your h
band?<< is already given. As far as we are concerned, is there any point at
recalling our doubt that a film director can show the compositional process
Both examples show that music in the head, music heard in the self (int
hearing) can be treated as a kind of background music that through its expr
ness will show the subjectivity of the character and thus become metadieg
However, the music in Blue shows that any kind of music in the head
metadiegetic: even that which is not so very expressive, even that which is h
audible.
An example of such music can be found in the scene in which Olivier comes to
visit Julie after her return home. The real reason for his coming is to take the in-
complete score of the Concerto for the Unification of Europe, because he has a feeling
that Julie is going to destroy it. Olivier stands alone in the room and goes over the

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score of the dead composer. In the background, very softly, can be heard the sou
of various instruments and groups of instruments, similar to the sounds of
chestra tuning up before a concert, or the sounds from the corridors of a m
school or theatre where various pieces of music make their way from various
of the building. These are the sounds that Olivier quickly perceives with his
nal hearing as he turns over the pages of the score.
This is once again sounds in the head, sounds that are heard in the self
result of reading the score without an instrument. This time too we think of a s
state of consciousness, similar to that when a man reads sections of a book
loses connection with reality for a moment. This is, then, metadiegetic music, w
fits perfectly in with the mosaic of music, composing, deliberate isolation and fl
from reality.
With the appearance of music in the head, narrowly understood, and m
broadly understood as metadiegetic or oneiric music, the distinction between
that is part of the scene, and source and background music, begins to lose it
point. Because this is music that is at the same time diegetic and non-dieg
background, music that is diegetic in content, but which is not heard in the
ambience, being heard only by the person who imagines it or reads the sc
themselves. The music accordingly gives depth to the character, revealing w
going on in his head, that is, revealing his thoughts. Oneiric music lets us be
mate with the character, lets us think, breathe, tremble and, in general, pe
just as the character does.
Very considerable skill and art is required to pull this off. The work on
film was, without any doubt, long-lasting and careful, and not a single detail is l
to chance. What was needed, apart from the director's firm hand, was clo
operation among all the people working on the film, actors, composer and e
alike. But the result of this co-operation is that the film is experienced three-dim
sionally, the music being perceived with not only one but with at least two
The music is heard, but it can also be seen (we look not only at the figure o
character or a landscape, but the score, the movement and even the tone o
music), felt (through the feelings of the character), thought (sound in the head),
can almost be touched and smelled. Music in Blue becomes a physical body t
not just a fiction and a fantasy, but represents reality, is a real part of Julie's li
genuine reality, however ugly or beautiful that reality might be.
Theme as Julie
The main theme, which is tightly connected with Julie and her thoughts
tainly contributes to the experience of the music as a living being. Throug
structure (the phrases are separated by pauses from each other) it reminds
the gradualness of the process of creating musical thoughts, but at the sam
stresses the isolation, helplessness and listlessness of the young woman. The
contains the multi-facetedness of Julie's spirit. The theme is the main devi
transmitting her thoughts, because she speaks little, and thinks much, givin
or resisting her own grief.

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Example 1: Julie's theme
Visually and audibly the theme is very simple (in a melodic, a harmonic and a
formal sense) but in spite of that it is exceptionally beautiful. It owes its beauty
primarily to its musical characteristics, and thus corresponds to Hanslick's con-
ception of the musically beautiful.
The first musical aesthetician Eduard Hanslick writes: >Meaningful relation-
ships among tones that are in themselves stimulating, their harmony and opposi-
tion, their divergence and convergence, their rises and their dying falls - this is
what appeals to our spiritual maturation and what pleases us as the beautiful.<<'3
According to Hanslick, the nature of the beautiful in tonal art is specifically musi-
cal, that which is, then, independent of any substance that might accrue to it from
without. Accordingly, Preisner's theme, which is clearly inspired by Julie and her
sadness, is not beautiful because of its connection with the main character, but
exclusively because of its own musical characteristics.
Hanslick's conception of musical aesthetics would work absolutely if it were
not a matter of film but only of concert music. Since film music is thought up in
relation to images, is both led and inspired by them, it is hard to imagine Julie
without the theme, or the theme without Julie. But we have to admit that not even
the marvelous acting of Juliette Binoche could adequately express musical beauty.
Preisner's theme owes its distinction to its exceptional musical qualities, most of
all to the melodiousness, which Hanslick states as being the fundamental form of
the musically beautiful.
The theme most commonly accompanies Julie as if it were a thought that is in
her head, but in some scenes the melody is quite simply present as an integral part
of her character. This is particularly apparent in the scene in which Julie stays the
whole night on the steps.
Someone on the stairs is fleeing in panic from an unknown assailant, and Julie
listens in terror to the sounds of the chase and the cries for help. The cries from the
stairs suddenly die away and, inquisitive, she goes out of her flat. The door closes
behind her from the draft, and she realizes that she has not taken the keys of the
flat. Just as helplessly and listlessly as the way in which she drinks her coffee every
morning, Julie sits in the dark on the stairs. A blue light plays over her head (from
some unknown source), and this phenomenon is accompanied by several phrases
of Julie's theme. These few tones, separated from each other by pauses, colored by
the dark colors of a muttered male choir, are an expression of a deep sigh and
resignation to fate, and open up the way to the blue light that, like a halo, plays
above Julie's head.
Appearing from image to image, whether as a form of background music,
whether as metadiegetic music, Julie's theme contains its own aesthetic beauty,
although structurally it is hardly altered at all. The only thing that changes is the
instrumentation: it is either carried by the harp (when Julie moves into her new
13 Eduard HANSLICK, 1966, Of the Musically Beautiful, Belgrade, Beogradski izdavatko-grafitki

zavod, p. 83.

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flat) or by strings (when she makes love with Olivier) or by the muttering male
choir (when she sits on the steps), or the one simple piano line rich in echoes (which
comes like a dream from Julie's head).
The tempo of the theme absolutely corresponds to the tempo of the film. Just
as Kiedlowski was fond of gazing long at his documentary images, he always won-
dered again and again at the beauty of Preisner's melody. The theme is repeated
always in the same tempo, always the same structure, even though clad in a differ-
ent instrumental garb. This absolutely corresponds to Krzystof Kieslowski's work
as a director: work with a great deal of patience, through which he attempted to
seize every single moment, so that it should not flutter past in vain, unperceived.
The >struggle< of the theme and the Dead March
The identity of the theme is revealed only just before the end of the film, when
Olivier and Julie attempt to complete her dead husband's Concerto for the Unifica-
tion of Europe. At a moment of shortage of inspiration, Julie takes a piece of music
paper in her hand, saying: >>There is one theme...o This is the Memento, written by
the Dutch composer, Van den Budenmayer, which Patrice wished to put in the
Finale of the Concerto. The theme, then, was not written by Julie, which we might
have supposed during the film. The theme is the work of the composer Van den
Budenmayer, the author of the Dead March from Patrice's funeral.
The name of the composer Van den Budenmayer crops up in other Kieslowski
feature films, from Decalogue to Three Colors. Since the music credits in all these
films go to Zbigniew Preisner, it is easy to conclude that he is the real Van den
Budenmayer. Some people have nevertheless believed the Dutch composer actu-
ally to have existed. The reason for this is the always distinctive style of the in-
vented composer, different to some extent from the style of Zbigniew Preisner; his
work is characterized by great leaping intervals (he is fond of using octave and
three tone leaps). Although Van den Budenmayer's themes are very acrobatic, and
so make considerable demands on a performer, they are, after the example of his
forefather Preisner, exceptionally melodic. They are often performed by a high
female voice (mainly with a neutral syllable and only occasionally with words),
the voice of Preisner's friend from student days, the brilliant soprano Elzbieta
Towarnicka. As well as being sung, the work of the Dutch composer is also some-
times played. The composer's favorite instrument was clearly the piano (Julie's
theme!), through the sounds of which he attempted to bring out all the warmth of
what is actually a percussion instrument (hammers strike the strings!).
Let us recall: in Three Colors: Blue, Van den Budenmayer is the composer of the
Dead March and the short Memento, the theme that becomes the trade mark of
Julie's isolation.
The link between the Dead March and the theme was strengthened by their
real father, Zbigniew Preisner. During the film, Julie slowly comes out of her pain
and returns to reality. At one moment she is perfectly calm, enjoying the sunshine,
and at another, things go black in front of her eyes, while at a third she attempts to

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commit suicide. Preisner shows the sudden changes in her mental state by switch-
ing from the Dead March and the beautiful >>sighing< theme; they finally unite in
the no-holds-barred struggle in the deep blue pool.
The scene referred to is brought about by previous events. Thanks to a wit-
ness of the accident, Julie has learned of the final words of her husband and got her
daughter's necklace back. Attempting to palliate the newly awakened pain, she
swims in the pool. The music starts the moment Julie suddenly stops getting out of
the pool and gets back into the water, gives herself over to helpless floating.
The music of the scene links the main theme and the Dead March, two com-
pletely contradictory compositions of the same artist. Since the theme is stated by
the strings, and the Dead March by the wind section, the section is experienced as a
conflict between strings and wind instruments, life and death, the living Julie and
her dead husband Patrice. The themes literally fight, interrupting one another in
mid-phrase, drowning each other and >>quarreling<<, in their attempt to do down
the >>rival<<. It would seem that their powers are identical, but as the scene begins
and ends with the Dead March (an element of the sudden welling up of pain and
memory), and Julie once again attempts suicide, it becomes clear that the return to
the world of reality will be for her neither simple nor easy. We learn of all this
through the music, because the film image (Julie floating on the surface of the
water) is very terse from the point of view of supporting the narration of the film's
story.
The struggle between the two musical parts is also convincing because of the
symbolic meaning of each of the musical rivals.
On the one hand there is the theme. Although it was written by Van den
Budenmayer, the theme is, as we have stated earlier, Julie's, in the way of a leitmo-
tif. It accompanies all the transformations the young woman passes through as she
struggles with pain, memory and her new life. The melody, structure and tempo
of the theme are always the same, its significance changing through the instru-
mental color. This color is a synonym for the mood and mental state of the un-
happy Julie. (We cannot resist the impression that it is no accident that the concept
of color in a musical sense is particularly important in a film whose title itself is a
color.)
On the other hand, the Dead March, which in this scene so significantly >strug-
gles< with the main theme, represents the memory that will not give Julie peace:
these are her dearest ones, who were alive a short time before, and now are gone.
This is a fact that a person finds it hard to come to terms with.
Of the symbolism of Van den Budenmayer's themes in Blue, we can observe
the particular approach by which Zbigniew Preisner made filmic use of music that
within the film's story has its own composer. According to all the laws of film and
narration, this music should on the whole be diegetic. But it seldom is, much more
often being non-diegetic, background music that sometimes has the role of music
in the head, sometimes of metadiegetic sound, but that always works, as we have
seen in the previous examples, in the manner of a filmic leitmotif. A leitmotif, it is
true, usually represents a person, a thing, place or idea, but in Blue, the leitmotif
has several functions and appears as thought, state of mind, reminiscence or mood.

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The film theme becomes, then, an expression of internal drama that is hidden and
finds expression with much more difficulty than various external manners of dra-
matic or musical narration.
Patient repetition of leitmotif (with minimal musical variations) enables the
melody to get into the audience's subconscious, like a symbol, to become the clue
to the psychological states of the main characters. The lack of musical develop-
ment in the themes is justified by their functionality in the film and the way they
work on the subconscious of the audience. The music works subconsciously be-
cause of its secondary role in the film, the loudness of background music, the way
the image attracts the audience's primary attention and so on. The repetition of the
filmic themes is also psychologically justified by the need for the music to be re-
membered through repeated (even if unconscious) listening, so that the viewers
are capable of linking it with a given symbol, idea or state of mind. Thus the func-
tioning and use of the leitmotif is not banal and inappropriate to the musically
educated viewer (as Hans Eisler emphasizes in his film music criticism) but is
adapted to the functioning of the film as a complete work of art. It depends on the
skill of the composer whether the adaptation of music to the screen is going to be
refined or trivial. In Three Colors: Blue the music is so carefully thought through (by
both director and composer) that we can have no doubt as to its complexity and
quality.
The mysterious composer Van den Budenmayer
The role of leitmotif and recurring theme in Krzystof Kieslowski's feature films
does not belong only to Preisner's music, but also to the character and work of the
composer Van den Budenmayer. His name occurs for the first time in the Decalogue
(Ninth Commandment, 1988). In this film Kies'lowski wanted to have a classical
composer, and so Preisner wrote several sections that stood out stylistically from
the musical context. When they once had the music, the composer and the direc-
tor, both great lovers of Holland, decided that the name of the new composer in
the film should be Dutch. Thus Van den Budenmayer was born, composer in the
neo-Romantic style who skillfully combines elements of classical romanticism with
contemporary techniques of composition.
After Decalogue, the same composer appeared in the film La double vie de
Veronique, 1991. This confused many people. In this film, Van den Budenmayer is
mentioned as a composer of the latter half of the 19th century, and it is to him that
the lovely Concerto in E minor is ascribed. Intrigued, people started combing ref-
erence works and history of music textbooks hoping to find something more about
this fine composer. Of course, they found nothing, because the real WVan den
Budenmayer< was sitting at home in Poland and, under the same pseudonym,
writing new musical fragments for the Three Colors trilogy of Krzystof Kieslowski.
There are several reasons for Preisner and Kieslowski having so skillfully and
convincingly deceived their audience. First, and most importantly, Preisner always
changed his style when a musical work was being ascribed to Van den Budenmayer.

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Then, the mystical composer was always attributed with concert music
was performed in some films, and in others appeared on disc (Decalogue
(Three Colors: Red). In addition, the name of the same composer has been
four different films (Decalogue: Ninth Commandment, The Double Life of Ver
Three Colors: Red and Three Colors: Blue.) Finally, the same work by the
appears in two different films, five years apart from each other - Ninth Com
ment and Red.
When the impotent surgeon Romek bought a disc by Van den Budenmayer
(Decalogue), he could not have guessed that five years later the model Valentina
(Red) would be listening to the same music. In Red Van den Budenmayer's music
appears for the first time in a bowling alley where Valentina is attempting to forget
the elderly judge who listens to the telephone calls of his neighbor. The music
begins when the camera moves panoramically around the set and continues into
the following scene in which the judge is writing an anonymous letter, reporting
himself to the police. The music, then, is background, not diegetic, and has the job
of linking the two scenes together. What is fascinating is that it is absolutely the
same music that plays from Romek's new disc in Decalogue.
Since Red teems with symbols, the meaning of Van den Budenmayer's music
in Ninth Commandment should be sought primarily in its symbolism. We shall find
it in the key scene from Red, where the old judge recalls his youth (almost identical
to the actuality of Valentina) and relates how a woman he loved left him and went
off with someone else. If we link this story with the text of the ninth command-
ment and the motto of the film of that name, do not lust after your neighbor's wife,
we will no longer have anything to wonder at in the use of the same musical sec-
tion in two different films. In both Decalogue and Red Kieslowski interpreted the
meaning of the ninth commandment within everyday life. That is why the >do not
lust after your neighbor's wife< does not relate to the lovers, but to those who
suffer most - the deceived husbands. Listening to the hidden musical message,
we can only admire the skill with which Kieslowski and Preisner have managed
to link content and symbolism in the two films.
Pulling his earlier works together in Red, Kieslowski made use of the music in
one other place. This happens in the scene in which Valentina is listening to the
Van den Budenmayer music already mentioned in a CD shop (by chance, the young
man and a girl whose fates we are also following in the film are there near her).
Valentina is delighted by the glorious soprano (the voice of Elzbieta Towarnicka,
Preisner's favorite singer) and decides to buy the CD. While she is in the shop she
talks with the salesman who tells her that Van den Budenmayer's CDs are sold
out; the air is filled with all kinds of music the shoppers are listening to. At one
moment a piece of the main theme from White is heard, done by a string sextet.
Thus a link is set up between the two films, Red and White.
Music is hard to remember without listening to it a number of times, and it is
still more difficult to recognize a fragment that does not start from the beginning,
and so it seems that the composer's message and the reminiscence of White are
primarily addressed to practiced ears, to musicians, that is. The scene is musically
almost as subtle as the scene from Blue already mentioned, in which Olivier flicks

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through Patrice's score, while in the background, hardly noticeably, come the co
fused sounds of different orchestral instruments.
Three Colors: Red is Krzystof Kieslowski's last feature film. He vowed that af-
ter Red he would shoot no more films. Fate lent him a hand, stopping his work on
a new project with which he had broken his vow. In fact, it seems as if Kieslowski
sensed his coming death, because, although he did not keep the promise given to
the press, in Red he caught up his earlier films in various ways. In this he made use
not only of the images, acting, fabulae, common characters14 and common scenes
of the trilogy15 but also of many other more less obvious filmic devices, among
them film music.
The music of composer Zbigniew Preisner is not remarkable only for its purely
musical characteristics (of which we can read in Hanslick's musical aesthetics).
With the introduction of Van den Budenmayer, the music becomes such an inte-
gral part of the film's narration that it is impossible not to perceive the close con-
nection of the Kiedlowski-Preisner films.
In the history of film music, there have often been reminiscences or allusions
to other films, the purpose of which is to recall, in a new context, some other filmic
story or character. With Kieslowski the purpose is different. He wants the music to
refer to itself.
The role of musical reminiscences in other directors' films is only occasionally
symbolic and only occasionally requires the maximum amount of engagement on
the part of the audience. And film music associations are usually made very bla-
tantly, in the effort to awaken the appropriate association in the audience. It is
never like this with Kieslowski. He sends his messages quietly, intending them
for those who know how to decipher them. In the case of musical messages, they
are meant for musicians and all others who watch and listen to films with a deal of
care. To those who, like him, revel in every movement of a film, every blink of an
eye, every transition and every sound. It is not surprising that a director like
Kiedlowski should structure his films around music (and not vice-versa) and that
he does not introduce a given character, object, natural phenomenon or idea as the
leitmotif of his films. His leitmotif is a very characteristic sound: the music of an
invented Dutch composer.
The mystery of the busker
Van den Budenmayer has deliberately drawn us away from the main theme,
the music in the film Three Colors: Blue. Let us return, then, to Blue, musically and
filmically Kiedlowski's most successful color.
14 The woman barrister who defends Dominique in White is actually the mistress of Julie's dead
husband in Blue; all the characters from the trilogy can be found in the marine accident at the end of
Red.
15 Scene in the courtroom: the divorce of Karol Karol and Dominique appears in White and Blue;
the scene of the hunched old woman throwing a bottle into the bottle bank appears in all three films.

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78 I. PAULUS, A RHAPSODY IN SHADES OF BLUE, IRASM 30 (1999) 1, 65-91
In Blue, two themes that by sheer chance (or deliberately) belong to the D
composer Van den Budenmayer are particularly in the forefront. The Dead M
and Julie's theme. Both of them will become important parts of the structure of
Concerto for the Unification of Europe, a few bars of which were written
deceased Patrice. But two themes are not enough for the Concerto; just as
after a certain time, is not enough for herself.
One sad morning, sitting in the caf6, drinking coffee, Julie sees a street mu
cian playing on a recorder. The simple melody seems to bring a kind of secu
into her withdrawn life, and becomes a hardly noticeable beginning of her
ing up and coming out of the dark.
The music starts at the moment Julie puts a spoon of ice-cream into her mou
For a moment it seems to us that the slow, melancholy theme of the recorde
resents one more expression of the pain of mother and wife who has lost her
ily, because we do not see where it is coming from. And then, slowly, with
Kiedlowski shows us the street flautist lost in his playing. Following the m
ment of the musical sentences, the image, with a slight delay, reveals a new,
sual character of the film and a new, still more unusual music, and then at
shows Julie listening raptly to the music.
Although he knowingly reveals the simple musical structure of the mel
Kies'lowski abruptly halts the theme in mid-phrase with the beginning of a
scene. This is not the first time for Kieslowski to dwell admiringly on musi
ruthlessly to cut it short the next second. Right until the end of the film the di
does not allow a single theme to develop, opening thus a musical space filled
expectation. The abrupt interruption of the theme, the beauty of which Kies
has been so rapt and delighted by that he attempted to attract the attention
audience with it as well, seems to have been a deliberate device. And perha
objective is to encourage the audience to complete the musical thought tha
been set off, encourage them to behave like composers.
The busker's theme appears for the second time in one of the scenes com
to all three films. This is the scene of a little bent old woman attempting to
the opening of a bottle bank to throw a bottle in. The scene is watched by
from a bench; she is enjoying the springtime sunshine. The recorder theme
the previous scene, but now it is background and not diegetic music.
The theme is edited with the picture in a very particular way, revealing
little earlier, the inner structure of the music. The alternations of the musical p
are linked with the switches between the old woman and Julie, until, to a s
musical sentence, the old woman pulls it off and goes, leaving Julie to enjoy
sunshine.
The musical phrases are separated by flashes of sunlight. These are frames
blinded by sun, showing what Julie sees and feels. The sun-bathed screen is a pow-
erful antithesis of the >>black holes<, the blackness of which Julie experiences as the
consequence of grief and the memory of her loved ones. In this, it seems, the idea
that the recorder theme is the return to reality, the reestablishment of links with
the world, is confirmed. Naturally, this return is not painless, nor is it unexpected,
and in the very next scene the Dead March of Van den Budenmayer will bring
about one more >>black hole< in Julie's memory.

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The third and final encounter with the music of the busker is a definite pro
of the opening up of the young woman. Julie is once again in the caf6 and here s
is found by Olivier. It is not by accident that the encounter with the old friend,
love with her into the bargain, takes place at the time when the busker comes on
the street and starts a new tune on his recorder. Nor would it appear to be accide
tal that the melody is a variation of Julie's theme, which the flautist performs while
retaining the typical triplet rhythms of the previous melodies. The triplets rec
the barrel-organ, instrument of fairs and streets, the aim of them being to tran
form the theme into light music with a hidden interior beauty.
In spite of all the masks, Julie at once recognizes the theme and decides to as
the busker what he is playing. She knows the answer, but is surprised when s
hears that the flautist plays >>whatever occurs to him<<, that he improvises.
The role of the busker and his three different melodies is clear: they (the char-
acter and the music) are here to bring a beam of light into the darkness and t
rescue the unhappy Julie from the blackness. The first time, the recorder awake
her interest; the second time she enjoys it although she does not hear the sounds
the music; the third time, she recalls the uncompleted melodies that will later le
her to start composing again.
But the busker is a strange man. He plays on the street, sleeps on the pav
ment, and in the last scene is brought to the street by a woman in a vast black c
His way of life is very unusual; he is clearly not poor, but behaves as if he wer
and enjoys doing so. He particularly likes improvising for his street audience. Do
the discovery of the truth about the busker and his profound love for music awa
Julie's dormant love for composition? If it does not do so directly, it certainly d
indirectly. Because at this stage of the film the fates of different people start being
interwoven, and Julie can no longer avoid new acquaintanceships (the friendsh
with the prostitute Lucille) or old friends. Her gentle nature, full of kindness f
others, finally moves towards what it loves most: music and composition.
Concerto for the Unification of Europe
Julie's love for music, like everything else, is revealed gradually. At the begin-
ning of the film, Julie in no way shows that she loves it. On the contrary, the scene
in which she ruthlessly throws scores into the garbage truck says exactly the oppo-
site. Music and sound effects back up this impression. After the death of her hu
band, Julie goes to the archivist who is keeping the unfinished score of the Concerto
for the Unification of Europe. The archivist is thrilled with the music and expresses
her admiration in the words >It is lovely. I like the choir.< And points with h
hand at the first bar of the score that (in the music in the head manner) the aud
ence can hear at the same time. The composition certainly sounds grand and spe
binding, and its sounds accompany Julie even after the finger of the archivist h
ceased to follow the notes. (Here, metadiegetic music becomes background mu
sic.) Julie then takes the score and throws it into the garbage truck. The music that
we have previously wondered at disappears slowly into the crushing mechanis
and we listen to the gears grinding and ripping it, to the Concerto dying screaming.

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Although music is not a living being, especially not a loved living being,
destruction of the score is experienced as the death of a loved person. Of cour
is primarily the composer, Preisner, who is to blame for this, having been ca
of composing music that we will fall in love with after the first bar, musi
destruction of which will be as much of a blow to us as it is to the archivist and to
Julie (by destroying the score that she loves Julie just wanted to destroy the memory
of her loved ones).
Treated partially as metadiegetic and partially as background music, the score
of the Concerto for the Unification of Europe works in this scene mainly as sounds in
the head. It is experienced as a living being that one moment is brilliant in its
beauty, and another crying for help because it is being put violently to death.
As we learn from the film, it was Julie's husband Patrice (or perhaps Julie
herself) who started to write the Concerto intended for the Council of Europe, to be
played by twelve symphony orchestras in twelve great cities of united Europe.
The words for the choral passages, which from the beginning fix the attention and
arouse admiration, are from the First Epistle to the Corinthians. They are sung in
Greek, and speak of love as the only and greatest meaning in life.16
Love is certainly omnipresent in the film. But not only Julie's love for her
husband and daughter and her new love for Olivier. It is also her sleeping and
newly awakened love for music.
How much Julie loved music and how much she enjoyed composing it can be
seen in the scene in which the Concerto is composed, in which Julie and Olivier
together attempt to complete the score that has been started. The scene is pulled
off so convincingly that it is difficult to believe the actors are not real composers
16 The First Epistles to the Corinthians, 12, 1-13.

1. Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, and I have not love, I am become as
sounding brass, or tinkling cymbal.
2. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge;
and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am
nothing.
3. (And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be
burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.)
4. Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not
puffed up;
5. (Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no
evil;)
6. (Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth;)
7. Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.
8. Charity never faileth; but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be
tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.
9. (For we know in part, and we prophesy in part.)
10. (But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.)
11. (When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child; but when I became a man, I
put away childish things.)
12. (For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then
shall I know even as also I am known.)
13. And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Verses in brackets are not used in the Concerto for the Unification of Europe.

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and that they have never been professionally involved with music. Of course, ne
ther Kieslowski nor Preisner wanted to leave the shooting of this delicate scene t
chance, and they instituted special musical training for the actors. >>In Blue,<< sa
Preisner, >>Juliette Binoche was with me during the recording of the music for the
Concerto before the shooting started, a good and very useful experience for us both.
She was able to observe the working method of an orchestra, and the techniques
composition, and I was able to explain to her how an orchestra is recorded<<.17
The music of the scene of the composition of one part of the Concerto is
reworking of Olivier's theme. This theme appeared a few minutes earlier, a pow
erful masculine theme that says where Julie set out for after visiting her sick moth
(to Olivier's, of course). It is interesting that themes work their way gradually in
the film, so that we are not overloaded with them, and have time to listen to ea
one properly, to remember it and get to like it. Because of this gradual introdu
tion, some of them dominate the film (Dead March, Julie's theme), because they are
there from the very beginning, while others can be heard and admired only a fe
scenes before the end of the film (like Olivier's theme).
The composition scene is actually a scene of Julie's pain being merged into
calmness, into coming to terms with herself and her fate, into a new kind of happi-
ness. Julie is obviously enjoying herself while she is telling Olivier which orche
tral parts should be thrown out and which brought in, and expresses her renew
happiness and new finding of herself by being gradually blurred, enabling th
audience to enjoy the music completely calmly. This is one of the few examples i
the history of film music in which the image deliberately withdraws into the back-
ground and privileges music which is usually a subaltern if very important ingr
dient of a film. This means that the external is completely overawed by the inte
nal, material gives way to idea, reality is lost so that it is possible for the whole
the being to be immersed into the sound and the imagination.
In the next frame the picture is clear again, Julie sitting calmly, smiling, free o
pain. As if the music has facilitated some kind of inner recovery, there has bee
some kind of music therapy, not in a literal sense, but much more sophisticated
A better word would be healing, not recovery, since Julie has been recovering
throughout the film, going through various phases of isolation, finding salvatio
only in music, the crown of her wishes, hopes and her unsuccessful fight again
memories of her loved ones. It is not necessary to insist that this moment is th
zenith, in which sorrow, suffering, black holes, deep sighs and struggles with fa
vanish. Through music Julie has liberated her inner ego, but has at the same tim
consciously stepped into the cage of the quotidian, of love, obligations and mo
notony.
The music in the scene appears as if it were welling up from the score. Julie
follows the violin part with her finger, listening to it in herself. What is very unu-
sual is that her finger at the beginning slides over the paper, showing the notes
very precisely; however, when the music flares up, the finger starts moving faster
than the score, as if the music were flowing faster than what is written. Thus after
17 Geoffrey MACNAB, Chris DRAKE, ibid., p. 20.

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the first bar we can no longer link the score with what we hear. The question aris
whether this is an accidental failing, one that since it is purely musical most
ers will not notice, or whether it is for some reason deliberate?
In spite of all her musical training and conversations with the composer,
actress, Juliette Binoche, does not, nevertheless, have any musical training. V
likely she followed the score by ear, allowing the music to lead her, but got lo
a certain moment. It is hard to believe this, because Krzystof Kieslowski was
cise and a perfectionist in everything, and thus in following the score (we m
recall the way Julie's theme is followed at the beginning). He must have requ
the composer to be present in the shooting of such scenes, and such a flaw c
arise only if the composer for some reason were not present at the shooting
this would be a flaw as well.
Much more likely is the other possibility, that the composer and director de-
liberately allowed to the actress to follow the score instinctively, according to her
own feeling for the music, because at that moment the score was not so important
any more. Julie finally feels liberated from all her sufferings and pain, she finally
revels in life, creating a work of art. It seems logical that in her own liberation she
would thus ?liberate<< the music of the score, allowing it to >well up<< and >swell?
with its own inner power. The music's ?>lack of constraint<< and >disobedience? to
the score were allowed by both composer and director. For in the scene it is any-
way no longer important what is seen (the image will later be blurred), and it is
much more important what is heard.
Example 2. Concerto for the Unification of Europe, strings part
Having solved the problem of the score, we should say something of the im-
portance of the orchestration, which is quite simply remarkable. One important
piece of information is that Olivier starts playing the violin part on the piano. Al-
though the only source of music is the piano, the part is played by the piano and
violin in unison. The piano appears as a diegetic instrument (we can see Olivier
playing, and expect piano sounds), while the violin is metadiegetic (for Julie and
Olivier hear the right sound color in themselves, just as written down in the score).
Thus the compositional process from the very beginning becomes a process of
playing with the colors of the sounds. Some instrumental colors are added, and
some are subtracted, colors are combined and mixed, some are put one on top of
the other, others remain to shine independently as solo parts. The whole creative
process is directed towards having the musical lines there still more enhanced and
foregrounded. Color and line rule the film image. These are pictorial concepts that
are now totally put into aural frameworks and transformed into musical concepts.
Therefore, without any fear that a hiatus will result, the image can for a moment
disappear and relinquish its role to music, which is completely in charge of all
feelings and senses.
Music becomes the primary filmic element, absorbing all attention. It is heard,
seen and imagined. The process of creating music is so carefully planned out that

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Kieslowski brings us to a state in which we become worshippers of music, althou

we might not have been so a minute earlier.
Blue in Blue
When we come to the close connection between musical and painterly colo
we can no longer avoid recollection of Wagner's idea about the linkage of all t
arts into one, which he called opera, and we can call film. Kieslowski provoked t
idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk with the film's title itself, foregrounding the name of
given color. This has set up a link between the fine arts and the film. And since the
film talks of music, and since music occasionally becomes the most important el
ment in it, it is impossible not to wonder where the border between the three ar
is. There is no border, because they join, in common points such as color, line
shape and harmony.
In the words of Branko Pra2ik: >By itself, color says absolutely nothing, an
only when it is in some connection with other colors can it take on significance and
meaning and become expression. There is no painting in which color is an end in
itself. It has to be noticed, felt, experienced.<18 Surely these words can be appli
precisely to the composition scene in which instrumental colors burst out in th
fervor of Olivier's and Julie's act of composition. If the concept of >>picture<< is just
replaced by the concept of >music(, Pra2i?'s thesis takes on a new meaning in
different art.
In this scene, Pra2ik's sentence >>While form is subject to control by the intel-
lect, color opens up the door to the emotions<19 corresponds to both music an
picture. According to the vocabulary of Blue, this sentence is translated as follow
Julie is overwhelmed by emotions the whole of the film, although she attempts
repress them. They well up from her when she composes as well, but directin
them into the right form, that of music, she can control them and cope with them.
Only at that moment when form encompasses her feelings expressed through music
are they trammeled and capable of being made part of everyday life, capable
being presented to the public and the world in the form of the Concerto.
Painting and music, both arts and both oriented to a single given sense, hav
to find a common language in Blue. And how should they not be able to, when
concepts like color, line, tone painting, form, chromatics, harmony and the twel
part circle are used in both arts? Perhaps for this reason the music in the film ?feels
somehow blue(.
The significance of the color blue, then, is not connected exclusively with t
French flag and the motto of liberty. Kieslowski and his usual scriptwriter Krzystof
Piesiewicz aimed at a deeper expression of filmic blue than through its symboli
Johnnes Itten wrote of the symbolism of blue in painting some twenty years befor
the creation of the trilogy Three Colors: >>Blue is always cold, red warm. Blue works in
18s Branko PRAZlC, 1989 Sight and appearance of Art, Zagreb, Mladost, p. 20.
19 Branko PRAZIC, ibid., p. 21.

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introverted way, as if it were withdrawn into itself. ... Blue is like a muffled pow
that is possessed by nature in winter, when all germination, all growth, r
darkness and quiet. Blue is always shadowy, and in its strongest shades lean
wards the dark. It is the intangible nothing, and yet it is present, as the transpa
atmosphere is also present.<<20 Is this not the blue that flickers on the face
unhappy Julie or the blue that in a deep psychological way colors the interi
the pool? This is the color of Julie's spirit, but not of her character (she is black
dresses mainly in black). And so the music of Preisner also seems blue, for it pre
a part of the film and the idea, and thus presents part of the color blue. Th
the music we listen to the sound of this color of retirement that >>fills the spir
flutterings of faith in the infinite distances of the spirit<< and that occasionally
into >>the abyss of terror, superstition, spiritual unease and loss<< and yet >>sign
the kingdom of the supernatural and the transcendental<<.21
Hanslick, Kieslowski and Three Colors: Blue
Linking music with painting, with its role of providing guiding motifs
talking of its color and feeling, we carry on from Itten's understanding of the c
tive process when he says that >>in art what is created rationally cannot be of es
tial importance. Above that is intuitive feeling which leads to the empire
irrational and the metaphysical, which cannot be expressed by any kind of
bers.<<22
It seems that painting, before music, succeeded in freeing itself of the disci-
pline of set forms and gave itself over to feelings of which art is the most faithful
expression. Because what is there creative in keeping to forms that are set in ad-
vance, always the same? If form is the basic expression of the beautiful, of which
Hanslick talks, then only he who first of all thought up a form is creative, all others
being fake artists, plagiarists.
In Blue Kieslowski attempted to reconcile the constant conflict between form
and content, genuinely foregrounding form as the basic element of the beautiful in
art, but not in so doing underrating the importance of content. Preisner's music
subserves both form and content, both inner beauty and external gloss. It does, it is
true, endeavor through musical resources to show the extra-musical content (ac-
cording to Hanslick, music can show nothing outside itself), but adheres firmly to
the film's and its own architecture that has been thought out in advance, architec-
ture that is in a real sense >>a symmetry of parts in their sequence<<.23
In fact, >>any work of art that exists in time has some shape to it, even though
a familiar pattern may not be immediately obvious. While certain forms (formal
designs) may depend on a formal scheme, form, as a process of relationships is
20 Hohannes ITTEN, 1973, The Art of Color, p. 102.

21 Ibid., p. 102.
2 Ibid., p. 32.
23 Eduard HANSLICK, ibid., p. 173.

132.248.9.8 on Fri, 07 Oct 2022 17:31:29 UTC
a universal procedure of integration that is required for meaningful apprehens

by a listener.<<24 The direct integration of form and musical meaning could be tran
ferred to the films of Krzystof Kieglowski, their basic meaning being their for
with their content a merely necessary link between the parts.
If we move away a moment from the music (not forgetting that this discu
sion has sprung from it) and cast a >>bird's eye view< at all three films of Thr
Colors, we will understand that their purpose and being lies above all in the pl
ing with symbolism, with psychological and physical explanations of the painte
phenomenon of music and in the playing with form and its integration with co
tent.
The sequence of films Blue, White, Red is not conditioned only by the order of
colors in the French flag. For blue is a cold color and tends to retreat inside, white
is neutral, static, while red is warm and outgoing. In this way of looking at colors,
white as a non-color stays in the center while the other colors move. Kieslowski
accentuates the static nature of white by insisting on content in White, which, un-
like the other films of the trilogy, is very well developed. Red and Blue do not stay
on the surface like White but stand out either by form (Blue) or symbolism (Red).
This means that if we look at the trilogy as a whole, it could be attributed with
the musical form of the tripartite poem A B A1. The irregular overlap of A and A,,
that is of Blue and Red, is seen in the arrangement of the main character (female in
both films, while in White the main character is a man). The regular tripartite form
is confirmed by the static nature or mobility of the colors and the relation of form
and content of each individual film.
As for the importance of form in the artistically beautiful, it would seem that
Hanslick is right when he said that bare form is beautiful. But we cannot say that
he was right in the only way, because he adhered one-sidedly and stubbornly to a
thesis he did not allow to be falsified. In the case of Kieslowski, Hanslick's thesis
works in this way:
1. The domination of form in Three Colors: Blue brought this film to an aes-
thetic culmination. Luckily, Kie'lowski did not cross the border that would have
brought him to foregrounding form for the sheer sake of it. His form is dominant,
but still works for the sake of content.
2. The domination of content in Three Colors: White has given this film a pe-
ripheral position in comparison with the other two.
3. In Three Colors: Red, through symbolism of content, an equilibrium is at-
tained between content and form.
For this reason Red is a film that is interesting to aesthetes and the wider pub-
lic alike. For many this film occupies the first place in the trilogy, but for some,
who cannot swallow the insistent symbolism of simply every frame, object and
character, this is the worst film of the three. In Blue there is no such contrast. Through
24 Mary WENNESTROM, 1975, >Form in Twentieth Century Music(< in Aspects of Twentieth Cen-
tury Music, ed. G. Wittlich, NJ, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, p. 2 (quote from NikSa GLIGO, 1987,
Problems of the New Music of the 20th Century: Theoretical Foundations and Critical Evaluations, Zagreb,
MuziCki informacijski centar Koncertne direkcije Zagreb, p. 101).

132.248.9.8 on Fri, 07 Oct 2022 17:31:29 UTC
a form that works for the sake of a content that is secondary, the film satisfies
most meticulous aesthetes, theoreticians and analysts.
Let us return to the music and its form. Most commonly, criticism is ma
film music because it does not follow classical formal patterns. This kind of
cism springs from sheer lack of understanding, because film music does h
form, if not classical form. Its form is primarily ordained by the image an
events on the screen. This is the case in Kieslowski, although he often requir
music to be composed before the film, the film being later cut according
music. In such cases the composer works according to the script (once again h
a model), while because the film is cut according to the music it becomes th
bodiment of the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk.
Understanding of the form of film music is very important for any grasping of
music and image as a whole. >Unlike the visuals of a film which are ever-present
and, as a result, have the opportunity for smooth organic growth, music is not one
of the ongoing elements of a film. Good film music is used sparingly, and only at
those moments where it will be most effective. This important dictum of good film
music presents a unique formal problem for the composer. Form in absolute mu-
sic, such as sonata-allegro or rondo, depends a great deal on the principle of rep-
etition and contrast, but repetition and contrast in a relatively short time span, and
without interruption. With film, on the other hand, there may be long sections
with no music at all, in which the audience has plenty of time to forget whatever
musical material it may have heard earlier. Knowing this, the film composer has
several general formal resources at his disposal to achieve some sort of formal
unity in his music.<<'
Sometimes there really is the opportunity for the composer to use a tradi-
tional formal model. But on the whole this occurs in the case of diegetic music that
is consciously perceived. This is the case with the choir from the film The Double
Life of Veronica, in the sounds of which the form of the tripartite poem can easily be
recognized.
As far as background music is concerned, traditional formal models are sel-
dom useable. According to Roy Prendergast the basic formal sources available to
the screen music composer for the composition of an integrated film score are:
1. monothematic scores,
2. developmental scores and
3. the use of the leitmotif.
While the monothematic score uses only one theme for the whole of the film,
the developmental score is based on thematic work and powerfully recalls the
sonata form.
Preisner's score in Three Colors: Blue builds its form through the use of the
leitmotif. We have already shown which leitmotifs are concerned and what their
function in the film is. Here we would like to draw particular attention to an unu-
sual feature. In most films the audience becomes acquainted with the leitmotifs
25 Roy M. PRENDERGAST, 1992, Film Music -a Neglected Art, New York, London: W. W. Norton
and Company, p. 231.

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right at the beginning, so as to be able to remember them and recognize them

easily later. However, Preisner, in Blue, brings the leitmotifs in gradually, with us
getting to know some of them at the beginning, and hearing some only near the
end. The Dead March and Julie's theme are present from the very beginning, the
busker's theme somewhere in the middle, and Olivier's theme only in the closing
scenes. However, this music is so powerful and melodic that just those few bars of
Olivier's theme can at once be remembered and recognized in the Concerto for the
Unification of Europe at the end of the film. The role of the Concerto actually is to tie
these pieces together and to make a logic and indivisible whole out of a mosaic.
Although he works with musical fractions that he deliberately cuts off and
leaves incomplete, Preisner fits his music fantastically well into the script and other
elements of the film, in spite of writing it before the shooting. Photography, edit-
ing, visuals, acting, music, sound and color mutually complement and connect up
with each other: this is clear from the beginning of the film, and audible from the
first appearance of background music on the screen.
This scene occurs at the time Julie is in hospital, recovering from the conse-
quences of the accident. Julie is sleeping in a chair on the balcony and is suddenly
lit up by a blue light. One does not know exactly where it comes from, probably
from the blue glass of the door of the balcony, perhaps the blue light of the televi-
sion that is on (the same on which the young woman watched the funeral of her
husband in the previous scene). The Dead March begins at the same time as the
light appears, and since Julie suddenly starts awake, we have the idea that she is
woken by the music. Only later will we see that she has been woken by a journalist
who has come to see her. The blue light, then, comes from the reflection of the blue
glass, brought about by the opening of the balcony door. The music has only a
background function.
The function of the music in the scene could be interpreted differently. If we
did not see the newspaperwoman at the end of the scene, we might say that the
light and the music come from the television that we do not see, but which we
have seen in the previous scene. Since the source of both light and music is deliber-
ately hidden and only partially explained at the end of the scene, it seems that the
director wishes to create in the viewer the desire to move and see what is happen-
ing behind the film screen. If the source of the music had really been the televi-
sion, then the Dead March would subserve the foregrounding of reality, but since
the music is background, it then calls attention to memory of the terrible events.
By skilled manipulation of the camera, Kieslowski has managed to awaken the
curiosity of the viewer, and link the real and the unreal through this little game
with the source of the music.
While in the first part of the scene the close linkage between the elements of
the films is highlighted, the second part stresses film music form, achieved by similar
means. After Julie's awakening, the audience can hear from offstage the greeting
>>Hello< from the still invisible visitor. As Julie starts slowly to move her head
towards the voice (the source of which we still cannot see), she is enveloped by
deep blackness through which the sounds of the Dead March are once again heard.
This is the first >black hole< in Julie's memory. The music disappears together with

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88 I. PAULUS, A RHAPSODY IN SHADES OF BLUE, IRASM 30 (1999) 1, 65---91
the darkened screen, Julie listlessly replies >>Hello< and only then will we see the
face of the visitor in the frame.
The Dead March, which starts with the turn of Julie's head, and disappears
together with the >>black hole<, is bounded in the scene by two >Bonjours?, which
means that, as well as music, other filmic elements have taken part in giving shape
to the musical form. This film/musical form is tripartite, and completely shows
the A B A scheme. Real sound (greetings) works as part of A, while image (the
blacking out of the screen) works as part of the central, B part; they both take an
equal share in the construction of the musical form, which keeps up with the con-
tent, foregrounding Julie's emotions, and stresses the mysterious (playing with
the source of the blue light).
Examples in which images help to create musical form are as rare as films in
which music is really inseparable from the film and every part of it. In Blue all the
filmic elements interpenetrate each other to such an extent that the music (which
often aspires to be separate, either classical or popular) cannot survive independ-
ently. An attempt to listen to Preisner's music from some recording (and you can
try it yourself) is a failure; the music is disappointingly split up and it is hard to
enjoy it. Parts that, motif by motif, phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence, are
gradually composed into a meaningful whole the brilliance of which crowns them
in the most ceremonious way, listened to on their own are just incomplete frag-
ments without point or inner beauty. The film is designed from the beginning as a
whole, and its parts, imagined to work together like a fine piece of cloth, cannot be
perceived in separation. And precisely because of this the music, separated from
the film, means nothing, while in the environment for which it was created it is full
of symbolism, meaning, point and function.
When the music is divorced from the context, the feeling of delicious expecta-
tion of the moment when the individual lines gradually converge into a perfect
whole is lost. The film is actually conceived in such a way as to grow and take
shape gradually, as a musical composition also takes shape. The whole film is that:
one big process of composition, which begins from small motifs and develops
over sentences, periods, themes, sections and movements to a great concerto.
The link between music and image is visible at the macro- and the micro-
level. The essence of the connection is not only in the content and the expression of
deep emotions from Julie's interior. This essence is in the image's, in an indirect,
sophisticated way (primarily by cutting, editing and camera movement), follow-
ing and revealing the structure of every theme. Preisner's music is formally clear
and almost conventional in its regular sequencing of two bar phrases and four bar
sentences. In fact this music is very ordinary, but with the assistance of image and
color it becomes beautiful, unusual, interesting and attractive. The image gives the
music a dimension that music does not itself have, and which can only with diffi-
culty be called by a given name, since it is not a matter only of visualization.
Talking of the connection between music and image, their complementation
and connection with other elements of the film we have partially confirmed and
partially rebutted the theses of Hanslick's musical aesthetic >Of the musically beau-
tiful<<. Kieslowski has confirmed the thesis >the beauty of music lies in its form< by

132.248.9.8 on Fri, 07 Oct 2022 17:31:29 UTC
stressing the form in an unusual way through image, visual motion and immob
ity, line and visual form. The beauty of the music wins us through its own and
film's forms: music becomes still more elevated and aesthetically more desirabl
But when Hanslick says that music can express nothing, least of all feelings, in
some situations he controverts himself, justifying himself through an unclear i
termingling of the ideas of sense and feeling. His pen wrote that >the presentat
of feelings is not the content of music<26 but also that >>music works on the menta
condition faster and more intensively than any other work of art<27. Since the
thor himself is not certain of what he wants to prove, we shall nudge him a little in
the desired direction. For how else can we explain the music in Blue, which is t
main vehicle of the deep grief and pain, of the >black holes< and the memories,
flight from reality, but which is also a kind of consolation, hope and faith, an
pression of happiness, peace, love, and, finally, spiritual balance?
Of course, Hanslick's considerations could be applied to absolute classic
music, which is composed, listened to and experienced in a way totally different
that of other musical genres. Opera, operetta, film and stage music are exper
enced through their subordination to content, the stage and other elements, an
probably could not exist if they had no effect on the feelings of the public. If musi
could not awaken emotions in the listener, composing film music would be a v
risky and unnecessary job. Then we would not be able to foresee the reaction of the
audience, and direct it in the desired way through music.
A composer often uses stereotyped musical devices that certainly awaken ce
tain feelings and guarantee an appropriate reaction from the audience. This me
that in music there must be something that encourages emotion, something th
works on our nervous system and makes it react in a certain way. Of course, mu
can certainly be experienced in a different way, but the differences among sub
tive ways of experiencing are in fact minimal. Music abetted by image directs t
reaction of the audience to a precisely desired channel, and it is impossible for
tragic scene in a film to work tragically on one person, and humorously on a
other.
Hanslick's deliberations are carried on by musical theoretician Pavel Rojko
who in his work Music Teaching Methods says that music is sufficient unto itse
because it is its own purpose. Accordingly, there is no need for, no point in, a
linkage of music with other arts since it is self-sufficient and resilient. Pavel Rojko
theory, meticulously worked out and explained, does not work, however, when
comes to film music. Arguing from the example of Blue we have shown that f
music will in some cases survive with difficulty outside its context, and that
attempt to live independently outside the complex of film arts results in a ma
loss for it. In Blue it is so much enmeshed in the film's tissue that along, outside, it
the music loses the point, meaning and essence of its existence.
Of course, not everyone can link music so meticulously and precisely with t
other arts. We know how Kielowski worked with his associates and that he ex
26 Eduard HANSLICK, ibid, p. 55.

27 Ibid., p. 117.

132.248.9.8 on Fri, 07 Oct 2022 17:31:29 UTC
pected the maximum from all of them. He left nothing to chance, and the
poser had to teach the cameraman to read music, train the actress in feeling,
riencing, hearing and creating music. This is a rare example of such dedicate
work, and the result justified the pains.
In Three Colors: Blue every moment, in every part (pictorial, photogra
musical, setting, acting, technical and so on) has been very carefully thoug
through, planned in advance and worked out in the mind. Behind it all ther
amazing and unique manner of thinking that offers an ineffable aesthetic a
tistic pleasure. It is a pity that the artist has gone for ever and that we will not
the opportunity to see more of his work. Kielowski's works sharpen the a
appetite to the point of insatiability, and it can be slaked only by the know
that there will be no more of it, that it is the only one of its kind. Perhaps it is
this way, for one is valued higher than many. His films and the lovely mus
Zbigniew Preisner, which he himself admired so much, are all that remain
haps this is what Kielowski wanted to tell us when he ended Three Colors:
with the words:
>>Prophecy may fail, languages cease, knowledge vanish. All that remains is
faith, hope and charity. And the greatest of the three is charity.<<28
(translated into English by

Graham McMaster)
28 1st Corinthians, 13, 13.

132.248.9.8 on Fri, 07 Oct 2022 17:31:29 UTC
Safetak
GLAZBA U FILMU KRZYSTOFA KIESLOWSKOG TRI BOJE: PLAVO.

RAPSODIJA U NIJANSAMA PLAVOG: RAZMIkLJANJA JEDNOG GLAZBENIKA
U filmu Tri boje: Plavo poljskog redatelja Krzystofa Kiedlowskog glazba ima iznimno
va2nu ulogu. Skladatelj Zbignew Preisner definirao je Plavo kao >...muzitki film, ali ne,
naravno, u holivudskom smislu. On govori o skladatelju koji sklada povodom ujedinjenja
Europe.( Naime, redatelj Kie'lowski zahtjevao je od skladatelja Preisnera da napige glazbu
odmah po zavrSetku scenarija, kako bi se film mogao snimiti prema glazbi. Skladatelj i
redatelj pronaSli su zajednitki jezik koji je sam skladatelj jednostavno opisao rijedima: >Glazb
treba oslikavati film, ali mudro. To zna6i da se ne treba baviti vanjskim dogadajem koji
gledamo na ekranu, ved onim Sto se nalazi u ijudima, Sto je u glumcima, a istodobno i u
nama samima, dakle gledateljima...<<.
Kroz postupno uvodenje filmskih tema - Posmrtnog marga, Juliene teme, teme uliknog
svirata i Oliverove teme - Zbignew Preisner je postupno predstavio teme koje podjednako
funkcioniraju kao filmske teme i kao teme Koncerta za ujedinjenje Europe, djela koje nasta
tijekom filma.
Osim toga, tema glavne junakinje Julie i Posmrtni mars predstavljali su glazbu koja se
javljala u glavi nesretne udovice poput sjedanja i duboke boli, pa ih je skladatelj iskoristio n
natin metadijegetskog (oniritnog) zvuka.
Vigeslojnost filma odrazila se u vigeslojnosti glazbe. Svakoj filmskoj komponenti
odgovarala je barem jedna glazbena. To se odrazilo i u melodijskom i u formalnom smislu,
te u smislu boje, postupka s temama i njihove duboke povezanosti s filmskom naracijom.
Trilogija Krzystofa Kies1owskog Tri boje (osim filma Tri boje: Plavo snimljena su joS dva
slihnog naslova: Tri boje: Bijelo i Tri boje: Crveno) inspirirana je bojama francuske zastave
francuskim nacionalnim motom: >sloboda, bratstvo i jednakost<. Za ostvarenje redateljeve
intepretacije tog mota posebno je bila va2na uska suradnja i medusobno razumijevanje
redatelja i skladatelja.

132.248.9.8 on Fri, 07 Oct 2022 17:31:29 UTC

Music in Krzysztof Kieślowski's Film "Three Colors: Blue". A Rhapsody in Shades of Blue: The Reflections of A Musician

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Music in Krzysztof Kieślowski's Film "Three Colors: Blue". A Rhapsody in Shades of Blue: The Reflections of A Musician

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Music in Krzysztof Kieślowski's Film "Three Colors: Blue".

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MUSIC IN KRZYSZTOF KIE8LOWSKI'S FILM THREE COLORS:

IRENA PAULUS UDC: 778.534.4

Original Scientific Paper

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An inseparable combination: Kieslowski and Preisner in Three Colors: Blue.

2 Eric C. PARKINSON, 1994, >Blue<<, Time Magazine, Internet article.

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The dreamlike nature of the Dead March

M Geoffrey MACNAB, Chris DRAKE, >>Working with Kieglowski<, Sight an

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4. A metadiegetic sound is obtained by an increase of the volume of the soun

Metadiegesis: sound in the head

With the progression of the accident/unhappiness - suffering - voluntary

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Example 1: Julie's theme

13 Eduard HANSLICK, 1966, Of the Musically Beautiful, Belgrade, Beogradski izdavatko-grafitki

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The >struggle< of the theme and the Dead March

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The mysterious composer Van den Budenmayer

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The mystery of the busker

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Concerto for the Unification of Europe

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16 The First Epistles to the Corinthians, 12, 1-13.

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17 Geoffrey MACNAB, Chris DRAKE, ibid., p. 20.

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Example 2. Concerto for the Unification of Europe, strings part

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Kieslowski brings us to a state in which we become worshippers of music, althou

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Hanslick, Kieslowski and Three Colors: Blue

20 Hohannes ITTEN, 1973, The Art of Color, p. 102.

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a universal procedure of integration that is required for meaningful apprehens

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right at the beginning, so as to be able to remember them and recognize them

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26 Eduard HANSLICK, ibid, p. 55.

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(translated into English by

28 1st Corinthians, 13, 13.

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GLAZBA U FILMU KRZYSTOFA KIESLOWSKOG TRI BOJE: PLAVO.

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