Playback / The Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Perks of Being a Wallflower · 2012
Homecoming Dance
A song already playing in the room pulls a boy out of the wall and onto the floor.
Watch for
- That the music is diegetic — it is playing at the dance, not laid over it.
- How the volume and mix shift as Charlie moves from the edge toward the floor.
- The way the song does the emotional work that no dialogue is given.
A worked reading · COCA
CContention
Chbosky uses diegetic music as the mechanism of a character's change rather than as accompaniment to it.
OObservation
At the homecoming dance, a song plays through the hall's speakers while Charlie watches from the wall; as Sam and Patrick dance, he crosses the floor and joins them, the track carrying the whole sequence without dialogue.
CConnotation
Keeping the music inside the world of the scene means the characters and the audience hear the same thing, so the decision to join is motivated by something shared rather than imposed by a score.
AAudience
We are placed with Charlie at the edge of the room and moved with him, so the audience feels included at the same moment he is.
Your turn
- Is the music coming from inside the scene or from outside it? How can you tell?
- What changes in the sound as he moves across the room?
- How would this scene feel with an orchestral score instead?
For teachers
The cleanest diegetic-music example available, and easy for junior students to hear. Good companion to the Almost Famous bus scene already on the shelf.
