A. Komarova

About the Functions of Music in the Movie «Las Hurdes. Land without Bread» by L. Bunuel

The article is devoted to the principles of the functioning of music in the documentary “Las Hurdes. The Land Without Bread ” (1933) by Spanish director Luis Bunuel. “The land without bread” is a unique example of cinema approach to academic music, since it is almost entirely accompanied by the music of Johannes Brahms` Symphony No. 4 in E minor, op. 98 . This film is a synthetic work, consisting of several layers functioning among themselves: a video series and an audio series, which also includes the narration, music, introductory and final credits, silence. All these elements of the whole interact with each other both vertically and horizontally. This functional multi-layer makes the semantic content of the work many-sidedness. The author reveals the results of the interaction of all levels of the synthetic work and explains the reason for the appeal of the surrealist director L. Bunuel to J. Brahms` symphony. The analysis proves that in this film, music is not just an off-screen accompaniment of a video sequence. It defines the compositional structure of the movie, “releases” the meanings embodied in the work, and also emotionally influences the spectator.

Key words

Brahms, symphony, Bunuel, documentary, film music.

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