La musique dionysienne d’Emir Kusturica

Abstract

Film music is usually used to elicit emotional responses from viewers. Emir Kusturica lifts up the status of music in his films, and uses it beyond a mere illustration of what images are showing: happy, festive, dizzy, music almost becomes the main character in the film. The Serb filmmaker has given music a real ethical and social purpose: not only with the role that music plays in the Dionysian drive towards spiritual release, but also in how music impacts the understanding of what social man really is. Thus, Dionysian music breaks any social and cultural division that may be, and starts to show the individual as a pluri-social being. From this analysis of Super 8 Stories feature-length film (2001), we will look at how Kusturica rehabilitates music as a creative principle in cinema.