The Importance of Visual Association within the Realm of Film and Music

I feel that more often than not, very little importance is placed upon both album-art and the film-poster. Although I intend to focus more directly upon these two artistic venues with this post, this attitude is a trend far beyond these realms, spreading to really any sort of visual representation of an artistic work. Ultimately, what is forgotten is that the artistic experience itself is always subconsciously filtered-through these initial visual and aesthetic representations of the works. Many times, the enjoyment of a work is inseparably influenced by these things. Granted, the influence manifests itself a tad differently when it comes to music, and when it comes to film.

Although music surely conjures mental images in and of itself, a very strong and cohesive image, representing the aesthetic of the music in question, can exponentially increase the resonance of the music with the listener, and serve as a starting-point for unique images that are created by the listener from their own personal experience and aesthetic leanings. Ultimately, album-art can viscerally inform music-content in ways that nothing else can. The mind thrives off of having this spring-board of sorts, that can be used to make the event of listening to an enjoyable album that much more exhilarating.

Film-posters, although working in fundamentally similar ways, do differ from album-art. Most prominently, film-posters move to inform works that are simultaneously visual in nature. Although it is still odd to view a film that completely defies its poster, this can be perhaps less damaging than with album-artwork, if even a bit less so. With films and their connection with their posters, it is more a striving towards fulfilling what has been pre-built within the filmgoer's mind, rather than setting up a sort of foundation or filter. It's more about synergy than foundation-building.

On a more general scale, a crucial part, at least to me, of enjoying the arts as a whole, is to recognize that doing this is about much more than just the work itself. Everything is a collaboration of elements.

C.W.