SotA Anthology 2019-20 | Page 54

MUSI150 Language in Society
musical films are demonstrative of record labels and film companies capitalising on not only the past success and popularity of acts , but also music fans ’ resulting nostalgia . Music is perhaps the most potent trigger of nostalgic feelings , according to Glynn ( 2019 ); this is because emotions are especially intense around peoples ’ adolescent period , and therefore music or associated memories from this period of a person ’ s life are likely to be particularly emotionally powerful ( Garrido & Davidson , 2019 ). This makes movies about bands that were successful a few decades ago extremely marketable : a large fanbase has strong emotional connections to when the artist was active , and they were young . Corbella ( 2017 ) argues that musical biopics act as ‘ sensory
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remediators ’ for famous live performances , often considered ‘ canonized events ’, and that improved modern production has the ability to intensify the experience of these , beyond a mere concert video , when they are portrayed on-screen – perhaps amplifying the effect of the nostalgia by doing so . A great example of this is the scene in Bohemian Rhapsody ( 2018 ) that re-lives Queen ’ s iconic appearance at Live Aid in 1985 ( Hafeze Ku , 2019 ). An era-defining moment in British music , with an estimated 1.5 billion people watching internationally , is recreated in spine-tingling fashion in this movie , making it undoubtedly marketable to the many who attended or watched the broadcast . Furthermore , the fact that Queen are an example of an act no longer consisting