Linguagem das emoções: efeitos retóricos de Hallelujah em duas cenas fílmicas

Abstract

Hallelujah was composed by Canadian writer, musician and poet, Leonard Cohen, in 1984. After its popularization, it happened to be executed in films, television programs, religious cults and was even used like christmas song. A study of the rhetorical scope of this song is necessary because of its relevance in the musical context and its international recognition. Moreover, the structure in which it was composed gives the interpreter a range of possibilities as to its execution, thus allowing it to be used with different persuasive purposes as regards the awakening of emotions. As a corpus of the present research, we selected two different plays of Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen's songwriting version and its use in the movie of Watchmen (2009) and Rufus Wainwright's version of John Cale and its use in the film in Shrek (2001). From this corpus, we seek to understand the musical elements of each of the plays/enunciations of the song, based on their interpretative variations, considering that they are responsible for the awakening of specific passions/emotions in the auditorium. Therefore, we proceeded to an analysis based on rhetorical, musical and psychoaffective theories, indicating which features of the composition itself and its modifications regarding melody, rhythm, harmony, among other musical elements could influence the cognition and the involvement of the listener . We base our research on Rhetoric Theory, especially: Aristotle (2000), Figueiredo (2006, 2010, 2016), Meyer (2007) and Perelman e Olbrechts-Tyteca (2005) and, with regard to Musical and Cognitive Theories, of Agawu (2012), Gorbman (1987), Meyer (1956), Copland (1974), Sacks (2007) and Sloboda (2008). With the analysis of the finished corpus, we conclude that music can arouse emotions in those who listen to it by itself, but especially when allied with vitalising elements of emotions contained in the way of composing a musical piece. Still as a result of this research, we were able to verify that each human being feels touched by music in a different way, according to their memories, culture, world experience, musical understanding and also according to the way in which they listen (consciously or unconsciously). This work, therefore, was able to bring to the scientific community some answers to the void about the rhetorical function of music and can also corroborate the hypothesis that music could be used with a view to the awakening of passions and, consequently, to the adherence of the spectators to the narrative of the selected films.