Attention Pitt Fans! Interview with Noah Wyle

[jo]

Noah Wyle gave a really interesting (and long!) interview to GQ. The original is paywalled so I've provided an archived link.

WARNING: It contains spoilers for the season 2 finale, so if you've not watched it yet, or are only part-way through season 2 or whatever, proceed at your own risk.

This one section really caught my attention (does not contain spoilers):

“It’s a couple of things that work beautifully in concert. First: no music. Audiences are so sophisticated, but what they’re not accustomed to is being told how to feel,” Wyle says. “You take all that out and it forces a level of engagement where you’re now looking for clues within the frame of the screen, which forces you to look up from your phone. And I think that is extremely engaging, especially to young viewers who aren’t accustomed to being asked to participate in a nonpassive way in the viewing experience."

I hadn't even noticed that there's no music! And it is true that The Pitt is one of the shows that I pay full attention to while watching -- never occurred to me that the absence of music might be partly behind that.

Comments

[yourlibrarian]

I have not seen The Pitt but that's definitely an interesting thought, that absence of cues creates more attention (and immersion).

[jo]

Interestingly, this morning, before I read that interview, I watched the season finale of The Pitt, as well as this week's episode of Outlander. Outlander of course does use music. This week's episode was a real gut-punch (and major departure from the source material), and I found myself thinking, at one point, that the music was almost TOO much -- that the scene would have hit home even more if there'd been no music at all. Silence would have been so powerful -- whereas I was finding the score almost overly melodramatic.

[yourlibrarian]

I have to say I notice music about 50% of the time, but more often if it's, say, a pop song than a traditional score. But I have occasionally had that same reaction to its use.

[msilverstar]

He even says, "competence porn"!

[jo]

I know, right?! At least that I was totally aware of -- the no music realization came as a shock!