A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

“A TIMELY PAUSE, A KIND OF A STRATEGIC SILENCE”: The term “caesura” denotes an audible pause that breaks up a line of verse or a musical sequence.

A scene in Eddie and the Cruisers illuminates the concept. During a rehearsal, Eddie (Michael Paré), the lead singer of the band, is having an argument with the bass player Sal (Matthew Laurance) because Sal is playing the song too fast for anyone to be able to understand the meaning of the lyrics. Eddie then seeks the opinion of Frank (Tom Berenger), the most cerebral member of the band (the movie suggests obliquely that Frank is a graduate of Haverford College). Frank agrees that the song needs a caesura, which he defines as “a timely pause, a kind of a strategic silence." Frank then quotes a line from a Rimbaud poem to show what he means: "One night I took beauty in my arms . . . and I thought her bitter. . . and I insulted her." The scene marks the moment when the group transforms itself from a nondescript bar band to a major national artistic success.

My favorite example of a caesura in pop music occurs in the song “Midnight Train to Georgia”. “L.A.,” Gladys Knight sings as the song begins. She then pauses. “Proved too much for the man” she continues. In that short pause, you can sense that there is a lot going on under the surface – disappointment, weariness, disillusionment with the promise that California once held for her and her lover, a searing regret that she is trying to surmount. And somehow, at least for me, expressing those feelings through her silence is way more powerful than if she had said so explicitly. Later, during the key line of the song, Knight pauses once more and then draws a sharp breath as she sings “I’d rather live in his world . . . than live without him in mine.” That silence makes you feel how momentous that choice really is.

While overall I enjoyed the film “Little Children”, I thought that the heavy use of the voiceover narration detracted significantly from the film. Had the director Todd Fields simply chosen to let the events speak for themselves, the film might have been vastly more effective. I found this problem especially disappointing because Fields had used silence in such a profound manner in his film “In the Bedroom.”

Among actors, I think Gene Hackman has had an uncanny way of allowing silence (and a seemingly calm facial expression) to convey inner depth. His work in a supporting role in “Another Woman” is especially good in that regard.

Finally, I think one reason that Friday Night Lights has become such an extraordinary television show is that, unlike the vast majority of other shows, it uses caesuras to great effect. Think back to many of the scenes of dialog. Not uncommonly, the scene would give a character a moment or two of silence. Those moments conveyed way more than they might have had the characters filled the empty space. Similarly, the show’s frequent use of musical montage is an effective means of allowing the audience to dwell on the meaning of what has transpired. Although musical montage is obviously not silence, it does break up the dramatic action.