Some sort of synesthetic hallucination caused by his mental condition, I´m guessing, but I don´t know much about it. Could anyone with some clinical understanding of schizophrenia explain it, please?
shareActually, when I saw it, I didn't think it was necessarily a result of his schizophrenia, but an example of how he sees the music. A select number of people have what is called "perfect pitch" where they have an uncanny ability to hear music at a completely different level of understanding than the average person. I have heard that in a lot of cases, people with perfect pitch can actually "see" the notes as colors, which is what gives them the ability to differentiate the notes.
So, when I was watching that part, to me it referenced Nathaniel's natural musical ability to recognize the notes as he listened to them, giving a visual representation to each instrument and note being played.
Just my thoughts. It may have just been a cinematical effect too to try and give the viewer a different view of how music is interpreted.
People who have visual hallucinations sometimes report seeing flashing lights. I'm not sure if that's what was being portrayed here, but it can be a symptom of schizophrenia.
shareAlso, just as a footnote seeing notes as colours can also be attributed to synethesia, other derivatives of the condition include seeing numbers and letters as colours and even certain words giving the individual different tastes in their mouth
sharetypo: synesthesia
shareI totally agree on the colored lights being a good artistic suggestion of synesthesia. I have some synesthesia myself and like experts say, it tends to increase the mind's ability to enjoy and create things like music, as well as retain memories. In my case, I have often been able to remember musical passages just like a digital recording in the brain and I also enjoy playing various instruments by ear.
shareIt has nothing to do with schizophrenia, it's (as the poster above me said) synesthesia. Basically, Nathaniel saw music as color. As a musician, I've known a couple of people who had it. A clarinetist at my high school said that each note he heard had a different "color". For instance, when someone played a Bb, this kid saw the color blue. C# invoked a reddish-orange color. (He went into detail about what each "note color" was, but I honestly don't remember. It's kind of cool, actually.
shareIt's *really* cool, actually! That was one of my favorite parts of the movie. What a beautiful and true visual representation of music!
There are so many visual & auditory nuances in this film, I just can't get over it! Absolutely brilliant film-making.
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I don't know if you've seen the movie "Fantasia," but it was referenced in "The Soloist." "Fantasia" was a Disney animation from 1940 that took some animators, not professional musicians, draw what came to mind while listening to classical music. Some of it is quite psychedelic, making some critics claim that the animators must have been on something. These passages in "The Soloist" are, excuse the term, flashbacks to that idea. I'd call them an homage to Disney, actually.
shareI agree with Jeremy; this scene reminded me much of Fantastia. I also agree about the synethesia - the composer Skriabin was famous for having it as well.
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I remember that movie Fantasia from the big screen. It was brought to our theater again sometime in the early 1950's. My wife says she has a videotape of that movie! I also have to say that watching Disney's TV show every week was a similar experience. I remember at age 14 hearing Ravel's "Bolero" for the first time as background to a Disney program, time lapse films of growing plants and flowers, and thinking it was an incredibly beautiful performance.
shareJust rewatched this and listened to the commentary until I couldn't stand the idiot director talking about his other films, anyway, the lights, just something the aforementioned idiot director did to fill the musical space. He seemed to think it was innovative. But this is the same guy who had a boar running around a gentleman's house in Pride and Prejudice, really, really inaccurate.
shareI just now saw this movie for the first time. The minute they showed this scene I cried. I have experienced this same thing for as long as I remember, but when talking to other synesthetes they only ever talk about the color of letters or numbers, never seeing music. For me, it's mostly patterns in music, than colors, but whoever came up with that scene really nailed it.
I have also suspected for a long time that I have perfect pitch and have had others confirm it, and although I love music, I was never encouraged to learn an instrument. I taught myself how to play guitar back in the day and found it pretty easy to just mimic whatever I heard.
Well anyway, me me me. Yeah I'll get over it, I'm sure! Just so glad to come here and see that others can relate to this. I am very touched by this scene. It has brought me to tears.
I am not schizophrenic and don't have any family history of mental illness other than mild depression. I used to have a brother in law, however, with schizophrenia and he was kind of almost functional but not quite. From the outside it looked like self-sabotage. Poor guy.
I'm with mrsbubbles. I always "see" music when it is perfect, on a great system, or performed correctly. I understood this movie 100% and was into to more than i should have been. While I am merely a novice guitar player, I am in my late 40's and "hear" things on a different level than my friends. Like Wesley Snipes says, I "hear" Jimi.
If there are others like me and Msbubbles out there, UNITE! Also, I got some recommended music to ck out.
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