How Film Music Shaped Me as an Autistic Adult.

Rob Ryan

It’s no secret that music has had a long history of shaping young kids with autism, improving their communication with their parents whilst also providing them an outlet to express themselves thus developing how they experience the world. When Austrian - American psychiatrist Leo Kanner first made the discovery back in 1943, one of his findings involved three girls and eight boys where at least 6 of the children displayed musical abilities and interests. Since then, music therapy has played a big part in developing a better understanding of Autism. During my research into this article, I have been touched and moved by individual anecdotes of Autistic kids going through music therapy and whether by using music to communicate or otherwise, has only closed the gap between parent and child.

When it came to me and music, it wasn’t until I turned 18 was when I slowly started to properly appreciate music as an art form. Growing up in a small household with my mum, twin brother and my two sisters, there was only so much time I got to be by myself.I became to used to the company of my brother who I shared a bedroom with during down time and I never took the time to fully appreciate having a private space just for me but all that changed when I moved into my first UNI accommodation. I became nervous, I blubbered like a baby because the feeling had properly set in that I was on my own with no one too bounce off. I got over the tears very quickly when I became more accustomed to my surroundings but a part of that was taking time to finally listen to music, consistently stimming and dancing in response to the feelings it gave me without having to worry about anyone walking in. I would often use it to close myself off from the world, and just be me without judgement or worry about whether or not I would be an inconvenience to anyone.

I would talk about my favourite artists but that’s an essay for another day. What I want to talk about is how during this time I fully started to not only appreciate film music but realise that I had a real relationship to it, in not only remembering iconography associated with it, but starting to apply it to my personal feelings depending on my day to day feelings. Film music or film scoring is generally considered a craft that compliments the art being put together by the director but to me it is much more than that.

One of the reasons I think I have become so invested in film as an art form and why I do what I do is because to me, film is the closest thing that can depict what people love, fear, desire and hate. Granted this can be applied to any art-form but as someone with an overpowering fear of the world, watching random movies every night for the last 3 years of college before going to Uni was me not only wanting to be invested in good stories but was me wanting to find ways to understand the world better before I take that next step into finally reaching adulthood.

Film music is often an opportunity for composers to experiment with certain genres, breaking the rules, twisting them and expanding them without the limitations of a song format with new ways of composing that have never been properly considered before. Film music can not only take me back to a certain film and get wrapped in it’s world entirely but it has always allowed me to relax and be thankful that I can go back to that world again once I finish a hard day’s work and then when I do, I can listen to the music again, and not only think about it again but use the experience of listening to it and apply it to my own life, here are two examples of some of my go to comfort composers and soundtracks.

The music of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross

One of the best examples I can think of this is the score I’m listening to right now as I’m writing this, Empire of Light soundtrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The music of Nine Inch Nails especially in some of their recent albums often works wonders in giving me a meditative feeling of calmness and in their soundtrack to the 2022 film directed by Sam Mendes, their music gives the vibes of some sort of calming music therapy which I guess is appropriate as the movie is about mental health (or at least I think that's what the movie was going for, film is still average at best and doesn’t work at what it’s trying to do, see my review If you want to see more).

Empire Of Light (2022)

The 8 minute track titled “Solitary People” is a repetitive piano melody with droning ambience, something that they are known for but has the calming feeling for me reflects the loneliness of it’s main character played by Olivia Coleman but at the same time there is a feeling of contentedness about it, as if the point of this tone is that there are people who live alone, who don’t have anyone with regards of their relationship, all they have is their job and some friends and that’s it. Sometimes that’s okay and that does not devalue your worth as a person. Am I looking to deep into this? Was that the intent of the artists when making this in context to the film? Probably not, but that’s how I apply this track to this film and the wider points it's saying to my own life, and if I get doubts, feelings of self loathing, or just feel unworthy, this track usually takes me back to a level headed place that gets me going again.

One of their most popular scores in a film scoring catalogue containing nothing but bangers, I could not write this without mentioning their contribution to the 2020 Pixar film Soul. Like Empire of Light it has the kind of new age, ethereal atmosphere that could work in a massage therapy session, this is a perfect accompaniment to the films universal message of there being no wrong way to live your life. In the films most quietly powerful scene, Joe (The voice of Jamie Fox) returns home from performing piano at a Jazz club but not before escaping from “The Great Before” a place where all souls are sent to be born on earth or sent to be up to “The Great Beyond” Joe is disappointed as he had attended this show with the expectation for this performance to be his big break but returns home confused at his purpose, when he checks in his pockets he finds objects that earlier in the film where picked up when a soul named “Number 22” (the voice of Tina Fey) when she possessed his body earlier in the film. Joe then realises without any exposition that all of those objects including a small autumn leaf, pizza crust and a roll of string, where the very thing that gave Number 22 her “Spark” which is what a soul needs in order to be granted access to earth as a spark gives them the affinity for life. With this he realises that he has been living his life all wrong and through the piano solo of Reznor and Ross’s music, thinks back to all the things that in fact give him his spark and by extension his purpose, not his aspirations for being a Jazz pianist but through the people, his students at the school he teaches, the places he lives, in you name it.

Soul (2020)

To adapt those complex feelings of self acceptance through music without having ever to lean to melodrama is no doubt a hard task to pull off, but to do with such subtlety and poignance in a way that calmly lets the visuals do the storytelling is a triumph in my book

and a scene and score that I go back to to give myself some extra clarity of my mental wellbeing or if I need a good cry.

(The Music of Thomas Newman)

The music by Thomas Newman is often pretty good at not only calming me mentally but his habit for patterned, percussive and repetitive melodies sort of enables me to stim in my own space if I feel inclined to. Maybe that’s why Sam Mendes hired Reznor and Ross to score Empire of Light as Newman was his previous collaborator and the latters music is one of the closest things that bears resemblance to Newman’s. One of my personal favourites from him is his score for the 2002 drama film White Oleander about a young girl who after her mother is arrested, ends up having to navigate the foster care system. The music is a very still droney ambience that reflects the numbness and emptiness one with depression would feel. The score has very little in terms of levity or tracks that reflect any sense of hope, but for me if I want to feel all the feelings if I’m feeling low.

White Oelander (2002) original score album

The applies same with his music for American Beauty with the infamous track named “Any Other Name” which has been used and by every piece of media under the sun by now. On the other end of musical tone, his music for both Finding Nemo and its sequel Finding Dory, to this day I go back to listen if I want to feel happy or I’m feeling happy or need to give myself some affirmation before carrying on with my life. Even if I wish there were extended versions of the tracks they still give me feelings of warmth, calmness and contentness while also evoking feelings of stimulation.

Finding Nemo (2003)

American Beauty (1999)

It’s not just film music that keeps me calm, new age ambience and my appreciation of it was only something I discovered from listening to the likes of Newman, composers often use a still drone in the background while the orchestra and other musical elements take centre stage. When giving a hard listen, I could always sense that ambience in the background and always wished if an extended version of that sample existed, but only then did I learn that on Youtube, that this style of music is often used on not just music therapy, but therapy aimed at Autistics. Just typing down the phrase “Calming music for Autistic people” will get you results consisting of hour long or more independently produced tracks designed to help those like me looking for a quick release form the overpowering responsibilities of the outside world.

For a long time, I never took part nor did I ever try to be part of The Autistic Community. I often saw my autism as either something to overcome, or something to not make a big part of my personality. Only recently in the last few years through being in my own space, discovering my love for film music, leading to this wider discovery of this community, have I now fully embraced that I can accept, my love for film music because of it, as it now is one of my special interests on top of film. I listen to it on top of my favourite artists, I listen to it when cleaning my apartment, I listen to it on my headphones and when those headphones break, I just put the speaker on my phone to my ear when walking into town, Now I want to share it with other like minded people, whoever they may be, I hope this will allow me to just do that.