A Study of How Roland Joffe Uses Music to Tell The Story in The Film The Mission

The Mission (1986) is scored by Ennio Morricone, and uses music as an integral part of the narrative storytelling. In the opening, the score swoops in with a beautiful and epic orchestral melody that mixes in sounds from the entire film's score - from the tribal drums to the liturgical choir.

In the first sequence, the music played by Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons) is very beautiful. Unlike the oboe used for Disney's Peter and the Wolf's character Sonia the Duck, who's oboe theme had almost a nasally timbre to emulate a duck quack, Father Gabriel's tone was smooth and mellow. The Guarani are intrigued by his playing. At first they are offensive, but become more inquisitive and let their guard down as they inspect the oboe and it's music.

In the second sequence, Vita Nostra plays when the priests enter the village. This song is astoundingly beautiful, especially the version on the Spotify playlist. As noted in the guide, the drums and flutes are reminiscent of a "tribal" sound, and when the sound opens up as the rest of the symphony comes in, it is very reminiscent of something out of The Prince Of Egypt. Both are about a tribe trying to preserve its own culture and overcome an oppressive slaver society. When Rodrigo Mendoza (Robert De Niro) declines to kill the pig, it is an important moment of character development because the audience has seen him kill his brother, but now he is choosing not to kill an animal, so it shows that he is trying to live a more ethical life. The Ave Maria theme is interesting to contrast to the Vita Nostra song because of it's Christian origin, whereas the Vita Nostra theme has a tribal sound. These represent the two societies in the film and how they interact with each other.

The third sequence continues to mix the themes together as the Jesuits help the Guarani. It keeps a balance between the tribal sounds of Nostra Vita and the liturgical sounds of Ave Maria's choir, which is similar to how many of the Guarani have converted to Christianity but are still practicing their tribal culture. Father Gabriel shows the scars on the back of the Guarani to prove a point as to how he was treated when enslaved on a plantation versus working for the community plantation. When the Chief questions Father Gabriel he is basically asking what gives the emissary ethical and legal authority, which is basically the fight of the Protestant movement of the time.

The fourth sequence is very sad and powerful as all of the Guarani and the priests trying to protect them are murdered. It is interesting to see the difference between how Father Gabriel and Mendoza fight the Catholics, with Father Gabriel being a pacifist and walking with the Guarani away from the burning village while being shot at without fighting back. Meanwhile Mendoza is leading Guarani warriors to fight against the armies, and manage to kill some of the oppressors and (temporarily) save other tribe members. Either way, it is a losing battle. Both men die and the Guarani that aren't killed are presumably taken as slaves. The film does not advocate either pacifism or fighting back as being better or more effective than the other because they both meet the same fate, but it shows the differences in thoughts to open a debate.

In an article by Sciannameo, it is made evident that Morricone was attached to this project and very thoughtful about his musical choices. Above I mentioned that the use of the tribal Vita Nostra and the liturgical Ave Maria serve as a musical metaphor for the relationship between the two forces. In the article, Sciannameo discusses the use of the Guarana boy singing Ave Maria, which uses music to show that the tribe is trying to assimilate to protect themselves. However, according to Sciannameo, this attempt is unsuccessful because Morricone does not treat music as "a common language" in this film. He goes on to explain how the music in the film is directly tied in to the visual narrative, in the last scene with the girl choosing to pick up the violin (representative of music and culture) rather than the candelabra (representative of religion).

As music for film developed it went from accompaniment to mood setting to character building and finally to driving the narrative. This film is fully indicative of music driving the narrative in the way music is directly tied to the narrative with Gabriel's oboe, the boy singing Ave Maria, and more.