Music, Form, and Crooked Time in Felix van Groeningen’s The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012)

Abstract

Abstract:This article explores the connections between musical and narrative crookedness in The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012). I propose a definition of narrative tactus to account for the increasingly disruptive impact of the film’s nonlinear structure and consider how the soundtrack both accentuates and counteracts the resulting sense of disjunction.Trigger warning: This article discusses the suicide of one of the film’s protagonists.