Essay: The relevance of modernism.

Introduction.

    Musical modernism is at its end, but much of its importance is still waiting to be realized.  Though many today are glad to see that era go (and some are inclined to forget about it altogether), modernist composers have in fact left for posterity, aside from the actual music itself, numerous innovations in all aspects of music -- orchestration, form, rhythm, etc. All of these new ideas may be fruitfully applied to more traditional styles, invigorating today's somewhat anemic musical landscape.
    Many composers of course are naturally drawn to doing this, and don't need any encouragement in the form of an essay.  Some, however, having been turned off to modernist music at a relatively young age, do need some prodding, not only for their own artistic benefit, but for the sake of their students, whose development can be deformed by being discouraged from treating modernism with open minds.  Still others will find in modernism -- treated the right way -- considerable means for removing writer's block.
    In this essay I'll first define the salient characteristics of modernism; then I'll briefly plot its history to show that it is indeed at its end (for those for whom it isn't obvious); I'll show why and suggest how to synthesize modernism with tradition; I'll explain why it isn't done as much as it seems it should be, and otherwise attempt to remove objections to my argument; and finally I'll sketch the place of this approach in its larger artistic and social contexts.

Characteristics of Modernism.

    Modernism in general (but not all pieces of modernist music, nor by any means all modernist composers) is characterized by relatively large doses of abstraction: tone rows are the most famous example (as essentially abstracted melodies) but similar types of thinking were also applied to rhythm, form, and in fact all the other components of music.  This is the real reason why modernist composers as seemingly antagonistic to one another as Pierre Boulez and Iannis Xenakis may nevertheless (as intuition suggests) be reasonably classed together as “modernists”: they used very different systems, but the common ground between those systems was an unprecedented amount of abstracted musical thinking.
     "Abstract" basically means anything structured from without, as it were -- from theory.  Retrograde canons might be described as abstract; tone rows certainly are, as are group theory, stochastics, and many other such tools used by composers of the day.  As the twentieth century stretched on, modernist music tended to become more and more abstract; in some ways this was helpful, as may be appreciated by comparing later modernists with earlier ones laboring without the aid of abstract formal ideas. Charles Ives and Anton Webern, though worlds apart artistically, nevertheless both help to illustrate this notion, sincethe forms of their works tend to be amorphous (and unattractive) or traditional (and unexciting). 
    This way of thinking, with its near limitless applications, tended, on account so many applications, to make for extreme individualism, each composer either partially or completely going his own way, in what might be called an "uncommon practice era".  (It seems paradoxical that abstraction, with its universal qualities, should flourish at the expense of universality -- at least, of a universal language -- in music.)  Even previously solidified techniques, such as canon, quickly became so individualized in the hands of various composers (compare, for example, the different results obtained by Webern, Ligeti, and Nancarrow, all of whom doted on the technique) as to become similar in name only -- certainly not similar in sound.  This individualism in turn made for another characteristic of modernism: the unprecedented amount of writing about the music, since to understand any given piece requires considerable outside help.  (So to some extent these writings substituted for tradition: a Beethoven sonata might not make full sense without the proper background understanding, just as a modernist piece probably won't without an essay to accompany it.)
    Speaking of writing, the fact that composers like Boulez and Xenakis could engage in aesthetic polemics with one another shows that to some extent at least the creators themselves were missing the point of what they were doing.  Both composers are on record with a teleological view of music history, sharing visions of a future where all composers write in some variant of their own particular style; and many other composers seem to have been similarly carried away with their own cherished systems.
    But the real point of that music, as far as posterity is concerned (but apart from its own intrinsic value as music), was not to usher in a great new dynasty of artists, but rather to give free reign (for a time) to abstraction in musical thought.  This is because many of the discoveries, directly resulting from that abstract thinking, are still viable today, since little-used (while others are evidently played out by now, since over-used).  Some of Olivier Messiaen's ideas are well worth reviving; most of Arnold Schoenberg's ideas have already had their day.

History of Modernism.

    The historical progress of modernism, spanning from the late nineteenth century up to the present day, may very generally be divided into early, middle, and late periods.  The early period includes composers as ostensibly diverse as Schoenberg and Stravinsky, and is characterized by genuinely new compositional techniques, not to mention considerable public hostility. 
    The middle period of modernism is dominated by composers associated with Darmstadt: Boulez, Stockhausen, et al, but also includes many composers, such as Ligeti and Xenakis, who tended to stand apart from those giants and forge their own paths.   In general, the new systems discovered by their predecessors -- most famously serialism -- were expanded upon, newer and more radical systems continued to appear, and audiences continued to dislike what they heard (though not as vociferously as in preceding decades). 
    One of the distinguishing features of this middle period vis a vis its predecessor is that early modernists often claimed to be continuing the path of tradition, while these middle-period artists tended to insist on a "blank slate" approach to composition.  Of course any good music, even popular music, can't exist without an understanding of what came before it, but the practical effect of the attitude of "starting fresh" is that these composers were able to quickly push the capacities of compositional technique far beyond anything that came before.  A case in point is shown by comparing Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire with Boulez' Marteau sans Maitre: while the latter was composed with a conscious awareness of the former, there's no question that it takes giant leaps beyond it, notwithstanding the closeness in time and place of the creation of both pieces.
    This middle period of modernism was the most influential of the movement's three stages: the influence of integral serialism was such that not only did composers define themselves by it, in the positive sense of writing serial music, but negatively as well, by specifically not writing in that style.  Everyone knows who belonged to the former group, but the latter includes artists as ostensibly diverse as Gyorgy Ligeti and Philip Glass.
    The late period of modernism includes composers like Brian Ferneyhough and Michael Finnissey -- a group which, though including the "new complexity" group, has little of anything "new" to recommend it.  In fact one of the main distinguishing features between this period and its two predecessors is the indifference shown to it by audiences, versus the hostility of years past.  Not only this, but the composers aren't fighting among themselves as they were in the past: no Schoenberg camp versus Stravinsky camp, no integral serialism versus any number of other systems.  In general the music is characterized by extreme complexity, and a remarkable self-assurance in the handling of the materials: no stumbling on this by-now-familiar compositional terrain.  (Many middle modernist composers, on the other hand -- Ligeti, Xenakis, Stockhausen -- did at times take some missteps, resulting in some markedly bad music.)  This can be heard on just about any recording.
    Another salient characteristic of the overall progress of this style is a certain crescendo and decrescendo, not only of infighting and audience hostility, but of artistic originality as well.  This last point is easy to hear by comparing, for example, Webern’s Symphonie op.21, with Stockhausen’s Zeitmasze, and then comparing that later piece with Ferneyhough’s Chute d’Icare: it's not hard to hear that modernism is no longer making the great strides it once was.  (Another reasonable timeline comparison can be made between Schoenberg's Farben, Ligeti's Lontano, and Finnissey's Red Earth.)  For that matter, a similar phenomenon might also be observed when comparing "completely different" composers like John Cage with the updated, present-day version of this sort of composer, who is also less noticeable (because less original) than his predecessors (even when performing without any clothes, as I saw recently), just as today's late-modernist composers attract less attention than their predecessors did.
    Many such comparisons can be made, but the point is not only that this general curve, or life cycle, happened, but also that it's normal.  For centuries now various major styles have come and gone, each lasting about 100 years, and all culminating towards the end, with composers like Bach, Beethoven, and Wagner.  Possibly one of the more unique qualities of modernism, compared with the past several centuries at least, is that seems to be going out more quietly than its predecessors: Brian Ferneyhough is a first-class composer, but it seems hard to believe that his music will ever be studied and revered as in the cases of those past masters ... but who knows?
    Because it's the end of an era, it would be a mistake for young modernist composers of today to push themselves very hard trying to come up with new (modernist) systems.  For just as Bach and Handel epitomized the Baroque before that era gave way to the Classical, so the task of today's best modernist composers is not to adventure into the unknown, as their artistic predecessors did, but to perfect the music that resulted from those older adventures: the hammer, now mastered, deserves some polishing.

Historical digression.

    Apropos modernism in general, and its relation to music history, a  macrocosm/microcosm effect seems to have taken effect, in terms of musical development on the large-scale versus on an individual level.  Harmony is the keystone of western music, which is why composition students always start their formal studies there, gradually taking on tasks in counterpoint, orchestration, and form thereafter; trying to go in a different order is likely to bring confusion and frustration.  Similarly, it seems that it wasn’t until the outer-most limits of traditional harmony had been discovered, towards the end of the 19th century, that music in general was able to start fully branching out in other directions, towards counterpoint, form, etc.  This accounts for all the “isms” and maverick composers of a hundred years ago: Webern was preoccupied with counterpoint, Messiaen with rhythm, Varese with form, etc.  (Of course all those composers made use of all the other elements of music – of harmony, etc. – but they nevertheless showed preferences for some elements over others to a degree previous generations of composers, who were still too tightly bound by harmony, weren’t capable of sustaining.)
    And just as students, nearing a solid understanding of harmony, simultaneously start to branch out in the other aspects, so too were many if not most late 19th century composers -- including even Brahms -- starting to branch out with more modernist ideas in the other realms of music.  At the same time, and of necessity (for realizing their new ideas), these same composers were loosening the restrictions of harmony -- though perhaps unaware of the floodgates they were prying open.
    The potential problem with this analogy is that students, starting to venture beyond harmony and into counterpoint, make use of what they've learned of harmony; whereas modernism in general, as it was starting around the turn of the century to venture into the other aspects of music, often appeared to discard traditional harmony altogether.  But in fact all composers use harmony, and the modernists who apparently ignored that traditional harmony were in fact directly informed by it, not only in a general sense of how to handle, say, harmonic rhythm, but also in a negative sense, of what not to do in order to avoid tonal sounds.   It's not precisely the pattern of the way students learning music go about it, but there does appear to be enough of a correspondence to think about.

Why to Synthesize.

    Synthesis, or the process of taking innovations and consolidating them within traditional frameworks, is a normal phenomenon in art:  J.S. Bach took the homophonic, chord-oriented style that had become popular by the early Baroque, and deliberately made it more linear, more in line with the style of the late Renaissance.  In the process, of course, he greatly enriched the music of his own day (and far beyond), which is, ideally, how the general pattern of innovation-consolidation works.
    Impressionism, too, introduced many innovations which were eventually consolidated with tradition: the music Albert Rousell is a good example of this pattern at work.  Yet, apropos impressionism, all sorts of musicians -- ranging from Arnold Schoenberg to George Gershwin -- were influenced by the style, and clearly not all of them were interested in synthesizing it with tradition.  (In other words, the approach advocated in this essay is not the only way to go vis a vis modernism, and it would be just as foolish to insist that everyone follow it as it would be to insist that everyone ignore it.)
    Whereas in the past the synthesizing tendency has taken place on a smaller scale -- as in the example of Bach -- today composers have more choice, selecting from the whole of the common practice, or even before it, to go with any number of modernist innovations.  (Like all luxuries, this has its drawbacks, namely the danger of composers not restricting themselves enough in their choice of materials.)
    Minimalism is a good example of a modernist style that's already gone through the synthesizing process.  Some might question whether minimalism was modernist, but it was one of those "negative" modernist styles, in the sense that it was conceived in direct reaction to integral serialism and similarly-sounding styles.  It's abstract too, notwithstanding its innocuous surface appeal, nor the way many of the performers seemed to go into trances when playing it -- versus the laser-like focus of so many other modernist performers -- since the processes applied to the music, such as phasing and additive rhythmic patterns, are applied from without.  Another point that marks it out as modernist is a certain "open frontier" mentality, and a concurrent "blank slate" approach: these composers were working with very new ideas, and as a consequence had to strip away a good deal of historical baggage -- just as the integral serialists did -- in order to get to know their new materials.  (Music in Twelve Parts, by Philip Glass, is a good illustration here.)
    Given this essentially modernist style, it's perhaps not surprising -- in light of the argument of this essay -- that later minimalists soon started with more traditional musical thinking, evident in the form of symphonic scores, versus the more ad-hoc groups of the earlier composers.  The results were inevitably less original (though perhaps not surprisingly, more remunerative) than the first generation music, as is easy to hear by comparing early John Adams with early Steve Reich.  Whether one likes the results or not, the important point is that it's an instance of innovation-consolidation already completed, and represents just a few of the practically countless inspirations to be plucked from modernism.  (Probably the reason it's gone through the synthesizing process so quickly is simply that its materials and ideas are much easier to grasp than those of most other modernist styles.)
    And so it stands to reason that modernism is still vital, but not in the way it was in its heyday.  Then it was itself the new music; today it's the best way for stimulating the new music.

 

How to Synthesize.

    But these ideas, old and new, need to be adapted to one another skillfully.  This means not simply surface treatment, by throwing in an extended glissando passage, or an occasional cluster chord -- as has been done plenty of times by composers unaware of the full implications of those materials -- but structural integration: helping to define formal areas by means of these new techniques, for example.  And there's no necessary reason for the results to be as harsh as modernism: the "personnages rhythmiques" of Messiaen can take to just about any type of harmony; polytempi can easily take root in tonal environments; and countless other such examples are waiting to be made use of. 
    In general, these sorts of projects involve balancing abstraction with the age-old, world-wide facts of music, most obviously with tonality in some form or other.  And so composers of today, attempting to synthesize modernism and tradition, shouldn't expect more of the unheard-of results of fifty years ago, but rather a more sophisticated and vital approach to their own composition, with music that will often end up sounding at least as much traditional as modernist.  (Many composers, of course, have already started this musical reintegration project, with the appealing results to be expected: the music of British composer Julian Anderson sets a good example.)
    There's no shortage of other styles these days for composers to draw upon for their inspiration -- everything from the middle ages to jazz, composers have tried it all.  But some sources are likely to work better than others, and modernism really seems the most promising of the bunch.  The simple reason is that, because styles like romanticism and jazz (to take two popular ones) are more accessible than modernism, composers have already had their way with most of what they have to offer.  But because of the extreme complexity and dissonance of so much modernism, many composers are evidently happy to leave it completely behind as soon as they're out of school.  And the fact that such composers are missing out on the spirit of the times is clearly in evidence, in the form of so much uninspired music -- it's practically normal among lesser artists these days to pretend that music simply stopped developing around 1950.  All of which is a shame, since modernism still has so much to offer.

Objections.

    Some might say that common practice harmony, forms, etc., all grew up together, organically, and trying to cross those elements with abstract ideas is likely to prove unsuccessful.  After all -- the objection goes -- some of those early serialists, trying as best they could, nevertheless failed to write convincing twelve-tone music in traditional forms.  No doubt, some ideas won’t work together, but many have already been well-proven to work (such as pointillism, polytempi, and many others), and there’s no sense in allowing fear of a failed effort get in the way of a worthwhile discovery – in fact those sorts of fears must be confronted by any self-respecting artist.
    Others might protest that modernism needs to be allowed to die, that it never really existed in the first place as anything but the Emperor’s New Clothes, and was in fact a harmful waste of time.  This view, however, is only for the most uninformed or unimaginative to defend, as it’s very clear that modernists generally were very well-educated (Schoenberg seems to have had a music library in his head, as did Boulez and plenty of others) and, for the most part, solidly-built as people as well, and therefore not about to go off en masse chasing the wind.  It’s also clear -- for anyone who can’t hear the value of this music -- from reading through any intelligent analysis of any modernist music (as opposed to the numerous unintelligent analyses), that those composers had plenty of inspiration, and in general were of very high artistic value.
    Some might object simply on a knee-jerk basis, out of fear of the forbidding modernist sound-worlds.  It's true, there's something sinister about modernism: who in his right mind -- and notwithstanding any number of aesthetic and historical justifications -- would dedicate himself to writing some of that music?  Invoking a Gothic cathedral can help calm those fears: if the soul of the composer is the cathedral itself, lighted and safe, the music is the gargoyles, booted out for obvious reasons.  In any case, objecting to the thesis of this essay on the grounds of simple dislike of the materials and their (original) results isn't a real objection: the point is that those materials are there to be made use of, and making use of them is only following a normal historical practice.
    Similarly, some who are inclined to view modernism in an unfavorable light have bitter memories of authoritarian composition departments, basically forcing the students to write in some sort of modernist style, regardless of whether it suited the students' personalities.  And this authoritarian attitude may be traced back to the modernist leaders themselves: Boulez openly acknowledged -- and refused to apologize for -- the fact that he was a bully.  But those leading composers had some reasons for their behavior: it might be forgotten today that they were still in the minority at the time -- and a very unpopular one at that -- and their anger is easily seen, in retrospect, as an overcompensation, a safeguard in the interests of their “children”.  (From this perspective, one might even argue that those composers should be viewed rather in a heroic light.)  
    But now that those children are grown, as it were (and most of their parents dead), it's time to put aside those old prejudices and start treating modernism in its full context, for everyone's good.  For to do otherwise is to guarantee artistic stunting: no real artist can just ignore an entire epoch (though some try); and this project of synthesis is where the real action is today.

Larger Contexts.

    Much of this appraisal of modernism in music may be said, at least to some extent, of the other arts as well; for just as heroic types with startling -- and usually abstract -- ideas made their presence felt in music, so too did their counterparts in the other arts appear at about the same time.  Le Corbusier is a good example from architecture -- and it's somehow not too surprising that none other than Iannis Xenakis, who was also an architect, worked in his office for awhile.  (Both these men were, of course, at first denounced by many, but have since taken their places as luminaries in 20th century art.)
    And because abstract thinking was so strong in the other arts, so the synthesizing approach, so promising for composers, may also be (and no doubt has been) taken in any of those other arts.  In fact, on account of the flexibility of abstract thinking, some ideas may be applied to more than one art form: just as musical canons, or imitation, may be realized equally well in dance, so too can some particular modernist techniques work just as well in another art form as in music.
    Perhaps to some extent this synthesis is moving faster in some of the other arts than in music.  Modernism in the visual arts managed from the start to penetrate popular awareness in a way that the music never did, probably owing to its inescapability in the form of architecture.  During this process of exposure it seems to have loosened up for the sake of at least some measure of popular acceptance -- since after all, it's much easier to turn off the radio than to pretend a building isn't there.  Greater compromise with popular taste means more room for tradition to creep in and blend with the innovations, sooner than it could with the concurrent innovations in music.
    On an even wider scope, it's clear that modernism, in all the arts, was a part of a general social trend in the twentieth century to atomization (the "uncommon practice" mentioned above), with artists more and more going their own ways, just as individuals everywhere did, or attempted to do, in the name of individual freedom.  In fact, artists as diverse as James Joyce and John Cage also broke boundaries not only in their artistic lives but in their social lives as well, for better and for worse.  (Some might say that artists have always been inclined to social rebellion of some sort, but that's false.)
    This general claim to freedom is, in retrospect, somewhat disreputable, on account of all the spiritual mayhem that ensued, and which was manifested in widespread neurosis, apathy, etc., in otherwise ordinary people.  Similarly in music, many performers actually complained of negative psychological and even physiological effects from playing modernist music; many composers disliked their own efforts; and many audience members became indifferent to the new music being offered.
    A balance must be struck, as always, between extremes, and this includes not just balancing abstract thinking with the traditional realities of music , but in general reconciling the individual with the group.  "Atomization", in fact, may just as well be taken as "divide and conquer": with people putting themselves first, there's little room for cooperation, understanding, or any number of other vitally important qualities. 
    How and why to go about synthesizing modernism with tradition are the points of this essay; doing these same things on a larger -- that is to say, on a political scale -- is another question altogether.  In general though, the many are led by the few, and it's the latter who must show the intelligence and the courage to ignore the easy answers (of pretending that the past isn't over, or that there's some brilliant future to lead the people towards), and instead engage in the age-old problem of creatively reconciling past and present, of fulfilling the pattern of innovation-consolidation.   Finding these right solutions is an especially tall order in a age where the temptations to spiritual decay are so alarmingly widespread; but there are few guarantees in life, and everyone must play their roles as best as they can.

Rubato in film

    Tempo rubato is one of a number of techniques used by musicians to accentuate an important moment in a passage of music.  Film, too, has many devices for accentuating important moments -- such as close-ups, sound effects, etc. -- but rubato either isn't one of them, or it hasn't been much used by movie-makers to date.  This omission is a shame, since the technique would seem to transpose very well from the one medium to the other.  (It may be in fact that many directors have already made extensive use of this technique; I'm not a film buff, and I've only made a cursory look for it.)  The reason I'm writing this essay then is because, whether or not the technique is already known in the film world, it's worth spreading the word about it still further.

    The term itself is Italian for "stolen time", and in a nutshell, it accentuates a moment in music by speeding up the tempo ("stealing" time from the initial pulse or tempo), then slowing down ("giving back" the time), before returning to the original tempo right at the critical moment (usually either the climax of the passage, or the ending).  The effect is similar to riding a bike along a level surface, then going up and down a hill (or down and up a valley, which is the more common method in music), before returning to level ground again; except in music it usually happens much faster than this.  It's the somewhat lurching (up and down), or turbulent effect, followed by clear sailing (level ground), that makes it work.  (The technique is probably most easily heard in the music of Chopin, and anyone interested in the detailed mechanics of it should read Tobias Matthay's Musical Interpretation.)  The salient points apropos this essay are: rubato needs to be so discrete as to be nearly subliminal, and, it must involve both speeding up past the original tempo, and slowing down slower than that original tempo.

    In case some might raise an eyebrow at the idea of transplanting an idea from one art to another, it's best to remember that the arts have always cross-fertilized, on account of the many parallels among them.  Architects have always taken ideas from painters and vice-versa, musicians and dancers have done the same, etc.  Music and film also make a good couple -- as they both feature the element of time -- and so it's not hard to make a long list of techniques and ideas that may be freely transposed from one to the other: the film techniques of cross-cutting, long takes, and even things like racking focus easily find their parallels with music in the mind of an inventive composer.  (No doubt this is why film composers work carefully with screenwriters and directors.)  And in fact many composers have been directly influenced by film: Elliot Carter, for example, was influenced by Sergei Eisenstein, and no doubt many in movie-making have been directly influenced by musicians.

    Slow motion, as an ancestor of the technique in question, has been in use for some time: Kurosawa famously manipulated the visual tempo in the duel scene towards the start of Seven Samurai.  I've also noticed that the editors of videos of surfing competitions seem to have an intuitive leaning to this technique, since on the replays the athletes often return to real time from slow motion at the critical moment.  But they and others leave out the "stolen" part, i.e. they don't speed up before slowing down (or vice-versa), and it's this "back and forth" that takes really makes it work.

    To create a hypothetical example of how rubato in film might work: imagine a joust, beginning with both riders charging at each other from a long distance.  As the moment of impact continues to approach, the tempo is speeded up gradually (but only slightly overall), until the riders are getting still nearer to one another, at which point the tempo slows down -- also gradually down to only slightly slower than real time -- only to return to strict tempo as the lances crash into the shields and the combatants go sprawling.

    Of course, cross-cutting, camera proxemics, etc., would all play their roles here, just as dynamics -- the loudness of the passage -- harmonies, etc., all play their roles in musical rubato: they all work together to heighten the aesthetic effect.  In fact, a more sophisticated version of rubato would involve a film composer writing a rubato passage to go with the rubato on screen, both composer and screen writer using all their devices to really pack a punch.

    But just as some styles of music take better to rubato than others, so some styles of film-making will also do better than others with the technique.  Action scenes -- whether dramatic or comic -- in particular would likely take well to the technique: everything from high-speed chases to sports.  Romantic scenes, on the other hand, would probably wither under it, as would dialogue.  It seems the main criterion for its success is whether or not the scene in question involves time in a some crucial way.

    Perhaps the reason it hasn't caught on is that some believe that rubato in film would be too artificial, that it would "activate disbelief" in the viewer.  This seems a flimsy objection, since movies have always featured plenty of artificial effects that work very well, everything from using black and white when color is available to cgi's of dinosaurs.  All of those things -- when done well -- tend only to enhance the quality of the film.

    In music, time is "stolen" from the pulse, or beat, of the music, either while that pulse is sounding (a melody in tempo rubato played over a bass line in strict tempo) or after it's been established (a passage with all the parts -- melody, bass, etc. -- all in tempo rubato played after a passage with all the parts in strict tempo).  Some might on those grounds object that there's no "pulse" in a film scene from which to steal, and that the whole idea should be accordingly discarded.  But going back to the joust example: everyone has an idea of what it looks like for a horse to run at top speed, as well as an idea of what real time looks like versus fast- or slow-motion.  These ideas, or expectations, provide the "pulse", or regularity, against which the rubato can take place; similar to the way that, when listening to music, everyone accepts the initial pulse and sets their expectations against that for what follows.  In other words rubato is a means of playing with expectations in general and with tempo only in particular.

    In fact, of the two types of rubato -- those with and without a strict bass accompanying the melody in rubato -- it seems that, in film, it's the latter type that would succeed more often.  With special effects, however, it seems possible to speed up the main action (the jousting combatants) while keeping the background (spectators, trees, etc.) in strict time, though the effect is likely to go unnoticed.

  Tempo rubato has been tested in music for centuries now, and it's well-worth making use of it in film as well.  Perhaps it already happens all the time -- I don't know, and pun intended -- but I hope this essay will help to ensure that it happens even more often.