The main part of the
synchronization, however, is not the general mood of the music generally fitting the general mood of the
film, because as
tim three says, that could happen anywhere.
The main synchronizations are the precise ones, such as the way each line in "Breathe" is almost a command to the people on screen. For example, as the line "Look around, choose your own ground" is heard, Dorothy is talking to her aunt and uncle, but then turns around and walks away. The lyrics then describe a daily routine of pointless labour, and during this Dorothy walks around the farm speaking to the farmhands as they do their work.
All of jonrc's mentioned syncs occur, and there are also countless more just like those.
Is this possible?
It's possible that Pink Floyd wrote the 42 minutes of Dark Side of the Moon to be a perfect soundtrack to the first 42 minutes of The Wizard of Oz, but surely the same 42 minutes of music couldn''t possible sync with the next 42 minutes of the film, because that would require the major events of the film to occur at regular intervals.
But here's the thing: during the first run-through of the album, there are plenty of notes and sounds that don't sync with anything. They just seem like part of the music. Those are the sounds which sync in the second run-through. (It's worth noting that some people claim to have found syncs in third and fourth run-thoughs, as the film is much longer than the album.)
3 of the names of the tracks seem to resemble the scenes of which they are played during:
4) "The Great Gig in the Sky" is played during the scene in which Dorothy's house flies through the air and whirls around in the tornado.
7) "Any Color You Like" is played in "Over the rainbow land", the part of the movie that's in colour.
8) "Brain Damage" is played as the brainless scarecrow sings "If I only had a Brain."
As for the theme of many of the songs:
2) "Breathe" is played in the farm (I explained before). "On the Run", an ugly song, is played over the beautiful "Somewhere over the Rainbow."
3) "Time" is about making your own decisions and doing something big with your life, which is played as Dorothy decides to run away, and bumps into a fortune teller who looks into the past and predicts the future.
4) "The Great Gig In the Sky" is the tornado, (as I explained before) and as Dorothy runs around with her mouth open, screaming, there is a lovely wailing on the song.
5) "Money" is played when Dorothy arrives in Munchkinland. Some say this theme is chosen because this film was the first in Technicolor, which made the quality of the colour better than anything before, and that many people came to the film simply because of the colour. 6) "Us and Them" is played with the Wicked Witch (the second half of the song) talking with the Good Witch and Dorothy. The Wicked Witch is on side of the arguement and Dorothy is on the other side with the Good Witch.
Again, there are many syncs between lyrics and actions, which can be seen in other write-ups and on the internet.
More Evidence:
-there is a triangle (just like the prism on the cover) hanging from a tree in the very beginning of the film. (Personally, I don't think much of this evidence.)
-On the original album cover, the front illustration was white light going through a prism and coming out refracted into colours. On the back, was the opposite illustration: coloured light going through the prism and coming out as white light. This is the sequence of the film: it starts in black and white, goes into colour, then goes back into black and white at the end.
-(I figured this out myself, so listen carefully, and awe at its brilliance!) This was the first film in Technicolor. I looked up Technicolor, it had reference to The Wizard of Oz as the first feature film it was used in, and said that the way it was done was by shining light through a prism and getting the three primary colours on the other side. This light was used to put the film into colour.
This was discovered in
1997, and (apparently) was all over the news. When the members of the
band were asked if this
synchronization was deliberate, each person denied it except
Roger Waters, who said no comment. In my opinion, there are three possibilities:
1) They were all in on it, but said different things to the press.
2) The sync is all one big fluke, but Roger Waters quite liked the idea, and thus did not dismiss the idea straight away, so some would still think the band were clever enough to pull this off.
3) Roger Waters, the man behind the album, did this behind the other members' backs.
This would be hard, I admit. Especially since Gilmour had his own room to do his solos. But I can't help fantasizing that the reason Gilmour and Waters have their eternal feud is because Waters bossed Gilmour around so much, telling him which beats to start and end his solos, insisting on certain effects in the background that seem to have no place in the music.
Just for fun, let's pretend this is the case: You're a member of Pink Floyd, you played the music Waters wrote for you during the recording sessions, you played it at countless concerts. Your band's record reached the top five best-selling records in history, and each year reaches the top 200. And then one day you hear some rumour about this sync, and you give it a go, and you realise that for 25 years you've been playing to the beat of The Wizard of Oz. You've been playing the perfect soundtrack. And you never knew.....
Update 10th September 2001: All morning, I had an urge to listen to "
The Great Gig in the Sky", as it is a kick-ass track. When I finally had a free moment, I popped it on and started reading my
mail. Half way through the song, I heard a female voice
mumble something. Although I had heard it before, I decided to
rewind and hear it again. The
voice says "
I never said I was afraid of Dorothy". While operating the sync, this is heard precisely when the Wicked Witch of the East appears for the first time.
I had read somewhere that this can be heard on the live version found on "Pulse", but I figured that could just be the band claiming they really did sync the album on purpose, regardless of whether they actually did or not. But now my mind is made.