Music and Narrative: Philip Glass’s Post-Minimalist Technique in The Hours Interacts with the Structure of the Film

Abstract

This study explores how Philip Glass’s post-minimalist techniques in the film score of The Hours interact with the film’s non-linear narrative structure. By integrating musicological analysis and film narrative theory, the paper examines the use of micro-variations, additive processes, and repetitive harmonic structures in Glass’s score. These techniques are shown to not only intensify the emotional resonance of the film but also reinforce its fragmented temporal flow across three interwoven storylines. Case studies of specific scenes illustrate how the music’s subtle evolution parallels the narrative’s thematic continuity and psychological depth. This research contributes to the understanding of post-minimalist film scoring, emphasizing the aesthetic and structural synergies between music and moving image.

1. Introduction

Minimalist music emphasizes simplicity, repetition, and stable harmonies. Philip Glass, a pivotal figure in this genre, transitioned from minimalism to post-minimalism, introducing more flexibility in harmony and form. This paper examines how Glass’s post-minimalist techniques in The Hours intersect with the film’s non-linear narrative structure, influencing emotional expression and narrative coherence.

The concept of musical narrative derives from narratology in literary theory, where “narrative” designates symbolically mediated events linked by temporal order and causality (Van Nerom et al. 2024, p. viii). With the advent of synchronized sound, music assumed an increasingly integral role in cinema. As Larsen (2007, p. 7) observes, “film music is part of the film, part of the film experience, and part of the cultural context surrounding the film.” There is also a connection between film narrative and musical narrative.

This article focuses on Philip Glass’s score for The Hours (Daldry 2002). The commercial album contains 14 tracks (Nonesuch 79693-2); in the film, however, the on-screen cues are edited, resequenced, and sometimes combined. In what follows, I distinguish album “tracks” (commercial release) from on-screen “cues” (music placed to picture): album titles are used only as convenient labels, while analysis references each cue’s on-screen placement and timing. This clarification addresses the score-narrative relation at the level of what audiences actually hear in the film.

Methodological details are presented in the Methods section. Briefly, the analysis selects six structurally salient cues and aligns their post-minimalist techniques with editorial devices to evaluate narrative function.

Research on minimalism and post-minimalism (Duckworth 1995; Potter and Gann 2016) provides theoretical foundations. Film-narrative scholarship indicates how non-linear structures shape viewer engagement (Bordwell et al. 2012). Ross (2007) and Huron (2008) discuss how minimalist techniques, such as micro-variation and additive processes, deepen emotional responses. This study addresses gaps in prior scholarship by closely analyzing Glass’s score in The Hours.

The film adopts a non-linear narrative structure, interweaving three storylines: Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman), a British writer in the 1920s, who wrote Mrs. Dalloway while treating depression, representing the vanguard of modernism and feminism; Laura Brown (Julianne Moore) in the 1950s, a housewife who contemplates suicide under the pressure of a post-war family, and finally chooses to regain her self; and Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep) in 2001, a publishing editor who experiences self-realization and bondage while caring for her former lover dying of AIDS.

Non-linear narrative, unlike chronological storytelling, uses flashbacks, flashforwards, or parallel storylines to enrich psychological depth and thematic complexity. Stephen Daldry’s film The Hours utilizes such techniques, especially parallel editing and cross-cutting, effectively highlighting the connections among its three intertwined storylines.

Across different times and spaces, the three protagonists inhabit parallel states of constraint. Glass’s score articulates links among their storylines, shaping continuity, emotional emphasis, and point of view.

2. Literature Review

This article examines how post-minimalist scoring interacts with non-linear editing to shape emotion and coherence in The Hours. The review below situates the study within scholarship on minimalism/post-minimalism, film narration, and music-emotion, and delineates the scope and contribution of the present analysis.

Existing research relevant to this study spans minimalist/post-minimalist theory, film narration, and music-emotion. Foundational accounts of minimalism and post-minimalism (Duckworth 1995; Potter and Gann 2016; Cervo 1999) clarify stylistic development and technique. On narration, film-studies scholarship analyses how editing strategies differentiate linear from non-linear architectures (Bordwell et al. 2012). Non-linear structures can heighten tension and engagement by reweighting causality and juxtaposing simultaneous actions (Bordwell et al. 2012). In music-emotion research, even basic major/minor sonorities convey distinct affective profiles (Bakker and Martin 2015), while Huron’s ITPRA model details how small parametric changes trigger anticipatory responses (Huron 2008). From a historical-critical perspective, Ross (2007) highlights Glass’s use of micro-variation and additive processes; in film contexts, these procedures yield an economical means of mobilizing audience affect and structuring attention.

The scholarly literature generally holds that minimalist and post-minimalist procedures furnish distinctive resources for film scoring, while non-linear narration reconfigures patterns of cinematic storytelling (Duckworth 1995; Potter and Gann 2016; Bordwell et al. 2012). Commentators have sometimes charged Glass’s textures with perceptual monotony; this study treats such claims as a prompt for empirical testing via close, cue-based analysis. Accordingly, this study asks how micro-variation and additive processes operate in The Hours and whether they deliver fine-grained narrative functions beyond surface repetition, thereby motivating the analytical framework developed below.

Building on this literature, this article explores the interactive mechanism between Philip Glass’s score for The Hours and the film’s non-linear narrative structure, addressing gaps in previous research on interdisciplinary integration and the expression of emotional narratives. Through detailed analysis of six representative cues—while noting their reconfiguration in the commercial album (14 tracks, Nonesuch 79693-2)—this article proposes a new perspective on the role of film music in shaping emotional construction.

Specific scholarship on Glass’s score for The Hours is limited but instructive. Crisp and Hillman (2010) demonstrate how Glass’s soundtrack articulates temporal experience and structures audience attention through recurrent figures and timbral continuity, offering close readings of selected cues. Their focus on temporal signification provides a valuable precedent for cue-level analysis. Building on their contribution, the present study extends the discussion by (i) establishing a cue-track map anchored in on-screen timecodes and (ii) aligning post-minimalist procedures (micro-variation, additive processes) with editing devices such as parallel editing and cross-cutting to test concrete narrative functions.

Building on film-studies approaches, Audissino (2017) blends Neoformalism and Gestalt psychology to treat music and image as co-equal agents. His account of cross-modal grouping (continuity, proximity, salience) provides the analytic ground for what we call audiovisual isomorphism in this case study—i.e., local musical micro-variations that mirror editing devices such as parallel editing and cross-cutting at narrative pivots. Alongside this, foundational frameworks on narrative film music (Gorbman 1987; Kalinak 1992), boundary problems between diegetic and nondiegetic domains (Stilwell 2007), affiliating identifications in listening (Kassabian 2001), and the integrated soundtrack (music–dialogue–effects) perspective (Neumeyer 2015) underpin my analytical claims.

3. Materials and Methods

Corpus and selection criteria. This study analyses six structurally salient cues: the opening “The Poet Acts”, the wake-up montage “Morning Passages”, the cross-cut decision sequence “Something She Has to Do”, the station argument “For Your Own Benefit”, the burial scene “Dead Things”, and the final sequence “The Hours”. Selection was guided by (i) placement at narrative pivots, (ii) recurrence of and variation in thematic cells, and (iii) representative use of post-minimalist techniques such as micro-variation and additive processes.

Following Audissino’s film-studies method, this study analyses each item as a cue-level music-image unit. For every cue, this study annotates pitch, harmony, and orchestration micro-variations and aligns them with filmic structures (shot length, montage density, point-of-view). This study operationalises isomorphism via Gestalt-based cues (grouping by continuity/similarity) and reports cue-in/-out timecodes and album-track mappings (

Table 1. maps album tracks to on-screen cues with approximate in-and-out timecodes (hh:mm:ss). All analytical claims are keyed to the on-screen cues rather than the commercial sequence.

Album Track (Nonesuch 79693-2)	On-Screen Cue (Label Used in This Study)	Approx. Timecode (In-Out)	Scene Summary
The Poet Acts	Opening cue	00:01:52–(opening sequence)	Riverbank prologue; Virginia’s letter and riverside images
Morning Passages	Wake-up montage	00:04:27–00:06:36	Morning routines of Woolf, Laura, and Clarissa; alarm-clock motif
Something She Has to Do	Cross-cut decision sequence	≈01:06:00–≈01:08:00	Laura’s hotel suicide attempt cross-cut with Woolf’s decision about her heroine
For Your Own Benefit	Station argument	≈01:15:52–≈01:22:26	Woolf leaves home; confrontation with Leonard at the station
Dead Things	Garden and burial	≈00:44:00–≈00:46:20	Child’s bird burial; dialogue on life and death
The Hours	Final sequence	≈01:44:29–≈01:45:33	Intercut resolutions; Woolf’s river sequence

Timecodes are approximate and refer to the widely circulated feature-film version; minor variations may occur across releases.

) to ensure replicability. This design is grounded in classic theory (Gorbman 1987; Kalinak 1992) and later expansions (Stilwell 2007; Kassabian 2001; Neumeyer 2015).

Cue-track mapping. Because the commercial album’s fourteen tracks do not map one-to-one onto on-screen cues, all analytical references are keyed to on-screen entries and exits (approximate timecodes). Album titles are used solely as convenient labels.

All score excerpts are reproduced under fair use for scholarly comment and analysis; figures are limited to short passages essential to the argument.

Analytical procedures. For each cue, this study annotates annotate pitch-cell micro-variation, harmonic inflection, and orchestrational layering. These parameters are then aligned with editorial devices (parallel editing, cross-cutting, flashback) and point-of-view structures to evaluate audiovisual functions, including continuity, tension management, and focus of perception. The analytical framework draws on Claudia Gorbman’s narratological model of diegesis and underscoring (Unheard Melodies (Gorbman 1987)), Kathryn Kalinak’s account of the classical Hollywood score (Settling the Score (Kalinak 1992)), Robynn Stilwell’s concept of the diegetic-nondiegetic continuum (“The Fantastical Gap Between Diegetic and Nondiegetic,” in Beyond the Soundtrack (Stilwell 2007)), and David Neumeyer’s theory of the integrated soundtrack (Meaning and Interpretation of Music in Cinema (Neumeyer 2015)).

4. Non-Linear Narrative Structure of The Hours

In past film productions, linear narrative was the mainstream technique, telling stories in chronological order so that the audience could empathise and be immersed (Schasché 2010, p. 1). A non-linear narrative reorganizes story events beyond chronological order, typically through flashback/flashforward and parallel storylines, to articulate psychological depth and thematic linkage (see Bordwell et al. 2012). The film’s design pursues thematic and character exploration-especially memory, identity, and the perception of reality-hence the preference for non-linear editorial strategies. Bordwell et al. (2012) discuss this narrative approach in Film Art: An Introduction. As Film Art suggests, one can begin with crisis points and only later reveal earlier happiness via flashback, thereby re-weighting climactic events and heightening engagement (Bordwell et al. 2012, p. 75). These films often challenge audience expectations and perceptions through jumping timelines, repetitive plots, and ambiguous narrative foci (Rombes 2005, pp. 126–38). The non-linear narrative structure allows for a change in cinema’s traditional storytelling structure while fuelling innovation in film style and expression.

In The Hours, Stephen Daldry employs parallel editing, cross-cutting, and flashback to articulate connections among the three storylines. Techniques such as crossfading are also used in cue transitions within the film score. These techniques not only enhance the story’s emotional depth but also allow the audience to switch timelines without feeling stiff and sudden.

Parallel editing intercuts two (or more) storylines to emphasize simultaneity and thematic parallelism, distinguishing it from linear narration (Bordwell et al. 2012). At the beginning of The Hours (≈0:04:00–0:09:00), Stephen Daldry intercuts the early-morning routines of Virginia Woolf (Nicole Kidman), Laura Brown (Julianne Moore), and Clarissa Vaughan (Meryl Streep). Despite belonging to different generations, the linked shots foreground comparable daily constraints and mental states. As Bordwell et al. (2012, p. 75) observe, parallel editing cues viewers to perceive thematic connections across spaces, so that seemingly odd juxtapositions become legible as a deliberate narrative device. The sequence efficiently introduces the three protagonists’ routines and interiority, allowing the audience to grasp historical and social context within minutes while establishing the film’s pacing and themes.

Cross-cutting is one of the film’s central editorial strategies, used to interrelate its three timelines while sustaining narrative clarity. In the sequence around 1:06:00–1:08:00, the film alternates between Virginia conversing with her niece and Laura isolated in the hotel. This juxtaposition produces what Bordwell et al. (2012) describe as narrative simultaneity: the viewer is cued to thematic parallels across different spaces and times. The sudden shift in Virginia’s line-“I was going to kill the heroine, but now I am going to kill someone else”-redirects attention from Laura’s suicidal ideation to the novel’s fictional diegesis. Here, cross-cutting not only builds suspense but also binds characters across storylines, reinforcing the film’s non-linear design in The Hours.

The two editing techniques discussed above strengthen the interrelations among the three storylines. Reverse chronology subverts linear causality by opening with an outcome and supplying its antecedents only later. In The Hours, the narrative begins with Virginia’s farewell letter and riverbank sequence; placing this material at the start reframes subsequent scenes as motivated by–rather than merely leading to–her death, sharpening causal inference and thematic focus (Bordwell et al. 2012). The strategy enables Stephen Daldry to pursue greater formal economy and psychological depth across non-linear modes, while directing attention to the significance of each scene within a shifting temporal background. This, in turn, heightens audience engagement.

Beyond montage and flashback, the music itself contributes to narrative cohesion through techniques of crossfading between cues. As Chion (1994) argues, the added value of film music lies in its capacity to smooth transitions and sustain affect across discontinuous images. In The Hours, the sustained B-flat at the close of The Poet Acts overlaps with the opening sonority of Morning Passages. This overlap is not merely a fade-out/fade-in splice but a carefully staged bridge: the consonant third relation between B-flat and G produces perceptual continuity, enabling the audience to move seamlessly from Virginia’s riverside scene to Laura’s domestic morning routine. Such overlaps exemplify how musical crossfading operates as a narratological device, maintaining emotional momentum and reinforcing the film’s non-linear design.

The diverse application of non-linear narrative techniques in The Hours enriches the film’s narrative structure and enhances emotional expression and the audience’s sense of participation. From the montage techniques of parallel editing and cross-cutting to the crossfade in music editing, they have all been carefully designed by director Stephen Daldry and composer Philip Glass. The use of flashbacks breaks the film’s traditional narrative method of being arranged chronologically, providing the audience with a new perspective and a more emotional experience.

5. Depicting Space and Atmosphere in the Score

Having outlined the film’s non-linear narrative, the paper now turns to its musical structure. In The Hours, Glass’s score effectively articulates connections among the three storylines and shapes both spatial perception and ambient atmosphere. Through the specific score analysis of the two scores, The Poet Acts and Morning Passages, a more comprehensive understanding of how Philip Glass enhances the emotional depth of the film while meticulously depicting the atmosphere of the scene can be gained.

6. The Poet Acts: Water, Forest, Birds

The title cue The Poet Acts combines a looping triplet figure with a broad fifth-based contour while sustaining a doubled-octave G that functions as a drone. Following Isac (2020, p. 146), the eight-bar harmonic loop (bars 1–8) is treated as a “repetitive harmonic cycle”, a recurring succession that permits micro-variation while preserving cue identity. The static-harmony profile is associated with La Monte Young’s (pioneer of sustained-tone ‘drone’ aesthetics) drone aesthetics (Grimshaw 2005), yielding textural stability without halting motion.

On screen, the cue enters at 0:01:52 (Figure 1), underscoring the riverbank sequence. The upper accompaniment presents a triplet figure whose wide-arching melody outlines fifths and larger spans; through repeated-note technique, the figure continues to loop, projecting the river’s unstoppable flow. Against this motion, the sustained G in octaves operates as a drone, its birdsong association reinforcing the image’s stillness. Set in G minor, the octave drone supplies local harmonic stability, depicting a tranquil forest atmosphere.

7. Morning Passages: Heightened Tension

The three heroines in The Hours, oppressed by life and mental stress, always lived in a tense atmosphere. Philip Glass uses different harmonic superpositions based on repeated tones. Diminished chords, augmented chords and major and minor seventh chords are used to create a tense emotional atmosphere. Bakker and Martin have shown that minor chords, compared to major chords, and dissonant chords, compared to consonant chords, elicit stronger responses in multiple brain regions associated with emotion when passively listened to (Bakker and Martin 2015, pp. 15–31). Therefore, minor and major chords, as well as augmented and diminished chords, all have emotional connotations, and even an unprofessional listener can experience these different emotions quickly.

For example, in Figure 2 and Figure 3, in Morning Passages (G minor), a G-sharp augmented triad (bar 33), a C-sharp diminished triad (bar 36), a B-flat major-seventh sonority, and a dominant-seventh inflection (bars 70–71) are presented first as arpeggiation and then as block chords, intensifying dissonant color and sustaining tension.

Philip Glass added extended chords to these repetitive patterns to increase the harmonic tension. Extended chords are extended sonorities featuring stacked thirds beyond the seventh dominated by a triple superposition and consisting of five notes or more (Levine 2011, p. 74). In Figure 4, between bars 38 and 44 of Morning Passages, the extended chords first appear and are referenced throughout the rest of the piece. This is an extended chord with five notes, formed by two different chords-a D major chord and an A diminished chord. Although the root and third of the chord form a major third, the remaining consecutive intervals are all minor thirds. This extended chord minor third structure brings about a drastic change in the chord, further deepening the tense atmosphere.

Karlin and Wright (2013, p. 155) describe “audiovisual isomorphism,” whereby musical gestures mirror salient diegetic actions. From ≈0:04:27–0:06:36, the repeated D-sharp/E trill (Figure 5) reappears after the sleep montage and aligns with alarm-clock sounds across the three timelines, projecting latent anxiety while anchoring quotidian time.

8. Micro-Variation and Character Affect

Traditional Hollywood scores often use rich melodies and orchestrations to reflect the emotional depth of the characters. The grand themes of John Williams in films such as Star Wars and E.T. have become classics. These richly textured scores capture the essence of the characters and the stories. Philip Glass challenged the traditional Hollywood score in The Hours. Philip Glass employs the concept of ‘micro-variations’. The book Microsound mentions that micro-variations enrich musical expression by subtle changes to basic constant factors such as pitch, rhythm, beat, timbre, orchestration, sound, and harmony without changing them (Roads 2001, p. 340). Although ‘micro-variations’ is not a compositional technique invented by minimalist composers, it embodies repetition and small changes based on stillness, which injects vitality into the aesthetic of the minimalist music.

References to music cognition (e.g., Huron, Peretz & Zatorre) are used heuristically to clarify plausible perceptual effects of small parametric changes; the argument remains grounded in score-image correspondences. In this sense, micro-variation provides a musical analogue for subtle shifts in affect and attention on screen, without requiring a psychoanalytic explanatory burden.

Scholarly surveys of minimalism note that repetition, gradual additive processes, and timbral stasis can sustain affect and heighten attentional focus in listening (Duckworth 1995; Potter and Gann 2016). However, the extent to which minimalist techniques shape the interpretation of complex film narratives remains underexplored, particularly in post-minimalist scoring for mainstream cinema. Debates over whether arpeggiated, minimally inflected textures can convey subtle emotion have a long history in discussions of minimalism. In film contexts, however, micro-variation, registral shifts, and orchestrational layering provide fine-grained affective cues (Huron 2008; Neumeyer 2015; Kassabian 2001). In The Hours, the additive build of Something She Has to Do (bars 41–57) and the thinning registral field in “Dead Things” (bars 50–60) exemplify how small parametric changes track shifts in tension and point of view (Crisp and Hillman 2010).

9. Pitch Micro-Variation

Micro-variations in pitch change refer to the type of micro-variations in which other musical material factors are constant and only the pitch changes slightly. The connection between pitch and human psychology has always existed. This relationship is explained in the book A Generative Theory of Tonal Music. People’s perception of pitch is determined first and foremost by the frequency of sound waves per second in physics. For long musical practice, humans have gradually eliminated and selected from the vast pitch range that the human ear can perceive a subset of sounds with simpler frequencies, higher clarity, a clear sense of pitch, and pleasing to the ear for use in music (Lerdahl and Jackendoff 1983, p. 290). This reflects the natural quest of the human heart for harmonious and pleasing pitches. Furthermore, in Brain Organization for Music Processing, Peretz and Zatorre state, “The right temporal neocortex plays a particularly important role in the computation of pitch relations” (Peretz and Zatorre 2005, pp. 91–92). Peretz and Zatorre believe that high-pitched sounds are emotionally charged because of the higher vibration rate, which stimulates the relevant areas of the brain more intensely. The higher rate of vibration stimulates the relevant areas of the brain more strongly, resulting in a higher state of excitation of neural activity, which in turn causes a more pronounced emotional response. Generally, composers use the upward and downward movement of pitch to express the back and forth between high and low mental and emotional states.

In the film The Hours, the characters Laura Brown and Virginia Woolf create a relationship between the reader and the writer. To introduce the relationship between Laura Brown and Virginia Woolf, Glass presents a shared thematic cell whose first on-screen statement is subsequently varied across contexts. Through varied repetition—literal restatements, local substitutions, and registral adjustments—the motif repeatedly reinforces the Laura–Woolf link. Figure 6 and Figure 7 are excerpts from the morning passage of music. Figure 6 appears at 3:33 in the film, where the ‘Laura and Woolf’ theme is presented for the first time in the form of a musical theme with variations. The theme consists of triads with added seconds in gradually reconfigured voicings, and the theme uses an eighth-note rhythmic pattern. Figure 7 is the first variation, where the eighth note is transformed into a triplet pattern. The linking of the theme to the triplet variations introduces Laura and Woolf for the first time in the film, as well as the circumstances and places in which they live.

In The Hours (≈1:06:00–1:08:00), Philip Glass composed the cue Something She Has To Do (Figure 8 and Figure 9). The film goes through cross-cutting. It depicts the events of Laura Brown’s suicide attempt at the hotel and Virginia Woolf’s contemplation of whether or not to end the life of the protagonist in Mrs Dalloway. Bars 27–57 underscore the cross-cut sequence discussed above. The bars 42–57 are reproductions of the musical motifs of the characters of Laura and Woolf. Through the technique of pitch micro-variations, the film music describes the apprehensive psychological emotions of Woolf and Laura. The pitch material within the phrase is constantly undergoing a chromatic, cascading, repetitive march. It shows Woolf’s heart emotions as she reflects on her own life and death while being told what happened by her sister, and Laura’s apprehension as she attempts suicide.

10. Harmonic Micro-Variation

Harmonic micro-variation is a type of micro-variation in which there is a slight change in harmonic construction based on all other musical material remaining unchanged. Psychologically, Huron considers tension one of the important dimensions of emotion, as stress is usually accompanied by the expected excitement (Huron 2008, p. 305). On the other hand, tension is expressed in music as the anticipation of uncertainty about the outcome, which creates emotional turmoil in the listener. The tension of interval relation is at the heart of the acoustic tension of music. Cognitive Foundations of Musical Pitch point out, “Intervals considered consonant tend to predominate not only in Western music, but also in other musical cultures…. These intervals have special acoustic properties that have implications for how they are coded by the sensory system” (Krumhansl 1990, p. 52). This means the consonant and dissonant character of the intervals, which determines the feeling of tension and relaxation in music. Interval relationships become the core of the musical sound’s tension.

During The Hours (≈1:15:52–1:22:26), Philip Glass composed the cue For Your Own Benefit (Figure 10). This scene tells the story of Virginia Woolf running away from home, hoping to return to London and arguing with her husband at the train station. In this musical passage, the harmony is constantly being subtly varied, while all other factors remain constant. The continuous changes in the major triad reveal that the broad harmonic sound is the main direction of development for this musical fragment. It is quite different from the description when describing a state of mind with anxiety and a stressful living environment. This describes Virginia Woolf’s psychological emotions of resistance.

In For Your Own Benefit, recurrent semitone appoggiaturas above a sustained bass, together with intermittent major-seventh inflections, forestall cadence-like closure. The withheld resolution sustains local dissonance while the surface pattern remains ostensibly stable-a harmonic analogue to Woolf’s mounting resistance in the station scene. Where earlier cues court stasis through third-based cycles, here the prevalence of close-interval friction (m2, M7) maintains narrative tension without thematic overhaul.

11. Orchestration Micro-Variation

Different instruments produce different musical colours due to their physical materials. The combination of different instruments in an orchestra achieves richness and variety in sound. ‘Synesthesia’ in psychology is defined as “the mental activity of one sense evoking another”. The book Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses points out that “In those with synesthesia sensory interactions are entirely different: stimulation in one sensory modality automatically triggers a perception in a second modality, so that a sound, say, might instantly trigger a blob of color” (Cytowic 2002, p. xii). In film music, different musical colours can also echo the different emotions of the characters. From ≈1:44:29–1:45:33, the film explains how Virginia Woolf finally completed the process of committing suicide by jumping into the river. The cross-cutting of the panoramic shots of Laura Brown’s tearful expression, Virginia Woolf’s insomnia, and Clarissa Vaughan smiling as she enters the room appear at the same time. Meanwhile, Virginia Woolf’s monologue: ‘You must look into life… When you finally understand its meaning, you can love its brilliance. Then you can let it go,’ reveals that Laura Brown and Clarissa Vaughan are both in the victory stage of psychological struggle, while Virginia Woolf chooses to end her life.

The cue The Hours corresponds to this film sequence (Figure 11, Figure 12 and Figure 13). This part consists of two musical phrases, which use orchestration micro-variations to depict Virginia Woolf’s psychological emotions of resistance. In the film sequence of Virginia Woolf, before she jumped into the river, a string ensemble is used as the orchestration. In the sequence featuring Virginia Woolf’s river scene, an added piano texture in two parts is introduced while rhythm, meter, and pitch classes remain constant. The overall sound of the instrument is enriched by the display of the piano in the form of block chords and dyads with staggered entries. This echoes Virginia Woolf’s struggle against the expansion of her psychological emotions, which eventually led to the act of ending her life by jumping into the river in order to gain personal freedom. It propels the entire film to a climax.

12. Additive Processes

The ‘additive process technique’ comes from the ‘additive structure’ of Indian music. It refers to a simple melody or rhythm as the basis. In the process of repetition, a pattern is used that constantly increases or decreases using minor units to form a musical phrase. The rest is noise: Listening to the twentieth century point out that, inspired by Indian music, Philip Glass introduces continuous rhythmic changes. Similar to Indian music, changes are created by adding or removing notes (Ross 2007, p. 536). Therefore, the ‘Additive process technique’ has become one of the typical creative techniques in the American minimalist music style.

Additive processes can generally be divided into two types: additive rhythmic processes and additive pitch processes. An additive rhythmic process is a regular rhythmic operation process that continuously expands, contracts, and returns to the basic rhythmic time value and rhythmic unit. The additive pitch process is the process of increasing and decreasing the basic pitch material. The ultimate aim of film narrative is to articulate emotion and theme; music supports this aim by clarifying narrative salience and guiding audience attention. Film music serves the narrative and becomes an important tool for expressing emotions and elaborating and expanding the meaning of the plot. The ‘additive process technique’ seems similar to micro-variations but is different. The ‘additive process technique’ gradually increases or decreases the pitch, and the rhythm construction goes even deeper than the degree of fission presented in micro-variation technology. The characteristics of expansion and contraction in pitch and rhythm are more pronounced. Therefore, the changes in music under the ‘additive process technique’ are more easily recognised.

13. Dead Things–On Life’s Insignificance

From ≈0:44:00 to 0:46:20 in The Hours, there is a scene music theme for “thinking about life”, which is in the title music Dead Things. The scene depicts Virginia Woolf, her sister, and their family observing the end of a bird’s life in the garden and finally burying it. This is the first time in the entire film that the narrative theme of “life” is directly discussed through the demise of things, and it is an important part of the film’s narrative. Through a series of dialogues between Virginia Woolf and her niece, the film explores the questions of “what happens after we die,” “we return to where we came from,” and “we become smaller after we die.” The film leads the audience to ponder the origin and outcome of life and death and advances the narrative theme of “the ultimate insignificance of human life.”

Philip Glass uses the “additive process technique” in Dead Things. Musically, it deepens the narrative theme of “the ultimate insignificance of human life”. The first appearance of motifs 1 and 2 occurs between 44:00 and 46:19. It echoes the dialogue between Virginia Woolf and her niece. At this point, the long “crawling” gesture of the scale-like ascending and descending lines describes the length of life, its continuity, and the difficulty of life choices (Figure 14). This theme underwent three additive processes. The first is an additive rhythmic process. While maintaining the basic form of the theme, the motive is extended by adding eighth notes that enlarge the local pitch collection (Figure 14 and Figure 15). This extension echoes Virginia Woolf’s deepening reflections on life in the movie, revealing the splendor of life. The second and third are additive pitch processes (Figure 16). In the second additive pitch process, the upwardly moving thematic motive is reduced to a five-note sequence, and the downwardly moving thematic motive is reduced to a four-note sequence. In the third additive pitch process, the upwardly moving thematic motive is further reduced to a three-note sequence. The gradual reduction in the musical theme echoes the process of life from existence to nonexistence. The cue enhances the film’s theme with the additive process technique, which deepens the film’s narrative.

14. Tearing Herself Away–Relief from Self-Imposed Pressure

In “Tearing Herself Away” (Figure 17 and Figure 18), rapid cutting alternates shots of Laura driving with closer views that register mounting resolve, and the visual tempo accelerates accordingly. The score intensifies in parallel through an additive process: the “Laura–Woolf” motif is expanded by accreting pitch cells, growing from a nine-note unit to a twelve-note unit; at the same time, the figuration shifts from triplet eighths to sixteenth notes. Synchronized with on-screen overtaking and acceleration, these additive expansions heighten dramatic urgency and clarify Laura’s assertion of agency, framing the scene as an act of self-realization and relief from self-imposed pressure.

15. Conclusions

This study asked whether post-minimalist procedures could deliver specific narrative functions in a complex, non-linear film. This study clarifies the cue-track distinction and proposes a replicable method that aligns post-minimalist techniques with non-linear editorial structures. Across six case studies, micro-variation sustains continuity and point-of-view focus, while additive processes articulate intensification and release at narrative pivots.

By closely reading Philip Glass’s score for The Hours, we show that small parametric changes—pitch-cell substitutions, registral shifts, and orchestrational layering—function as narrative cues: they smooth cross-cutting, bind dispersed timelines, and articulate interior states without resorting to overt leitmotivic thematization. The on-screen uses of The Poet Acts, Morning Passages, Something She Has to Do, For Your Own Benefit, Dead Things, and The Hours illustrate how repetition-with-difference underwrites audiovisual continuity and calibrates tension.

Methodologically, distinguishing commercial album tracks from on-screen cues and anchoring analysis to cue entrances and exits yields claims that other researchers can verify and transfer to adjacent repertoires. The findings complicate the stereotype that minimalist textures are inherently monotonous: in The Hours, they provide a precise, economical means of expressing affect and structuring attention within a complex, non-linear narrative.

16. Limitations and Outlook

Timecodes in this study are approximate; access to studio cue sheets or stems would enable finer-grained correlation of mix decisions and narrative function. Future work may extend the framework to other post-minimalist scores and to comparative analyses across different narrative architectures.