On “Spooky” Music: Is The Truth Out There?

Twenty years ago this month, Fox executives followed its likely Friday night hit The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., with episodes of a filler series that they believed would quietly wither away after just a few months. The latter series was founded on a bizarre and implausible conceit, reeking of potential failure: two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents investigating very mysterious deaths and disappearances, whose explanations went beyond the mundane and could be accounted for by a number of seemingly unlikely phenomena, including ghosts, mutants, highly virulent microorganisms, cryptozoological beasts, and (last but not least) extraterrestrial visitors. All of these, along with shadowy government figures keeping it all hush-hush by any means necessary, challenged the two protagonists in their mutual search for the truth.

On the other hand, how could anyone not want to watch something with a commercial like the one below, promoting the show’s pilot episode?

After one season, Fox wished happy trails to the oddly-named Brisco County, Jr., due to low ratings (which, to be fair, did form a cult following of its own). Its sacrificial red-headed stepchild continued for another eight seasons. Within that timeframe, between 1993 and 2002, the adventures of skeptical FBI forensic pathologist Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), along with the also oddly-named unorthodox profiler and “true believer” Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), had become a ubiquitous cultural phenomenon. Along with the inventive premise developed by series creator Chris Carter, as well as the chemistry between the two leads (despite Duchovny’s eventual weariness with the series), The X-Files reflected a new mal de siècle and undercurrents of millennialism that had come to the fore in the 1990s, the period between the end of the Cold War and the “War on Terror.” More broadly, its ideas and aesthetics filtered into subsequent series labelled science fiction, as well as more mundane crime procedurals.

While I was curious about The X-Files myself, given my own interest in various things “unexplainable” (or at least not readily categorizable), I didn’t start watching regularly until about halfway into the second season. Among other things, I find the slightly askew sense of the quotidian one of the show’s most appealing aspects; what lurks beneath the surface of apparent “normalcy?” Filming locations in and around Vancouver, standing in (with varying degrees of credibility) for various locations throughout the United States, effectively set this mood during the show’s first five seasons. Of course, there are some things I would’ve done differently in the overall story arc for greater dramatic impact, such as having Scully’s sister in at least a few more episodes to build greater emotional impact. But, hey, that’s what FanFiction is for!

As X-Files aficionados may know, Mulder acquired the derisive nickname “Spooky” from others in the FBI. This derived from his interest in the eponymous files, started by J. Edgar Hoover in the 1940s as a way of categorizing “unsolved” cases, on account of implausible explanations being the most likely ones. But what does the term mean? It seems suitable to look at definitions of words that share some affinities, as found in the Oxford English Dictionary. Here’s “horror,” which dates back to the 14th century:

A painful emotion compounded of loathing and fear; a shuddering with terror and repugnance; strong aversion mingled with dread; the feeling excited by something shocking or frightful. Also in weaker sense, intense dislike or repugnance. (The prevalent use at all times.)

A century later, “terror” emerged:

The state of being terrified or extremely frightened; intense fear or dread; an instance or feeling of this.

Spooky is much more recent, a colloquialism that dates back to 1854:

Of, relating to, or characteristic of spirits or the supernatural; frightening, eerie.

Certainly, the show has many moments of palpable horror and terror, as we witness victims meeting unusually macabre and mysterious fates. But there’s something else as well. The sense of something that’s “not quite right,” even if we don’t know what it is, or we aren’t aware of a clear and present threat. The sense of something… spooky.

The music composed by Juilliard-trained Mark Snow (1946- ) portrays numerous emotions. This is especially true in the “mytharc” episodes, which typically focus on the characters’ personal lives, as well as the eventual revelation of an international conspiracy of (mostly) men complicit in making a Mephistophelian bargain with extraterrestrial colonists, or whatever direction the show meandered into after several seasons. With the necessities of a quick turnaround time for a weekly series, Snow drew upon the less logistically challenging tool of a synthesizer to convey the more “ambient” atmosphere initially desired for the show. Nonetheless, Snow mentioned in an interview that, as the series progressed, he wanted to lend the series a more “orchestral” sensibility, while still using a synthesizer for the same practical reasons (Goldwasser 1998). Given that this posting focuses on “spookiness,” though, it seems more suitable to zero in on how Snow developed two main themes underscore this aspect. More specifically, the one-off theme used in the closing credits of the pilot episode (which, unfortunately, can’t be found on YouTube), as well as the more iconic Materia Primoris (known colloquially as “The X-Files Theme”).

The X-Files pilot episode, which premiered on 10 September 1993, contains two standard elements that would appear in practically every episode: a teaser that establishes the case of the week (with slight variations in the so-called mythology episodes), followed by the appearance of Scully and Mulder discussing the case, whether in Mulder’s basement office in the J. Edgar Hoover Building, or upon arriving at the proverbial scene of the crime. However, it lacks opening credits and a main musical theme. A likely candidate appears in the end credits, however, after the cigarette smoking “dark father” (William B. Davis) of the series salts away evidence from the pair’s first investigation in an unassuming storage facility within the Pentagon. The theme begins with a somewhat high-pitched single note that simulates a string instrument. After a few seconds, a dissonant piano chords breaks the near-silence, softly echoing as its fades into the ether. A similar effect appears a few more times, in slightly different keys to add to the tension.

While nothing “happens” within the music, it remains unsettling at the very least, almost conveying a sense of quiet existential dread in its lack of resolution, or even of a “confident” starting point. It seems to portray a cold universe with beings that are, if not hostile, at least antipathetic to our well-being… “intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic,” as H.G. Wells described the Martians that invaded Earth in his 1898 novel War of the Worlds. And where the very agencies that are supposed to protect us are more concerned with covering up their own role in whatever is happening, most likely due to their own impotence.

In some ways, the almost toxic-sounding closing credit theme portrays a more abstract “feeling,” and not so much a motif to announce the appearance of a character, or to portray a particular thing or concept. This very fine distinction isn’t always easy to parse out, given that a motif can carry with it feelings as well, depending on how a musician manipulates its pitch, tempo, orchestration, and the like. However, as a rule of thumb, one would hear a motif in John Williams’ scores for the Star Wars films (which, of course, have a musical genealogy going back at least to Richard Wagner’s operas); among numerous others, there are definite themes for The Force and Darth Vader (“The Imperial March”). Here are some deeply contrasting variations on the latter, just to underscore the point:

Snow’s method of portraying “feeling” shares greater affinities with the film scores of Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975), who focused relatively more on affect (whether psychological or physiological), and not nearly so much on portraying specific “things.” Herrmann’s best-known snippet of music is likely from the infamous shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), certainly enhancing one of the most merciless moments of terror committed to film (despite our tendency to use it casually as a signifier for people we perceive as blowing small things way out of proportion).

While Herrmann portrays abject fear, Snow more or less takes the same approach in the pilot episode’s closing theme, but (to me at least) more closely conveys a sense of “spookiness” instead. Some might say horror or terror or fear, which could be right as well. I would argue, however, that nothing is actually “happening” in the same sense as in the Psycho shower scene; hence, “spookiness,” or perhaps the other vague portent of “dread.” That said, it’s useful to note the broader affinities between the two. In an interview (Pertout 1998) given prior to the release of the first X-Files movie (Fight the Future), Snow mentions Herrmann first among film composers as an influence on his own work, along with a number of 20th century composers whose works are almost exclusively for orchestral and vocal performances, and not specifically for film or teevee. A comparative analysis of their music alongside Snow’s X-Files work would likely constitute a posting in itself, but I can attest that I have picked up definite affinities with Béla Bartók (1882-1945) and Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951). Interestingly, I finally started listening to the works of Alban Berg (1885-1935), a student of Schoenberg, around the same time I watched X-Files initially, and I made my own personal connections there as well; more specifically, with the first movement of the concert suite for Berg’s opera Lulu (which he left uncompleted upon his death):

It seems most suitable to focus on Schoenberg in particular, given that his apparent influence on Snow ties in with the nature of The X-Files. Schoenberg is perhaps best known for “atonal” compositions that, to the uninitiated (and perhaps even the initiated), sounds like “a bunch of noise” and “wrong notes” thrown together. There is a method to the apparent madness, however, as such works deliberately have no central “home” key, with no perceived sense of tension, release, and resolution. Or, perhaps to many ears, there only tends to be tension, enhanced by simultaneously playing notes whose intervals create psychologically and physically “unpleasant” sensations.

It comes as no surprise, then, that Schoenberg’s works can create unease among listeners who are used to hearing music that has tension, release, and resolution, which pretty much everyone listens to regularly, whether Romantic pieces by Johannes Brahms or Top 40 Hits. For a more detailed, but still accessible, discussion of atonality, as well as the contexts that made Schoenberg see its development as a “necessity,” Alex Ross’ 2007 book The Rest Is Noise provides a helpful introduction (pp. 55-61).

Schoenberg was known as an iconoclast, but, as Ross points out:

In a way, Schoenberg was most persuasive in justifying his early atonal works when he emphasized their illogical, irrational dimension. As far as we can tell, he composed them in something like an automatic state, sketching the hyperdense Erwartung (or “Expectation”) in only seventeen days (2007, 57).

Perhaps for the aforementioned reasons, it’s a technique that composers for film and television have drawn upon for years. In particular for anything that has a sense of terror, horror, fear, spookiness, or whatever other similar adjectives one might use. Or, as Ross points out, “horror movies need atonality as they need shadows on the walls of alleys” (2007, 35). Perhaps, then, a context is necessary in order for broader audiences to make sense (inasmuch as they’re able to) of atonal composition techniques.

Herrmann brought Schoenbergian techniques to mainstream culture many years ago, once again most notably in Psycho. Approximately 40 minutes into this wonderful documentary on the composer (even if it spends an inordinate amount of time on Psycho at the expense of other great stuff by Herrmann), Howard Goodall discusses this aspect:

So there’s a direct lineage of Schoenberg’s influence on Snow, and likely some degree of indirect influence through Herrmann. At least, one can find affinities in that relatively obscure closing theme for the pilot episode. What better than uncertainty in the identity of a “home key” to portray uncertainty more broadly? To portray, so to speak, “alienation.” Perhaps even “spookiness.”

One final interesting footnote before moving on to the theme “everyone” knows from The X-Files. In October and November 1973, during his time as Charles Eliot Norton Professor of Poetry at Harvard, Leonard Bernstein gave a series of six talks about music under the broad title The Unanswered Question. In the fifth lecture, which spends some time on Schoenberg’s contribution to “The Twentieth Century Crisis” in music, Bernstein happens to mention a couple of works that seem to have some connections with X-Files-ish themes. They include Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet (1908), his “renunciation of tonality” whose final movement consists of the words (roughly translated), “I feel air from another planet.”

Regarding Pierrot Lunaire (1912), a cycle of 21 songs by Schoenberg, Bernstein refers to it as “the clincher… that wild and spine-chilling masterpiece of Expressionism.” What’s more, Bernstein describes Schoenberg’s usage of Sprechstimme (wherein singers start to sing a note, but let it fall or rise to make it sound like everyday speech) as a “blow at tonality, and lends a new spookiness to the music.” Carrying on the vaguely extraterrestrial (and spooky) theme, Bernstein mentions Der Kranke Mond (“The Sick Moon”) as an example.

It’s perhaps not too distant from the opening of Richard Strauss’ opera Salome (1905), a relatively more tonal opera from just a few years before, with its own air of initial spookiness and lunar-kissed decadence presaging something vaguely horrific (the spooky opening begins around 1:25; just the first one or two minutes from that point are necessary to get the effect).

As well, Bernstein mentions a direct antecedent to both, noting offhand how the opening notes from Der Kranke Mond sound like the opening from the Prelude to Wagner’s headily erotic and spiritual opera Tristan und Isolde.

In the second episode of The X-Files, “Deep Throat,” Mulder meets a more or less friendly eponymous “insider” contact (Jerry Hardin), whose codename evokes strong associations with the Nixonian America of series creator Carter’s (and Mulder’s) formative years. Also appearing for the first in time after the “teaser” is Materia Primoris, better known as the iconic “X-Files Theme.” Like its single episode predecessor, this piece conveys an air of spookiness itself. And yet, it doesn’t have the same menace as the theme from the end of the first episode. There’s perhaps a sense of optimism, too. That, as the show’s tagline states, “The Truth Is out There,” and that it might be found as one whistles in the dark.

After being plunged into a sonic space amidst enigmatic synthesizer sounds, some of which more or less resemble the unresolved echoing piano chords in the end credits of the first episode, one hears variations on a theme that consists of six “whistling” notes. This seems to signify a sense of mystery, and our own dialogue with things that we have difficulty explaining, or even conceptualizing, in part due to the limitations of (1) our personal frames of reference and (2) “official” received narratives, handed down to us by religious and secular high priesthoods. Whether or not the six note theme “resolves” is up for debate, although I suppose musicologists would have more of a definitive answer. Certainly, compared to the theme from the first episode, there’s a relatively greater sense of resolution. However, the last of the six notes also makes it come across as a question: “The truth is out there,” followed by an ambiguous, “Yes?” But, again, an echoing note seems to follow each variation as a form of negation, and the search for the truth begins again. Rephrased, perhaps, but again with a six note theme.

At the end, another variation on the whistling theme starts again, but stops on the second note, which is sustained until it is negated as well.

And the story recommences.

Interestingly, despite using techniques that tend to eschew motif, Snow mentions in the Pertout interview that Materia Primoris does appear as a motif after all in Fight the Future (which also consists of an orchestra for the soundtrack).

The other thing that is interesting and different is that the X-Files theme with the whistling is never used in the TV show as background music, and in the film score it’s used quite a bit, where the orchestra plays it with different harmonies, and you know, fast and slow, and sad, dangerous, different variations of it. So that turned out to be the theme of the movie score, but never used in the TV show. (1998)

Perhaps it’s a motif for “the search for the truth,” and all that comes with it, including the sense of uncertainty?

Naturally, the whole notion of “spookiness” is subjective, but the lineage of how it’s likely notated (as exemplified by the German tradition through Schoenberg, and filtered through Snow’s work on The X-Files) remains an interesting realm to explore. But what is it that makes certain music that way? One can claim that Materia Primoris is spooky due to its inseparable associations with The X-Files, but that’s actually an extramusical connection. More to the point, what makes the music itself that way? Is it inherent, culturally conditioned, or both? Or, what tools and techniques in a musician’s “toolbox” help with crafting such music? What amalgamations of keys, chords, melodic structures, and other musical facets create such an effect? Also, how does one distinguish “spooky” from other similar terms in describing music? Perhaps it’s for this reason that formal subject headings (as one finds in library catalogues) for sound recordings tend to focus primarily on genre, but not on what music is “about.”

With the ubiquity of tagging in numerous sites that provide and / or describe musical content, one can at least make some assumptions about the intersubjective notion of what constitutes “spookiness.” The truth may be out there, but it might take on many forms, inadequately described by the terminology we use, as Elaine Svenonius (1994) points out, regarding non-text things. For the phenomena we observe and attempt to categorize in the “everyday world,” and perhaps beyond.

An Ambivalent Commemoration: Wagner at 200 (Part 2 – Influence on Cinema)

The notion of a “moving picture” was in its embryonic stage around the time of Wagner’s passing in 1883. Within a few decades, it was becoming a ubiquitous medium: film, cinema, or the colloquial “movies.” While a fair number of films contain music composed by Wagner, his broader influence on the form is arguably discernible. In 2010, Indiana University published a compilation of essays entitled Wagner and Cinema, edited by Jeongwon Joe and Sander L. Gilman. In the book’s introduction, Joe acknowledges the affinities between the composer’s ideas and the medium, but implies as well the risk of overplaying the case. Some of it depends on how one interprets the notion of Gesamtkunstwerk, more or less translated as “total artwork,” a term that Wagner employed in his 1849 essay The Artwork of the Future.

Since Joe’s and Gilman’s compilation contains a diverse array of subtopics, I’ll attempt not to retread the same ground. Rather, my aspiration is to expand on it, albeit in less academic language, based on some of my own personal experiences with film that brings to mind aspects of Wagner.

Besides John Williams, a number of film composers owe, and have even acknowledged, their debt to Wagner. This became most prominent in the “Golden Age of Hollywood” (approximately the 1930s and 1940s), after a number of composers fled political situations in Eastern and Middle Europe. Many left because they were Jewish, bringing with them a need for a living wage income, along with composition techniques filtered down from Wagner through such composers as Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss. Names include Erich Korngold (1897-1957), whose music was derided by more “sophisticated” types as “more corn than gold”; Max Steiner (1888-1971), perhaps best known for King Kong (1933), Gone with the Wind (1939), and Casablanca (1943); Franz Waxman (1906-1967), who composed scores for The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), The Philadelphia Story (1940), Sunset Boulevard (1950), and Rear Window (1954); and Dimitri Tiomkin (1894-1979), who lent music to films ranging from It’s a Wonderful Life (1947) to the original The Thing from Another World (1951). During his acceptance speech for winning Best Score (for The High and the Mighty) at the 1955 Academy Awards, Tiomkin wryly thanked some people who made it possible for him and other film composers to succeed in Hollywood (his speech starts at around 2:10).

Along with a few others among the names he mentioned, no surprise about Wagner appearing among that bunch.

Despite his aspiration to be known as a “legitimate” (non-cinematic) composer, New Yorker Bernard Herrmann (1911-1975) is one of the most renowned for his contributions to the medium, with a career stretching from Citizen Kane (1941) to Taxi Driver (1976). Unlike many of his near-contemporaries, he generally eschewed usage of leitmotif. Nonetheless, for Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), he contributed music that alludes strongly to Wagner’s headily erotic (and arguably spiritual) opera Tristan und Isolde (1865). One can hear in both Herrmann’s Scene d’amour and Wagner’s Liebestod (Love Death) tender sonic tendrils in the strings, along with swellings of passion embedded in swirls of sound.

To a degree, one can even pick up on similar allusions to Wagner in Herrmann’s score for North by Northwest (1959), most especially in the piece “Train Conversations.”

Whether or not film composers deliberately plant “Easter eggs” for those who understand allusions to certain works, “Wagnerian” techniques continue to pervade film scores. I’ve even made some of my own personal connections, all of which I’ve tried finding information about… whether or not they were intentional. However, in many cases, I’ve had to go with vague hints and circumstantial evidence, and just trust my ears.

Perhaps a very apt one with which to start is the Chevaliers de Sangreal portion of Hans Zimmer’s (1957- ) soundtrack for The Da Vinci Code (2006), which seems to evoke both the Christian pilgrims’ motif from Tannhäuser, as well as musical strains from Wagner’s final opera Parsifal (1882)… also more or less “about” (given its arcane symbolism) the “Holy Grail.”

Götterdämmerung is an apt word for massive catastrophe, another stock in trade of the film industry. More so than its English translation “Twilight of the Gods.” It’s also, of course, the title of yet another Wagner opera. The final one in his Ring cycle. It concludes with what`s commonly known as Brunnhilde`s Immolation, which portrays the Valkyrie`s self-sacrifice to bring about the destruction of Valhalla (home of the corrupt and outmoded gods, derived from Nordic legend), making way for the dawn of a new world. Here’s the end of that sequence, and of the whole 14-16 hour epic, with subtitles:

Themes similar to the “redemption” motif, which appears throughout the aforementioned sequence, appear in other works. While West Side Story (1957) isn’t about large-scale destruction, Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990) integrated the redemption motif into the heartbreaking song “Somewhere.”

Akira Ifukube (1914-2006) typically drew inspiration from composers like Stravinsky, and never admitted to a Wagner influence as far as I can tell. Nonetheless, one can’t help but notice it in the film Gojira tai Desutoroia (1995). Listen closely to the “Requiem,” which portrays the nuclear meltdown and death of the iconic monster who has brought both terror and salvation to Japan.

I don’t know if this apparent allusion was deliberate on Ifukube’s part, but it seems a bit more than coincidental… and entirely appropriate. Oddly enough, someone took the battle preceding Gojira’s death, and set it to the previously-mentioned Chevaliers de Sangreal music from Da Vinci Code. Somehow, that seems to work as well. Something about our desire for saviours, perhaps…

Along with concepts, music motifs can also refer to individuals. Think about the themes associated with certain characters… a series of music bars that act as a sonic calling card. Again, while not technically Wagnerian in his technique, Ifukube gave many of the iconic daikaiju from Japanese horror movies some unforgettable themes, changing key, tempo, orchestration, and the like as needed. Here’s music for a battle between Gojira and his pteranodonian freinemy Radon, employing themes associated with both.

As mentioned in the last posting, Star Wars contains a number of motifs portraying characters, including this one in a “minor” key.

Also courtesy of John Williams, another character-related motif in a “major” key.

Another movie hero possesses a motif that sounds almost like it could be in minor or major key (although technically it’s apparently the latter). Someone whose womanizing and dirty work for Her Majesty’s Secret Service make him a bit less of a goody-two-shoes than Henry Jones, Jr. But not unlike Jones, he takes on villains with malevolent plans for such things as world domination. His theme initially appeared just over 50 years ago in a “jazzy” form, prominently featuring an electric guitar played by Vic Flick.

Whether Monty Norman (1928- ) or John Barry (1933-2011) originally came up with “The James Bond Theme,” the latter composed scores for many of the initial outings for British Secret Service agent 007. Some say that it actually originated with Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957), but I digress…

Barry used the theme in various forms, a tradition continued by current Bond film scorer David Arnold (1962- ). In the series reboot Casino Royale (2006), Arnold avoided explicit usage of the Bond theme until the very end. This was to indicate that Bond had (more or less) completed his first mission as a “00” agent… and that he had also “returned.”

I’ve always found the Bond film scores intriguing. In particular, related to my research interests, the tendency to move almost seamlessly among different genres. Most certainly, they possess a palpable conservatory sensibility amidst the pop and jazz elements. I suppose some might criticise Barry, especially genre-based purists, for not picking a style and staying with it. But his defiance of genre-based conventions more or less reflects the risky world of Bond, and ended up creating an oft-imitated style in itself… sometimes to the point of parody.

As stated near the end of this article on another Barry piece, regarding his score to Goldfinger (1964), the composer utilised what he self-deprecatingly called “Mickey Mouse Wagner.”

Technically, as Barry stated in an interview with Terry Gross on NPR, the main theme to Goldfinger draws primary inspiration from “Mack the Knife.” Like “Goldfinger,” Weill’s song has undergone numerous renditions in many genres, ever since it appeared in Die Dreigroschenoper, or “The Threepenny Opera” (1928). Composed by Kurt Weill (1900-1950), the song portrays a villain and his sinister acts. The same for “Goldfinger,” although Barry embedded the Bond theme in it as well.

Still, the film’s IMDB trivia entry mentions the title song’s “huge, Wagnerian orchestral opening.” Even with the “five trombones, four trumpets, four French horns and a tuba,” even I (who can find musical similarities under practically every rock) believe that this notion overstates the case. That said, I think Barry’s statement hints that Wagnerian techniques pepper the score. And this is something I’ve suspected for years, especially in what I would call the “death” motif that appears throughout the film.

Let’s return to Götterdämmerung, this time to “Siegfried’s Funeral March.” Listen to the first minute or so.

And then listen to this, where one of Goldfinger`s minions kills a group of gangsters by trapping them in a room he fills with deadly gas.

(As a side note, with the relatively recent memories of concentration camps at the time of the film and the purported Nazi past of the actor who played Goldfinger, this scene created some degree of controversy. Perhaps when he composed the music for it, with his possible allusion to “Hitler’s favourite composer,” Barry had a similar connection in mind.)

The “death” motif appears in other segments as well, including when the sister of one of Goldfinger’s victims is herself felled by the villain’s manservant.

You might hear a bit of mournfulness, felt by Bond, in this track as well… almost reminiscent, I’d say, of the tenderness in Herrmann’s Tristan-esque music for Hitchcock (eroticism, death, etc.). The film contains at least a few other examples of this as well, but I don’t want to belabour the point.

For an example of a more lush contrast, also a bit reminiscent of Herrmann’s work for Hitchcock, the first two minutes of this clip feature a slightly different version of “Alpine Drive.” At least relatively speaking, it acts as a repose from the action, even though it’s merely a slightly less menacing variation on the title theme; in the most bucolic of settings, Goldfinger`s shadow imposes itself.

As mentioned earlier, Arnold carries on a similar tradition. I must admit to feeling gobsmacked when I heard what I took to be an allusion to Brunnhilde`s Immolation from Götterdämmerung in the main theme for Skyfall (2012), the most recent Bond outing. Considering what happens near the end of the film, I wouldn`t be surprised if it were deliberate.

To help underscore the comparison, start around 6:50 here:

Taking into account the examples mentioned above, along with those cited in numerous other writings, it isn’t surprising that a number of films have used Wagner’s compositions as well. A November 2011 article in the L.A. Times discussed its usage in two films that came out at approximately the same time: Melancholia and A Dangerous Method. Even the trailer for the former, about a previously-unknown planet approaching Earth, actually uses music from Tristan, which also appears throughout the entire film.

Even extramusically, some recent films have alluded to aspects of Wagner’s Ring. With the tagline “The Reich Strikes Back,” the tongue-in-cheek “Nazis from the Moon” film Iron Sky (2012) features “Siegfried class” warships, along with the massive ship Götterdämmerung. (There`s even a character with the surname Wagner.) Likely through the influence of opera fan Christoph Waltz, Quentin Tarantino alludes to the epic in Django Unchained (2012). While the film takes place before any of the Ring operas premiered, a number of articles (including this one from the New York Times) note a number of parallels between them.

This idiosyncratic perspective of mine on film music just scratches the surface of connections between Wagner and cinema. But the aforementioned examples should suffice, even if they might colour a bit outside the lines of what some find acceptable. Others have written elsewhere on these connections, too. The Joe / Gilman book mentioned near the beginning goes into much greater depth on such matters, and its essays can speak more eloquently for itself than I could.

Certainly, the distance between film scores and “classical” music isn’t all that great. Between “classical” and “popular” music in a broad sense, however, there exists more of an apparent division. Nonetheless, as the next installment outlines, Wagner’s influence has spilled into this realm as well.

Celebrating Williams, Remembering Ifukube

Well, I commemorated Philip Glass’ 75th birthday last week. However, until I visited my go-to music man Alex Ross’ blog this morning, I didn’t realize that today (8 February) marks the 80th birthday of U.S. film composer John Williams. The man whom one could readily refer to as the best-known living film composer. Say what you will about Williams’ composition style (as outlined by Norman Lebrecht’s grumblings), many of us have felt some emotional or physiological thrill in hearing some of his tunes. After a decade of reaction against orchestral scores in Hollywood, perhaps most infamously embodied by Alfred Hitchcock’s dismissal of his incredible collaborator Bernard Herrmann, a supposedly “dead” form of music for film returned as a compelling force (no pun intended) with Williams. Luckily for Herrmann, some “New Hollywood” directors like Brian De Palma and Martin Scorsese brought him onboard for some of their films. With the jazz-inflected score from Taxi Driver being his last, Herrmann passed away in 1975, leaving a slew of films like Carrie and God Told Me To on his plate; one can only imagine what wonderfully ferbile and tender music he would have created for both macabre tales.

Around the time Herrmann started to have his belated renaissance, Williams started to achieve fame as a film composer. I need not indulge in describing the thrill that can be brought about by hearing Williams’ scores. It may be hyperbolic, but it is easy for me to imagine that they provided an orchestral complement to the soundtrack of Generation X. The same kids who would not want to hear “straight” orchestral music might not mind something similar to accompany a Hollywood thrill ride (which ties in with my discussion of the inadequacy of genre categories, but more on that in subsequent postings). In my case, my mother played classical music at home when I was a kid, but I also watched movies with the classically-influenced Williams’ scores. Which informed my musical tastes more? Were they complementary? Considering that I gravitate most strongly towards late 19th century German Romantic composers like Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler, and Richard Strauss, it’s hard to pinpoint. I listen to their compositions more frequently, but I’m not going to put down Williams. Certainly, he opened the floodgates for many other film composers, and made it acceptable for their creations to be a part of cinema again. I can only hope that the either/or dichtomy of orchestral and popular music (another highly problematic genre-based dualism) can be put to rest, and filmmakers can be more agnostic what they use; if the music fits, accompany your film to it.

Oddly enough, on this date in 2006, a great Japanese composer also associated with film passed on. Akira Ifukube is perhaps best known for his scores to Japanese horror movies. And, yes, I mean The Big Gobowski himself, right down to his trademark roar (Resin-covered glove + double bass strings + slowed down playback = Run like Hell!). That music was another staple of my youth. Say what you will about the rubber suits, I still think they’re better than the CGI that has overtaken many special effects-based films. But that brief rant leads to another point I’d like to make; that Ifukube’s music lent soul to Toho’s iconic daikaiju, many with their own distinct musical motifs (such as the pteranodon Radon and the three-headed space dragon Ghidorah) and tension to what were otherwise outlandish and overblown spectacles… not much different from opera, really. That said, the first Gojira film was most certainly not played for any kind of laughs or vicarious thrills, and Ifukube’s score reflected that. See David Edelstein’s review of the 50th anniversary re-release, which also namechecks some personal favourites: Mahler’s 5th Symphony and Wagner’s Götterdämmerung (“Twilight of the Gods”). It is well-established that Ifukube tended to draw upon composers like Igor Stravinsky (and possibly a number of other Russian composers) as influences. Nonetheless, I can detect at least some affinities with the late German Romantic tradition as well. As a point of comparison, listen to the “redemption theme” that appears near the end of the immolation scene from Twilight of the Gods, and then the Requiem from Gojira tai Desutoroiâ, where G undergoes his own nuclear-fueled immolation. Coincidence? I’m not sure, but the affinities (at least for me) are quite compelling. (And don’t forget Somewhere from Leonard Bernstein’s genre-bending score for West Side Story.)

Oh… I need a Kleenex…

Beyond film music, Ifukube wrote a number of pieces solely for the orchestra hall. As the same Classical Net review mentioned earlier points out, Ifukube was also influenced by music of the Ainu, an indigenous group from Hokkaido. Admittedly, I don’t know as much about that aspect of Ifukube’s influences, but it further demonstrates the insufficiency of genre in defining what kinds of music we tend to enjoy. At least outside of Japan, I am certain that recordings of Ainu music would fall under the super broad “international” category, which actually indicates nothing substantial about its traits.

A summary? Sure… Besides the fact that this piece discusses two film composers, there’s also the underlying theme of the problems caused by genre as a way of categorizing music. Since orchestral and popular styles can appear in film, could both be considered film music? I know that some music is written “for” film, but pre-existing music of various kinds can be associated quite intimately with film, whether it’s The Blue Danube or Born to be Wild. But that’s yet another posting! And the same goes for definitions of “international” music, which may be someone else’s classical or popular music.