Having the misfortune of being dwarfed by the releases of the critical and commercial giants, The Godfather (1972) and The Godfather II (1974), The Conversation (1974) stands as somewhat of an under-appreciated gem in the Francis Ford Coppola filmography. Though lauded by critics upon its release, it was not a hit at the box office with the general public. Concerning an expert electronic surveillance officer called Harry Caul suffering a crisis of conscious due the moral repercussions of his occupation, the film stars Gene Hackman in the lead role and features a solo piano-driven score composed by David Shire.

Shire, Coppola’s brother in law, was approached to write the score and given the huge financial takings of The Godfather, felt sure he would be allocated a budget that would allow him indulge himself in the luxury of writing for a full orchestra. Coppola however, had other ideas in mind for the film’s score. In the liner notes of the film’s soundtrack release Coppola notes, “…I stressed to David Shire that I did not want a large orchestral ensemble, but something simple, haunting and lonely as I imagined Harry Caul was himself.” Given Harry’s interest in playing along with his favourite jazz records on the saxophone in the film, Coppola also went on to say that he felt a solo instrument playing material with roots in the genre would best accompany the depiction of Harry’s solitary existence and “wanna-be” jazz musician leanings. Interestingly, Shire wrote the entire score before any of the film was even shot and was even asked by Coppola to score imaginary scenes that did not take place in the film, purely to establish a definite mood and character.

The central theme of the score, simply titled, “Theme from The Conversation” and heard only in its entirety on the soundtrack release, takes the form of a simple ‘bluesy’ waltz in its pace and delivery. The theme’s giddy chromaticism however, belies the stability ingrained in the waltz tempo and hints at something disturbing not immediately apparent at the film’s inception, namely that of Harry’s slowly unraveling mind.  It could also be construed as an imitation of the urgent nature of Harry’s work, mimicking the speed and chaos of the radio waves he monitors. Throughout the film, the theme is modified depending on the situation onscreen, particularly as Harry’s mental state worsens.

What is particularly unique about The Conversation’s score is the input of sound designer and film editor, Walter Murch, whom had previously worked with Coppola on The Godfather.  Working alongside Coppola, Murch manipulated and tracked Shire’s already written score to the completed film, adding electronic effects to heighten the intensity of the theme in certain scenes. For his innovative work on the film, Murch was nominated for an Oscar for “Best Sound” at the 1975 Academy Awards, “losing” to his work on The Godfather: Part II.

A strong example of Murch’s potent sound design occurs in the latter half of the film when Harry rents a hotel room adjacent to the apparently adulterous couple he has been hired to tape. Knowing they will be meeting at the hotel and believing that their lives are now at risk at the hands of his client, Harry is now racked with an overwhelming guilt for having taken a part in what he sees as their imminent demise. As he listens in to the conversation going on in the couple’s room, Harry begins to believe that a horribly violent fight is taking place. When Harry steps out on to the terrace he is met with a woman’s horrific scream and observes something heinous taking place in the next room. Here, the Murch’s score distortion kicks in with a shriek, bringing to mind the ‘stabby’ string score in Psycho’s (Hitchcock, 1960) famous shower murder scene.  The combination of the altered, lower register piano notes, repetition of the shrill shriek, and noise of the television Harry turns up to evade the woman’s screams results in overwhelming cacophony of sound.

What the score/soundtrack of The Conversation achieves is a strengthening of the film’s narrative in that it plays with the intensely audio-driven world of Harry’s occupation, taking elements of his recordings, scrambling and re-imagining them. The somber, character study by Shire commenting directly on Harry’s loneliness and isolation plays wonderfully off Murch’s use of taped material, effects and ambient noise, which so aptly underscore Harry’s psychosis, and the resultant soundscape haunts the listener/viewer long after The Conversation has ended.

- Clare Nina Norelli

Undertones: Volume 10

In 1977, amongst works by Beethoven, Chuck Berry and examples of indigenous music from around the world, Blind Willie Johnson’s mournful blues work, “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” was shot into space as part of the Voyager Golden Record. Launched from the Voyager spacecraft, the collection of music, sounds and images etched into the records were intended on giving intelligent life forms, be they extraterrestrial or future humans who have mastered deep space travel, an impression of life on earth at the time. One of the researchers responsible for compiling the record’s material, Carl Sagan, explained that Johnson’s stark slide guitar number was included because “[it] concerns a situation [Johnson] faced many times, nightfall with no place to sleep. Since humans appeared on Earth, the shroud of night has yet to fall without touching a man or woman in the same plight.” It was the only musical work included on the Voyager Golden Record that was chosen specifically for its conveyance of human suffering.

The song found itself in vast space once again, this time that of the arid, American Southwest landscape showcased in Wim Wenders 1984 film, Paris, Texas. Opening with a man named Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) who is discovered mute and disheveled in appearance on the Mexican border, the film concerns itself with the role of the family man in America, the resolution of one’s past and self-imposed alienation. Having been missing for four years and presumed dead by his family, lonesome wanderer Travis attempts to reconnect with his 8-year-old son (who has been in Travis’ brother’s care), and track down his wife who has also been missing for some time. It is Travis’ hope that he may reunite his family and settle on a patch of land he has purchased in Paris, Texas, allegedly the place of his conception.

For the film’s score, Wenders enlisted the virtuosic American guitarist Ry Cooder, who had previously worked with artists such as The Rolling Stones, Captain Beefheart and Randy Newman. Known particularly for his skill as a slide guitarist, Cooder’s score for Paris, Texas utilizes this technique and is essentially a series of variations on Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground” (a full version of Cooder’s interpretation of the song appears on the soundtrack release).  In interviews Cooder has openly acknowledged the song’s inspiration on his work in Paris, Texas, describing it as “the most soulful, transcendent piece in all American music.” (On a side note, Wenders explored the music of Johnson in Soul of a Man, his contribution to the seven-part television series of 2003, The Blues.)

By using “Dark Was the Night…” as a blueprint for the score, Cooder effectively accompanied the film in several ways. Travis is a deeply troubled individual who appears to be always on the move, running from a past that haunts him. Though we learn it is largely self-inflicted, his predicament is still troubling to watch and in using a style of music (blues) associated with human suffering, the film is able to garner further pathos from the audience.

Cooder’s slide score also fits so well within Paris, Texas due to its blues sound being implicitly American, and his overall composition could be construed as a musical rendering of the geography showcased in the film: full of space, dips and peaks, and seemingly endless. One of the stars of the film is indeed Robby Müller’s unique cinematography, which draws out the diverse beauty of the West’s terrain through the high contrast colouring of his images. Removed from the film these evocative stills of the Texan wilderness and its dilapidated rural towns comprised of diners, old billboards and seedy motels are the stuff of Americana-enthusiasts’ wet dreams. Coupled with Cooder’s score and you’ve got yourself quite the alluring audiovisual postcard of the American South West.

The only divergence in style the score makes is when Travis is shown on screen being reminded of, or reminiscing about, his past as a family man. In these instances Cooder performs an arrangement of an old Mexican song called “Cancion Mixteca” by José López Alavéz. The soft, slightly melancholic waltz of the song hints at nostalgia and fond memories, adding a sense of poignancy, particularly in a scene in which Travis watches old Super-8 films of himself and his family in happier times. However, the lyrics to the song point to a sentiment seeped in sadness.  Though only Cooder’s instrumental of the song appears within the film, the Paris, Texas soundtrack release includes a version with vocals by Harry Dean Stanton in Spanish. The lyrics are some of the most sorrowful you may ever hear (or read) and say much of Travis’ unsettled existence, acting as a summation of his conflicted, restless character.

¡Qué lejos estoy del suelo donde he nacido!
inmensa nostalgia invade mi pensamiento,
y al verme tan solo y triste cual hoja al viento,
quisiera llorar, quisiera morir de sentimiento.

(How far I am from the land where I was born!
Immense sadness fills my thoughts,
I see myself so alone and so sad like a leaf in the wind,
I would like to cry, I would like to die from the feeling)

- Clare Nina Norelli

On 19^th June, Future Shorts will be having its Australian launch in Perth, Western Australia. Future Shorts is one of the leading and most innovative short film labels in the world and since 2003 it has created a rapidly enlarging network that allows filmmakers the opportunity to have their work viewed worldwide. Films that are selected to join their monthly programme are currently being shown at 15 UK venues and the Future Shorts international network currently comprises of more than 60 cities and 18 countries worldwide conducting regular screenings. Future Shorts Exhibition aims to provide an alternative cinematic experience, where screenings are often accompanied by other multimedia elements including live music and rescores, performers and installations.

The Australian launch in Perth will be an expanded cinema extravaganza held at the Fly By Night, Fremantle and the event will herald the beginning of monthly Future Shorts screenings at venues around the city, with screenings also scheduled for Melbourne and Sydney later this year.

Upon entry audience members will be greeted by the electronic pop revelry of local Perth act, Brash and Sassy. The first screening of the night will be the world premier of It’s Just Gary, the latest work by Perth’s own award-winning Perrella & Osborn of This is Perth fame. The Future Shorts program for May will then follow direct from London featuring the finest the world of short film has to offer. Entitled Colours, the program will take audience members on a tour around the globe with an eclectic mix of films from China to South Africa.

If you’re in Perth, Western Australia in June and are interested in attending, tickets are available now via Fly By Night’s website at www.flybynight.org

Presale: $29 + BF. Door (if available): $35

www.futureshorts.com

Dissonant strings buzz malevolently, rising from the audio depths and as a shot of uninhabited terrain in the American West is shown onscreen, they glissando eerily in contrary motion. As the string buzz subsides a solitary man is shown working in a dark underground shaft, his pickaxe coarsely breaking through the silence.

Released in 2007, director Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood (henceforth referred to as TWBB) has already been awarded the status of a modern classic by critics and fans alike. Adapted from the novel “Oil” by Upton Sinclair, the film charts the rise of oil tycoon and dark horse, Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis).  For the film’s score Anderson enlisted Jonny Greenwood  (a member of the band, Radiohead) after being impressed by the musician’s previous orchestral work. In fact, a portion of the TWBB score was taken from Greenwood’s 2005 BBC-commissioned suite, “Popcorn Superhet Receiver” and from another Greenwood-scored film, Bodysong (Pummell, 2003). In one interview, Anderson noted that in order “to make a film, the final big collaborator that you have is the composer. Jonny was really one of the first people to see the film. And when he came back with a bunch of music, it actually helped show me what his impression of the film was.”

In much of the film there is little dialogue and a restraint to the characters that leaves a lot unsaid, and it is Greenwood’s score that acts as an emotional compass for the viewer/listener. This is most notably the case where misanthrope Plainview is concerned; a man who prefers to concern himself with matters of business and speaks little of his past. The small fragment of musical material used at the beginning of the film states briefly much of what is to become of Plainview and the world around him. His quest for oil and the riches it endows corrupts his mind and allows a certain evil to enter his body born of the barren Western expanse. The strings that emerge from the film’s soundtrack before we first see Plainview on screen act as an invocation of this evil, signifying that Planview’s impending discovery of oil is not in fact a fortunate find but a highly corruptive one.

The string writing used by Greenwood for much of TWBB score is, by Greenwood’s own admission, influenced by the work of Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, whose compositions “Polymorphia” and “De Natura Sonoris No.1” both appear on the soundtrack of the Stanley Kubrick film, The Shining (1980). Both The Shining and TWBB are concerned with a male protagonist who becomes increasingly disturbed over the course of the film, compounded by being in an isolated setting that allows him to become dangerously introspective. The jarring string orchestration employed in both the films’ soundtracks symbolises the constant mental duress these men are under and are so unnerving and filled with tension at points that it almost feels that we as listeners could eventually snap too.  It should also be noted that the convergence of vast space and dissonant music within TWBB is also reminiscent of another Kubrick film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), particularly within 2001’s “Dawn of Man” segment in which the atonal vocal oscillations of composer, György Ligeti’s Requiem are employed.

After Plainview convinces the naïve patriarch of the Sunday family to sell him land he knows to be oil-rich at a bargain price, Greenwood’s cue, “Future Markets” kicks in. The cue is initially more conventional in its tonality than the previous scoring but its effect is disconcerting nonetheless. A relentless and driving ostinato motif is heard in the string bass section that comes to short abrupt halts before eventually being joined by pizzicato (plucked), upper-register strings. As Plainview is shown onscreen coveting other properties the strings become more frenetic, mirroring his tireless efforts for complete control and ownership of any available land in the Little Boston area. The use of the rather ‘twitchy’ sound created by the pizzicato effect could also be construed as a musical mimicry of Plainview’s already fragmenting mind.

When the montage ends, the strings take a sullen turn as Planview’s son, Henry and his friend Mary Sunday watch men working for Plainview survey the land around the Sunday’s home. When Mary asks Henry what they are doing and how much money can be made, Henry appears saddened, as if he is aware of his father’s exploitation of the Sunday family. This sadness is reflected in the melancholy turn of the “Future Markets” cue and also indicates to the audience that though being brought up in the oil game, Henry is not the cold, hard businessman that his father is.

One of the film’s most interesting cues occurs in a scene in which an accident on a rig causes Henry to become deaf. The cue does not appear on the release of the film’s score and is in fact an adaptation of the cue, “Convergence” from the Bodysong score. The cue features various percussion instruments that enter one by one, slightly off the beat and in keeping with the overall orchestration of the TWBB score, strings have been added. When Plainview recovers Henry from the rig and runs him to safety the cue begins, a cacophony of disconnected percussion that emulates Plainview’s panic over his son’s condition. Though Henry pleads for him to stay, Plainview chooses to tend to the fire on the rig and joins the other men as the percussive score continues its incessant ode to chaos. As the fire rages on into the night onscreen, discordant strings emerge on the soundtrack and the oil-slicked face of Plainview grins maniacally at the inferno. When a business associate asks Plainview if Henry is ok, Plainview replies matter-of-factly and without shifting his gaze, “No he isn’t” and continues to be consumed by the sight of the fire and the ‘whole ocean of oil’ that it represents.

Daniel Plainview is a man whose misanthropy and greed corrupts everyone around him and leaves him alienated and lonely. Greenwood’s score for TWBB, though harsh and maniacal in places, also features sparse, reflective moments that seem entrenched in a deep sense of sadness.  Taking cues from the ebb and flow of Planview’s unsound mind, Greenwood’s score is a fitting musical accompaniment to the portrait of a man who in amassing an incorporeal fortune becomes metaphysically barren.

- Clare Nina Norelli

As we approach the end of the decade, it seems fitting that this installment of Undertones concern itself with some of the most memorable film scores of the ‘00s. Though the films range in financial or critical success, and opinions may be divided as to the strength of some of the films as a whole, what these scores have in common is a sound that is entirely unique and detrimental to the filmic worlds in which they inhabit. In other words, like any decent film score they quickly remind us of all the thoughts, feelings and reactions garnered during our initial experiences of the films they accompany.

1- Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000)

Composer: Clint Mansell

Ask a number of folk what their favorite film score is and there’s a good chance that they’ll reply with Clint Mansell’s string quartet/electronic masterpiece for Darren Aronofsky’s adaptation of the cult novel, Requiem for a Dream.  Performed by legendary string quartet, Kronos Quartet, the score can be broken into four parts that correspond chronologically by season to the film’s narrative. The most memorable cue, the hypnotic “Lux Aeterna” from the ‘Winter’ portion of the score, has subsequently been used in numerous advertisements, television shows and film and video game trailers in its original form as well as in adaptation. Most notably, the ubiquitous cue was reorchestrated for full orchestra and choir for the The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Jackson, 2002) trailer. The piece was only used in the trailer and not in the film’s score and due to popularity was eventually released as an EP entitled, “Requiem for a Tower”.  Overall Mansell’s score is imbued with a deep sense of melancholy and urgency and, as anyone who has the seen the film can attest, conveys the desperate plight of the film’s ill-fated characters.

2 – Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)
Composer: Angelo Badalamenti

Mulholland Drive is David Lynch’s expose of the dark world that exists under the fantasy and glamour of Hollywood. The film begins with silhouettes of couples swing dancing accompanied by a cue, “Jitterbug”, written by long-time Lynch collaborator Angelo Badalamenti in the style of a Glenn Miller number. However, the film’s quirky opening is quickly cut short and aided by the change of mood in Badalamenti’s score we are soon back in the familiar nightmarish terrain of the Lynch universe. The ominous score is probably Badalamenti’s darkest yet and it enhances the cryptic visuals and narrative by acting as an emotional guide for the viewer. An overwhelming sense of dread is felt in the string writing as we travel deeper and deeper into the disturbed narrative of the film. Channelling the intense darkness that permeates Mulholland Drive, Badalamenti’s score also throws as many twists and turns as the film’s narrative alternating between the dense, languid string writing heard in the opening theme (“Mulholland Drive”) to barely audible audio feedback and even to dinner party jazz (“Dinner Party Pool Music”). In Mulholland Drive, Lynch depicts the dualities of Hollywood; that its world is simultaneously shallow and rich, hopeful and desperate and beautiful and grotesque. Badalamenti’s writing, with its juxtaposition of tortured dirges and jazzy whimsy, helps compliment the theme of corrupted dreams that is central to Mulholland Drive.

3 – Le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain (aka Amélie) (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)

Composer: Yann Tierson

Quintessentially French due to its use of culturally codifying elements such as the heavy use of accordion, Yann Tierson’s score to ‘Amélie’ is a magical, musical evocation of the titular character’s wanderings and childlike explorations of her native Paris. After being played some of Tierson’s music by a production assistant, director Jean-Pierre Jeunet promptly purchased previous works by the composer and arranged a meeting to collaborate on the film. From the dizzying excitement of the street music sounds of cues like, “L’Autre Valse D’Amélie” to the stark minimalism of contemplative solo cues such as “Comptine D’un Autre Ete”, Tierson’s score functions as a voice for the introverted and predominantly mute Amélie (Audrey Tautou). Removed from the film, the score still manages to conjure up images of Amélie’s world within le fabuleux destin d’Amélie Poulain; a place full of wonder, excitement, simple pleasures and fascinating people.

4- Punch-Drunk Love (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2002)

Composer: Jon Brion

Having previously worked on Magnolia (1999) together, composer Jon Brion and director Paul Thomas Anderson collaborated once again for the off-beat romantic comedy, Punch-Drunk Love. The film’s score can be split into two markedly different kinds of musical material used to underscore the narrative concerning the film’s lonely protagonist, salesman Barry Egen (Adam Sandler). Firstly, a score of eclectic percussion instrumentation and electronic blips is employed in scenes in which the disgruntled Barry appears to be at boiling point or on the verge of a complete mental breakdown. Brion’s score doesn’t merely reside in the background but breaks the rules of film scoring all together by occasionally obstructing the dialogue occurring on screen. In one scene in which Barry must tackle one of his seven interrogative sisters, abusive phone calls from a woman trying to extort money out of him, and the general chaos of his warehouse working environment, the score builds up so subtly into a confusion of incessant percussion and atonal passages that we are unconsciously brought into a state of utter exacerbation much like that of the unhappy Barry. The second major scoring device used in the film, particularly in scenes involving Barry’s love-interest, Lena (Emily Watson), is a saccharine waltz that seems to evoke the scores of corny romantic films of the 1940s and ‘50s. The character of the waltz stands in stark contrast in the score to the aforementioned percussive agitation that surrounds it. Overall, Brion’s score acknowledges that Barry’s way out of his miserable existence is to break out of his repressed state and find the sort of all-consuming, redemptive love that dreams are made of.

5- The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007)

Composer: Nick Cave & Warren Ellis

It seems that Nick Cave and Warren Ellis have begun to carve out quite the reputation in recent years for scoring the existential Western. Given the cinematic narrative that permeates the music of the rock band of which they are both members, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and the lush soundscapes of Ellis’ instrumental ensemble Dirty Three, it seemed inevitable that the pair would collaborate to work on film scores together. Their first venture, John Hillcoat’s The Proposition (2005) (also written by Cave), saw them scoring for life in the brutal Australian outback of the 1880s. For their next film, Andrew Dominik’s adaptation of Ron Hansen’s 1983 novel, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, the pair was once again working with the subject of the savage wilderness and the meditations of a tormented antihero. The sparse score accompanies the story of wannabe gunslinger Robert Ford’s obsession with the notorious American folk superstar, Jesse James, and the tragic results of his idolization. Consisting predominantly of strings, celeste and piano with the occasional use of guitar and percussion, the score is haunting and melancholic; a constant reminder that the film, as suggested by the title, will not end well. An overwhelming sadness penetrates the entire film due to the combination of the finely measured performances of Casey Affleck and Brad Pitt in the title roles, the gloomy cinematography of Roger Deakins and of course, the pathos-laden score by Cave and Ellis. The score does not only function as a requiem for the mysterious Jesse James, it is also a window into the thoughts of the deeply disturbed Robert Ford. What Cave and Ellis’ score truly conveys in ‘Jesse James’, is the metaphysical weight of a man who is struggling with his own identity and purpose, forced to live in the shadow of a legendary figure larger than life itself.

Other memorable scores of the ‘00s:

- Gladiator (Scott, 2000) composed by Hans Zimmer & Lisa Gerrard

- A Beautiful Mind (Howard, 2001) composed by James Horner

- Donnie Darko (Kelly, 2001) composed by Michael Andrews

- The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (Jackson, 2002) composed by Howard Shore

- Catch Me if You Can (Spielberg, 2002) composed by John Williams

- The Hours (Daldry, 2002) composed by Philip Glass

- Brokeback Mountain (Lee, 2005) composed by Gustavo Santaolalla

- The Proposition (Hillcoat, 2005) composed by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis

- Pan’s Labyrinth (del Toro, 2006) composed by Javier Navarrete

- There Will Be Blood (Anderson, 2007) composed by Jonny Greenwood
- The Dark Knight (Nolan, 2008) composed by Hanz Zimmer & James Newton Howard

- Clare Norelli

Undertones: Volume 7

It’s the time of the year again where folks’ minds turn to the macabre and the ghoulish; where death is celebrated rather than feared and of course, when dusty copies of horror films are taken off the shelf to terrify and amuse. So, in honor of the Halloween season it would seem only right that this installment of Undertones concern itself with the scores of horror films or, more specifically, those that emerged during a particularly groundbreaking and ultra-violent decade of cinema – the 1970s.

Many of the horror films of the 1970s did not involve supernatural beings such as vampires, werewolves and swamp things, but the terrors of home and society at large. The menacing figures of films such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Hooper, 1974) and Halloween (Carpenter, 1978) may have worn crazy masks and looked decidedly ‘un-human’ but the messages these films posited concerned themselves with that of the everyday and the mundane; the nature of fate and existence, societal fears and the consequences of immorality. Revenge films with gory undertones like “The Last House on the Left” (Craven, 1974) and “I Spit on Your Grave” (Zarchi, 1978) took the social commentary one step further and shocked audiences with their gritty realism. The villains of these films were not bogeymen who looked freaky and of unsound mind, but run-of-the-mill, ‘plain-clothed’ sociopaths that could be encountered in any city, suburban cul-de-sac or rural town.

Central to the strength of many of these films was the way in which music was used to create atmosphere. Much of the tension in scenes such as those in which hapless victims are shown wandering about aimlessly, is created through the employment of an unnerving score. It could be argued that Bernard Herrmann’s score to Psycho (Hitchcock, 1960) set the standard for horror scores. With its use of piercing, dissonant strings and tension-building ostinatos (musical material that is repeated over and over), Herrmann’s score encapsulated the sound of pure malevolence and its influence can be heard in nearly every horror/thriller score since.

It seems the best of the scores are deceptively simple, entrancing their audiences from their inception and requiring little time to create a visceral sense of dread. What follows are a few classic opening themes of 1970s horror and a little insight as to what exactly makes them so darn creepy.

HALLOWEEN (Carpenter, 1978)

Composer: John Carpenter

Before any images or credits appear, John Carpenter’s piano motif emerges from the blackened screen acting as an admonition of the horrors that are about to ensue. Comprised of four notes in two different time signatures, the motif is repeated incessantly and accompanied by an electronic rhythm conveying a sense of breathless urgency; that time is running out and evil is lurking. As this motif continues, a rather ghastly, lit pumpkin head appears on screen synchronized with the appearance of a second, three note motifs heard in the bass of the piano and synthesizer. This motif evokes a sense of doom and functions as the voice of the film’s killer, Michael Myers (Tony Moran) aka “The Shape”. Myers, an escaped mental patient who was institutionalized for murdering one of his sisters as a boy, relentlessly kills anyone in the path to his intended victim, Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis), whom he first spies at the beginning of the film.  The two motifs play against each other, developing and modulating throughout the film depending on the circumstances depicted. Whilst these two contrasting motifs act as a conversation between aggressor and principal victim, the overall theme also reflects the urgency of the plight of Myers’ doctor at the mental institution, Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence), who is trying to get to Myers before he exacts further bloodshed .

In the 1983 soundtrack liner notes, Carpenter commented that he was determined to “save [Halloween] with the music” after screening the film sans soundtrack to a studio executive who was not exactly overcome with fear. It would indeed be hard to imagine the film being quite as unnerving if it weren’t for the sense of unease created by Carpenter’s memorable score.

SISTERS (De Palma, 1978)

Composer: Bernard Herrmann

Director and Hitchcock fanboy, Brain De Palma was pretty damn excited when he was able to enlist Hitchcock staple Bernard Herrmann to score his Siamese twin slasher film. In fact, Herrmann’s salary was the largest single item in the film’s budget. According to an interview about the score entitled “Murder by Moog” that featured in the Village Voice in 1973, DePalma had not wanted any opening credit music but Herrmann, in his usual blunt style, barked at the director, “No title music? Nothing horrible happens in your picture for the first half hour. You need something to scare them right away. The way you do it, they’ll walk out.”

The result was a title cue featuring Moog synthesizers that is heard over X-ray photos of two growing foetuses in the womb shown on screen. The opening brass motif accompanied by tubular bells seems to mimic that of a children’s playground taunt and further associations of childhood innocence are created via the nursery-evoking sounds of the glockenspiel. However, the wailing Moogs and dissonant, dramatic strings hint at something far more sinister and psychotic in the works.  Herrmann’s juxtaposition of such contrasting musical material (i.e. the sweetness of the glockenspiel vs. the abrasive string writing), and the variation in timbre created by the unusual orchestration for puts one on the edge of their seat long before De Palma’s first murder scene takes place.

SUSPIRIA (Argento, 1977)

Composer: Goblin

For his 1977 film about an American ballet student, Suzy (Jessica Harper), who travels to Munich to enroll in a rather gruesome dance school, Italian horror maestro Dario Argento used the prog-rock band, Goblin, to contribute a score. In the opening credits a cacophony of noise is heard building up until the title “Suspiria” appears on screen. The Suspiria theme begins as a saccharine motif on celeste that, much like the glockenspiel material in Herrmann’s “Sisters” theme, connotes innocence, albeit with sense of sadness implied by the use of a minor tonality. In the second statement of this motif a ghoulish voice is heard half-whispering, half-singing, resulting in an overall sound that is exceedingly creepy. The delivery of the breathy voice is discordant and consequently the effect of it being in unison with a tuned instrument is unsettling to the ear. As the credits finish, the theme is cut short by the same build-up of noise heard at the credit’s inception. The implications of the theme in terms of the film’s narrative are rather obvious; Suzy’s intentions are innocent and filled with childlike desire but ultimately she is thrown into a world of darkness and overwhelming fear.

After these credits, Suzy is shown arriving at the airport and the celeste motif is heard cuttingeard of ultimate doomfied byufor Suzie the moment she walks out to this new world; the rain beating down on her and taxi c in and out of the soundtrack, temporarily replacing the diagetic sound of the airport at random intervals. The motif reveals to the audience Suzy’s naivety and trepidation over being alone in a foreign country and as she steps out of the airport doors, knocked back by the storm raging outside, the disembodied voice resumes and the theme is heard in its entirety. The audience gets the impression that things are not going to go well for Suzie as she walks out into this new world, where the sense of dread is heightened by the menacing ambience of Goblin’s mischievous score.

Further Listening:

The Omen (Donner, 1976)

Composer:  Jerry Goldsmith

The Amityville Horror (Rosenberg, 1979)

Composer: Lalo Schifrin

The Exorcist (Friedkin, 1973)

Composer: Mike Oldfield (Main Theme – “Tubular Bells”)

Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)

Composer: Pino Donaggio

It’s Alive (Cohen, 1974) & It Lives Again (Cohen, 1978)

Composer: Bernard Herrmann

The Wicker Man (Hardy, 1973)

Composer: Paul Giovanni

- Clare Nina Norelli

The classic science fiction film emerged during a period of great societal paranoia in the US in the early 1950s. The post-WW2 environment saw an increased concern with nuclear armament and a fear of the infiltration of communism on the American way of life. Essentially, the sci-fi film was Hollywood’s great metaphor for these threats; its power largely dependent on playing on the fears of the cinema-goer. Many of the films were low-budget affairs pumped out by the studios; a steady stream of high-camp and cheap thrills in order to provide what one can only assume was constant necking-fodder for teens at drive-ins. Amongst these ‘B’ pictures, many of which have been long lost in time to the more technologically-savvy audiences of recent years but considered charming nostalgia to retro film junkies, are films that stand out for their innovation and social commentary and are considered classics by modern cinophiles. Despite their differences in quality however, what many of the films had in common was a standard in scoring that has since become firmly ingrained in audience’s consciousness and consequently synonymous with the genre, even to the point of cliché.

When we think of classic sci-fi scores what most of us would immediately recall, whether we are aware of it or not, are the haunting tones of early electronic music, most notably the theremin. Developed in 1919 by its Russian namesake, Leon Theremin, the theremin produces its tone by way of two radio-frequency oscillators that are tuned identically and controlled through the movement of the player’s hands near the instrument. One of these oscillators controls pitch, the other, volume. The first recorded use of the theremin in cinema was by the composer Dmitri Shostakovich in the 1931 film Odna in order to convey the momentum and urgency of a snowstorm forming. The theremin’s major Hollywood debut followed years later in 1945 with Miklós Rózsa’s use of the instrument in his scoring of the psychological thrillers Spellbound and The Lost Weekend (see Undertones: Volume 2). The highly unusual tones of the theremin and other electronic instrumentation was a logical choice for composers seeking to give a voice to the alien ‘Other’ and its perceived threat, and the instrument made its first appearance in the scores of early sci-fi films such as Rocketship X-M (1950), scored by Ferde Grofe. It seemed that the use of electronic music, still confusing and confronting to audiences at the time, was as much a symbolic choice as it was aesthetic.

The Thing aka The Thing from Another World (1951) directed by Christian Nyby, was one of the first of the period’s major sci-fi films to utilise the theremin. Composed by Dimitri Tiomkin, the theremin only appears in the score when the menacing extraterrestrial is shown or alluded to on screen. In a scene depicting the discovery of the creature’s flying saucer lodged in ice, the instrument is accompanied by dissonant, wailing strings and brass suggesting the harsh conditions of the freezing terrain. The abrasive capability of the theremin’s tone is exploited to full effect here, cutting through the verbose supporting ostinatos of the orchestra in order to create a sense in the listener/viewer of a sinister presence at work.

Bernard Herrmann’s score for Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) is an incredibly innovative and bold example of film music, even by today’s standards. Comprising of an orchestra of no less than two theremins, electric violin, electric bass, electric organs, vibraphone, four pianos, four harps and a chorus of brass (amongst others), Herrmann’s musical vision for the film initially perplexed not only studio executives at Fox, but director Wise as well. When recording commenced it was soon evident that Herrmann was on to something special, as Wise commented later upon hearing the cues that it was “beyond anything [he] had anticipated.” The film’s opening credits are accompanied by Herrmann’s cues “Prelude” and “Outer Space”. What appears on screen is a steady zoom-in from the constellations of outer space to Earth; a point-of-view that we will soon come to learn is that of the alien Klaatu as he journeys in his spaceship to our war-happy planet in order to spread the message of pacifism. The two theremins open the “Prelude” cue and, given the association of the theremin with alien life-forms already having been cemented in audience’s minds from previous films of the genre, alert the audience to the presence of a creature from another world. The jarring brass chords that accompany also seem to act as the harbingers of an impending disaster, though we eventually realise that Klaatu is not necessarily its source.

A sense of urgency and timeliness, probably that of Klaatu’s desire to warn Earth of its foolishness before it is too late, is also mirrored in the score via hectic use of speedy arpeggios in the harps, organs and pianos as they frantically move in contrary motion. This mood continues in the proceeding “Radar” cue through use of an equally-urgent, repetitive motive in the lower register of one of the pianos alternating with one in a higher register on the other piano and vibraphone. Heard in the soundtrack whilst folk from around the world are shown excitedly picking up Klattu’s spaceship’s signal on their radar systems, the interchanging melodic lines in the different registers of the cue mimic the conversation going on between the spaceship and the radars in the action on screen. Throughout his score for The Day the Earth Stood Still, Herrmann used these techniques as well as others (e.g. extremes in volume, the diverse instrumental colour attained in pitting different groups of his unusual orchestra against each other) in order to create a mood of uninhibited urgency and doom that further propels the film’s powerful warning about nuclear foolhardiness .

Fred M. Wilcox’s Forbidden Planet was released in 1956 with a score by experimental composers Louis and Bebbe Barron comprising solely of electronic instruments though, interestingly enough, no theremin was used. Their score to the Freudian re-working of Shakespeare’s The Tempest set in deep-space, was the first of its kind and consists of highly-resonant atonal blips and beeps with no discernable or, rather, conventional melodies or harmony. In the liner notes to the soundtrack release, the duo explained that they “design and construct electronic circuits which function electronically in a manner remarkably similar to the way that lower life-forms function psychologically… individual cybernetics circuits for particular themes and leitmotifs [were created], rather than using standard sound generators” and that “each circuit has a characteristic activity pattern as well as a ‘voice’.” The result is a genuinely haunting score, even to modern audiences who have are familiar with electronic music. Though electronically created, there is something of the base or, to refer to Freud, Id instinct reflected in the score in its minimalist construction. It does not demand one’s attention (except perhaps, for the occasions it appears to function as a sound effect) but simply ripples under the surface, alluding to the more subliminal aspects of Forbidden Planet’s narrative.

In modern cinema, the scoring that came about in the early sci-fi films of the 1950s tends to only be utilised as a form of pastiche, as exemplified by Danny Elfman’s score for Tim Burton’s intentionally campy Mars Attacks! (1996). It seems it would be impossible nowadays to score a sci-fi with wailing theremins without some snicker at the apparent corniness; even Herrmann complained in an interview in 1973 that the sound he helped pioneer for the genre had become rife with “electronic clichés”. In any event, the scores that were composed for the sci-fi films of the 1950s, whether low or high budget, reflect a time of great change; be it musically, cinematically or socially.

Clare Nina Norelli

Undertones: Volume 5

Removing the veneer of squeaky-clean suburban American life to reveal its seamy underbelly, David Lynch’s 1986 film, Blue Velvet, is a modern masterpiece and perhaps the most crystallized example of Lynch’s filmic vision. Concerned with the misadventure of a clean-cut teen called Jeffrey (Kyle MacLachlan) who upon discovering and subsequently investigating a severed ear becomes caught up in a creepy criminal underworld headed by the disturbed Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), Blue Velvet is also significant for being Lynch’s first collaboration with composer Angelo Badalamenti. With his knack for juxtaposing angelic melodies that border on corny with dark harmonies that are weighed with dread, Badalamenti’s sound was the perfect musical accompaniment to the world depicted by Lynch in Blue Velvet.

Badalamenti, who previously worked on film scores such as the blaxpoitation film Gordon’s War (Ossie Davis, 1973) and Law and Disorder (Ivan Passer, 1974), was introduced to Lynch by a friend on the set of Blue Velvet. As Lynch had been having trouble with the singing abilities of actress Isabella Rossellini (who plays nightclub chanteuse Dorothy Vallens in the film), Badalamenti was suggested as a vocal coach. After hearing a recording of the arrangements Badalamenti had written for Rossellini, Lynch was so taken by Badalamenti’s work that he asked him to score the entire film. Unlike many other filmmakers, Lynch worked very closely with his composer, going as far as to sit with Badalamenti as he was working at the piano and suggest what direction a melody or chord progression might take.

Blue Velvet opens with the camera panning from almost painfully bright white picket fences and red roses on a suburban street to a subterranean world where monstrous insects are found writhing under immaculately groomed lawns. Serving as a metaphor for the entire film, the sequence is then followed with the film’s title shown on a backdrop of blue velvet accompanied by Badalamenti’s “Main Title” cue. The rather anfractuous piece, oddly for an opening theme, is only heard one more time in the film and was influenced by the writing of Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovich. According to Badalamenti, Lynch had been playing the works of Shostakovich on set and, in his idiosyncratically abstract style, had instructed the composer that the opening theme had to “be like Shostakovich, be very Russian, but make it the most beautiful thing but make it dark and a little bit scary.”

The progression of the film from almost being a pastiche of 1950s sitcoms to a sadomasochistic tale filled with Freudian intrigue is mirrored in the score via its implied nostalgic romanticism and evocation of a dark and sinister atmosphere through employment of low-register strings. The result is that the score hints at an underlying menace even in the most comforting of moments due to Badalmenti’s ability to create great tension in his listener. Describing his method for achieving this, Badalamenti explains, “It is not the top melody or even the bass, it is something in the middle that kind of rubs wrong, and is maybe even mildly dissonant. You hear it, but it is not in your face.” This compositional technique was used to great effect in scenes in Blue Velvet showing Jeffrey’s dealings with the underworld, those in which he interacts with the mysterious Dorothy and most notably those involving the town’s resident sadist, Frank.

In one of Blue Velvet’s most memorable scenes, Jeffrey breaks into Dorothy’s apartment and hides in her wardrobe while Badalamenti’s score cuts in and out of the soundtrack creating great suspense. Firstly a sustained dissonant chord is used when Jeffrey is almost caught by Dorothy after she is interrupted from opening the wardrobe door by a phone call from her kidnapped son, and is followed by long, low-register notes when she is observed whimpering on the floor. The score finally comes to a head when Dorothy, suspecting someone is in the wardrobe, approaches brandishing a knife. Here the score meanders in no particular key creating suspense as the viewer observes Jeffrey about to be caught. When Dorothy finally opens the wardrobe door the score climaxes and a resounding brass chord rings out, signifying Jeffrey has been caught and echoing Dorothy’s shock at discovering what she understandably perceives as a strange pervert residing in her wardrobe. As she interrogates Jeffrey as to his motives for being there, the score is incessant and mirrors her panic before stopping entirely when she seems resolved with the idea of making out with him. Soon the pair’s heavy-petting is interrupted by the arrival of Frank at the door and Jeffrey resumes his place in the wardrobe. As Frank, who proceeds to get high as a kite on what appears to be Nitrous Oxide, starts getting all Oedipal with Dorothy, Badalamenti’s score resumes the use of the long, low-registered notes to denote that there is something seriously messed-up with this guy. The overwhelming tension and dread felt whilst watching the scene can be largely attributed to Badalamenti’s intuitive scoring.

Blue Velvet also marked the first occasion in which Lynch and Badalamenti would collaborate to write their own unique brand of pop music, influenced by the teenage anthems of unrequited love heard in the 1950s and ‘60s. Lynch had initially wanted to use a cover of Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren” by the band, This Mortal Coil on the soundtrack but given that would have set the film back $50,000 in synching rights, it was suggested that Badalamenti write a similar song instead. The result was “Mysteries of Love,” a simple sentimental song composed by Badalamenti with an almost naïve quality further accentuated by the evocative lyrics penned by Lynch himself. Heard in a scene between Jeffrey and his love interest Sandy (Laura Dern), the song is performed by the ethereal-voiced Julee Cruise and essentially sums up the overall meaning of the film — that there is darkness in even the most beautiful of things and in the end only love can truly save us from the horrors of the world. “Mysteries of Love” was the first of the pair’s collaboration on an original repertoire of pop songs that would appear in their subsequent projects and also on the solo releases of Julee Cruise.

With Blue Velvet, Badalamenti had created the perfect sound for Lynch’s vision of America. Both melodic and post-modern in its pastiche of American pop music in combination with the dark orchestral scoring of 1940s film noir, Badalmenti’s score adds much to the overall success of Blue Velvet’s interpretation by its audience. The collaboration between Badalamenti and Lynch proved a winning formula and in their next project, the television series Twin Peaks, the pair would explore further in their work the theme of decaying suburbia that was central to the narrative of Blue Velvet.

Jim Jarmusch’s transcendental western, Dead Man (1995), is the tale of a spiritual and physical journey taken by an ordinary man named William Blake (Johnny Depp) sometime in the later part of the 19th century. Travelling to a frontier town called Machine, Blake hopes to be given a job as an accountant in a factory but upon arrival finds the position has already been filled. Jobless and stranded in the bestial town, things soon go awry for the meek Blake as he is confronted with circumstances and folk that are extreme and completely alien to him.

Accompanying Jarmusch’s surrealistic narrative is a trance-like score written and performed by legendary guitar-wailer and “Godfather of Grunge”, Neil Young. Young approached the scoring of the film as if it were an old silent film with a live score, improvising in real time over images projected on televisions in a variety of sizes that were set up around him. Depending on the tone and narrative of the scene, Young would also switch between electric guitar, pump organ and detuned piano. The crux of the score is two simple themes that, as Young stated in a radio interview with Terry Gross (Fresh Air, 25 March 2004), had already been conceived prior to the scoring of Dead Man. Having some idea of the film’s narrative due to already having seen an unedited version of the film, Young explained of the themes, “One of them had to do with violence because there was a string of violence…there was one theme that went with that and there was another type of subtheme that went with some of the other feelings in the film.”

Dead Man opens with Blake’s journey by steam train to Machine. Here, the score hints at the two themes and primarily imitates the motion of the train’s wheels and passing of the vast Americana outside Blake’s window. This is followed by the opening credits, accompanied by a track that features the two themes on acoustic and electric guitar. The track, which strangely does not appear on the soundtrack CD of the film issued by Vapor Records, ties together all of the key musical material and much like the “Prelude” cues found in the opening credits of classic cinema, makes a statement as to the whole of the narrative that is to follow.

When Blake exits the train at Machine (the “end of the line”), Young’s solo guitar seems to herald his arrival in a style reminiscent of the work of composers such as Ennio Morricone of the American western genre. Giving a voice to this stranger in a cruel town, Young’s guitar weaves and drones as Blake looks upon Machine for the first time and, in using the two aforementioned themes, intones Blake’s sense of fear (the “violence” theme) and uncertainty (the “subtheme”).

Throughout the film, Young’s score comments on objects and words giving them extra weight; a single chord or note often appears in isolation to denote something of significance. Apart from what is obvious onscreen, Young’s score helps shape the overall mood of Dead Man imbuing it with a sense of purpose and journey via the use of the themes in repetition and development. In an interview with nytrash.com, Jarmusch acknowledged the strength of Young’s score to the film’s overall functioning stating, “What he brought to the film lifts it to another level, intertwining the soul of the story with Neil’s musically emotional reaction to it – the guy reached down to some deep place inside himself to create such strong music for our film.” The orchestration of the score also helps Dead Man in establishing a connection to the western genre through its use of American folk instruments such as guitar, honky-tonk piano and pump organ.

Like the film itself, the score met with mixed reactions. Highly regarded film critic Roger Ebert disliked the film immensely and was particularly scathing towards Young’s score for the final portion of Dead Man stating, “A mood might have developed here, had it not been for the unfortunate score by Neil Young, which for the film’s final 30 minutes sounds like nothing so much as a man repeatedly dropping his guitar.” It seemed someone may have missed the point. Young’s score is meant to intimate one man’s meditation on his own mortality – the realization that he is on a premature journey to death and his eventual acceptance of this truth. The score conveys this by employing repetition to suggest that Blake’s thoughts are preoccupied with the same concerns, as well as through the predominance of electric guitar with delay and distortion to suggest sonically the spiritual weight of these all-consuming thoughts. As a whole, Young’s score contributes much to the overall atmosphere of Dead Man; encapsulating its rawness, anger, loneliness and tranquil spirituality.

Clare Nina Norelli

From the beginning of cinema theatre owners tried a variety of methods in which to add sound to film. Initially the reasons for the addition of sound varied from people being weirded out by seeing mute folks onscreen to utilizing it as a means in which to mask the noise made by the crude projectors playing the film. It soon became obvious to film exhibitors however that sound actually enhanced the tone and interpretation by the audience of the film. When the Lumiere brothers first demonstrated their films in 1895 in Paris, they had a piano player accompany the action on screen. The pianist would watch the screen and capture the changes of mood. When the first theatres opened in 1902 in the USA, methods such as using someone to create sound effects and/or dialogue as well as Thomas Edison’s synchronised disc (not always guaranteed to synchronise) proved a distraction to the cinematic experience.

The theatre owners soon realised that the most cost effective way of providing sound for film was to have live musicians in the theatre. The size of the theatre would often determine the amount of musicians – for example a small theatre might have just the piano or maybe an accompanying violinist whereas the first class theatres and deluxe cinema palaces may have as many as 80. During the nineteen-teens, several instrument manufacturers designed mechanical instruments to accompany silent films. Named Fotoplayers they were able to produce many instrumental sounds as well as sound effects. Some of these machines were enormous and the biggest Fotoplayer (made by the American Photo Player Company) was 21 feet long, 5 feet wide and around 5 feet tall. However it seems the most popular (and economical) method of accompaniment was still primarily the use of pianists or organists.

The piano accompaniment wasn’t always found to be pleasant. In 1920 a rather nasty article in The Musician noted of the piano accompaniment used in theatres, “The instrument is generally old, out of tune, strings dusty, and incapable of producing the correct vibrations. The stool has no back and the pianist plays for hours with the muscles of her back becoming constantly more strained. The light, both night and day, is poor and inadequate, forcing the pianist either to play by memory, ear or incorrectly by notes she strives to make out.” In fact as early as 1909 an editorial in Moving Picture World implored that theatre managers either tune the pianos or, more dramatically, burn them.

The piano accompanist’s job was by no means an easy one, as noted in the aforementioned Musician article. Most of the time the musicians did not have time to see the films they were going to accompany and would have to guess as to the mood, timing, tempo and scene changes. Joseph Gershenson (who later became the musical director at Universal Studios) said of his experiences as a film accompanist in the 1920s, “I worked in little theatres with just violin and piano. When I played the silent movies in the small theatres, they had a big machine with pulleys. If you wanted a rooster crow, you’d pull one button. If you wanted an auto horn, you’d pull another. And the pianist used to do all that. These things were all set up. It was an old Wurlizer machine, a big machine, attached to a piano. A knock at the door, or a telephone bell, another lever. The pianist would have cue sheets for it.” As you can imagine, this was a rather exhausting and one would assume, comical process. Many other famous musicians and composers got their start in the music world as a film accompanist, for example the ‘stride’ pianist Fats Waller. Even the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich endured a grueling stint at a movie house as a young man. In a letter, his wife recalled in 1924, “Down in front of the screen sat [Dmitri], his back soaked with perspiration, his near-sighted eyes in their horn-rimmed glasses peering upwards to follow the story, his fingers pounding away on the raucous upright piano. Late at night he trudged home in a thin coat and summer cap, with now warm gloves or galoshes, and arrived exhausted around one o’clock in the morning…”

The early piano accompanists would play whatever came to mind without regard for the action on screen. Initially no one cared but when film became more sophisticated and began to be viewed as a legitimate art form, the musicians became more considerate as to the music they played. In other words, no hoedown music was to be used when a funeral was onscreen. The film studios themselves also desired a means in regulating accompaniment so that the audience enjoyed a richer cinematic experience at their films. In 1909 the Edison and Vitagraph companies began distributing lists of suggested material to be used by an accompanist for their films. This helped the musicians immensely in understanding the intent and mood of the scenes.  These cue sheets would be passed on to the accompanist as a guide and even if they did not own a copy of the suggested music, they could substitute it with something similar they did own. Years later J.S. Zamecnik took this idea one step forward by writing several volumes called “Moving Picture Music”. They were conceived whist he was musical director at the amusingly titled Hippodrome Theatre in Cleveland as he was cataloguing accompaniment riffs. The first volume was published by Sam Fox Publishing in 1913, and included such themes as “Funeral March”, “War Scene”, “Hurry Music” and “Church Music”. Comprising of original music and snippets from popular songs and classical music, these books proved a huge success with those accompanists who weren’t master improvisers and they were also technically not out of reach for the average musician. The often irritating musical clichés developed in this period can still be heard in cinema today, particularly in the more obnoxious children’s films.

When film became more sophisticated it wasn’t only the studios that became involved in the musical accompaniment process but also the directors. One of the greats of American cinema, the highly innovative yet racially insensitive director D.W. Griffith, was an early champion of film scores and prepared his own musical cues for his films. He said, “Watch a film run in silence, and then watch it again with eyes and ears. The music sets the mood for what your eye sees; it guides your emotions; it is the emotional framework for visual pictures.”  To score his notorious film, Birth of a Nation, Griffith hired Carli Desmore, a musical “fitter”, to piece together musical bits and pieces from the classics. Later on Griffith used full orchestras for his films using scores by the newly recruited Joseph Carl Briel and even used him to rescore Birth of a Nation. The highly patriotic and even racist nature of the film was heightened by its score, which featured familiar patriotic anthems and the songs of the cringe-worthy “black-face” minstrel entertainers of the day. Numerous scenes were also scored by classical themes, for example Grieg’s “Hall of the Mountain King” was used in a scene in which Atlanta is shown burning and a silent movie favourite, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, played when the oh-so-noble Klansmen rescue a woman from one of the horrible, sex-starved “mulattos”. Despite his blatant racism, D.W. Griffith and his attention to music in Birth of a Nation did change for the better the way in which music was used for silent film screenings.

The death of the silent movie musician came about in October of 1927. After taking a chance with a system that allowed 33 1/3 records to synch up with a reel of film, Warner Brothers released the film The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolsen, with the tag “All singing, all talking” and with no need for accompanying musicians. It was followed shortly by Walt Disney’s iconic animated short Steamboat Willie and its huge success indicated that sound in film was well and truly in demand by the public. Some studios were still making silents (Charlie Chaplin, for example, refused to convert) but by 1930 all the silent theatres had either converted to sound or went out of business. Today we are occasionally treated to screenings of silent films with live scoring and it often proves a unique and refreshing experience.

Clare Nina Norelli

In the 1940s the consumption of alcohol was predominantly glamorised on the silver screen. Starlets sipped sensuously on their g & t’s whilst detectives downed shots of whiskey before departing the office on a hot lead. If this was an accurate portrayal of the time, one has to ask how the hell anyone got anything done whilst being so heavily sauced. Despite the era’s predilection for depicting alcohol ingestion as a sophisticated way to spend one’s time, a film emerged from this period that actually dared to show the repercussions of excess binges with the bottle; Billy Wilder’s Oscar winning film, The Lost Weekend (1945).

Starring Ray Milland in the lead role as Don Birham, a recovering alcoholic writer, The Lost Weekend follows four chaotic days as Birham jumps back on the wagon. Apart from classic Wilder dialogue and beautiful cinematography that recalls that of the film noir genre of the period, The Lost Weekend also features an innovative score by Hungarian composer, Miklós Rózsa. Having previously contributed classic scores to films such as Disney’s Jungle Book (1942) and another Wilder masterpiece, Double Indemnity (1944), Rózsa was also enlisted by Alfred Hitchcock to write the score to his thriller Spellbound (1945). The musical material found in both Spellbound and The Lost Weekend is incredibly similar and given the close proximity of their release dates, one can only presume Rózsa may have been working on them simultaneously. Both films were considered “psychological thrillers” in that their plots revolved around a particular neuroses that their lead characters suffered from (amnesia brought about by a guilt complex in Spellbound and alcoholism in The Lost Weekend), consequently Rózsa may have used the same techniques in order to convey their debilitating mental states.

What is most striking about Rózsa’s scoring of the two films is the use of the theremin, an instrument that has since become synonymous with the science fiction films of the 1950s. In both films he uses the wavering and ‘eerie’ tones of the instrument to reflect the two protagonists’ disturbed states of mind. In The Lost Weekend the theremin’s oscillations also seem to mimic Birham’s drunken stumbling as he searches for another hit of that sweet, sweet liquor.

In one of the most memorable of the film’s scenes, Birham recoils in horror over a Delirium tremens (DT) hallucination (yep, the guy is that much of a booze hound) involving a bat killing a mouse. Now let’s just ignore the fact that the rubbery bat appears to be attached by string to a fishing pole manoeuvred by some guy who was totally uninspired at the time and focus on the actual horror of the scene. Birham’s hallucination is genuinely disturbing in that it reflects the grim reality of extreme alcoholism and in the days before CGI and Jim Henson it must have been pretty damn frightening for the audience. Apart from Milland’s blood-curdling screams, what makes this scene truly disturbing is Rózsa’s score and its exploitation of the theremin’s timbre.

Throughout the film, as film music writer Roy M Prendergast notes, the theremin is only used in scenes in which Birham’s mind turns to alcohol. Thus, apart from creating a sense of unease in the listener due to its unusual sound (particularly to the ears of 1945 cinemagoers), the use of the theremin at particular moments in the film (e.g. when Birham packs a suitcase and realises he has omitted his liquor) serves as a reminder to the audience of Birham’s preoccupation with alcohol.

In his survey of the history of film music, Mervyn Cooke notes some interesting background information regarding Rózsa’s score for The Lost Weekend. Initially the fact that Rózsa had used the ‘wacky’ theremin in his score was met with disapproval from the film’s producers. Consequently, in a preview screening of the film a temporary music track that was ‘jazzy’ in style was used and falsely led the audience into thinking they were watching a comedy. Needless to say, folk walked out because comedy it ain’t – unless of course you think that crippling alcoholism is hilarious in which case it’s a total laugh riot. Given that the film went on to become critically acclaimed and cleaned up at the Academy Awards in 1946 (Oscars for Best Director – Billy Wilder, Best Actor – Ray Milland, Best Screenplay – Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder, and Best Picture), it’s obvious that in using Rózsa’s haunting score instead of employing the more fashionable jazz sound of the day, the producers had come to the right decision as to the choice of music. That year Rózsa was also nominated for an Oscar for The Lost Weekend but, as luck would have it, lost out to himself for his score to Spellbound.

Undertones is Clare Nina’s fortnightly guide to the world of film scores.

Clare Nina Norelli

Undertones: Volume 1

Bring up Alfred Hitchock’s Vertigo (1958) in conversation to anyone who has seen it and you are bound to get one of two responses; complete and utter contempt over its baffling complexity or hyperbolic gushing over the film’s genius. Whatever your opinion of Vertigo, the film does have a lot of talking points. One of Vertigo’s most striking and memorable elements is Bernard Herrmann’s lush, predominantly string score. Using motifs (small phrases of melody or even just a few notes attributed to a character, object, and emotion etc.), Herrmann was able to imbue scenes that had little to no dialogue with meaning that might have otherwise been lost on the viewer.

Vertigo’s narrative concerns an ex-police detective, Scottie (James Stewart), who suffers from a condition known as acrophobia, or vertigo, which causes him to essentially lose his shit when he is even just a few feet off the ground. Scottie becomes obsessed with a woman called Madeline (Kim Novak) and is overcome with naughty thoughts that render him useless in much the same way that his vertigo does. The film, like many in the Hitchcock oeuvre, is essentially one big Freudian wet dream. If you show it to a Freudophile make sure you have towels.

The film’s memorable opening credit sequence with its close-ups of Kim Novak’s mouth and eyes and Saul Bass’ iconic spiral designs, is accompanied by Herrmann’s “Prelude” musical cue. “Prelude” functions as a microcosm of Scottie’s world in Vertigo in that it presents the themes that are central to Vertigo’s narrative. The cue opens with a rapid-paced ascending and descending figure that is repeated throughout and accented in such a way that it plays with the viewer/listener’s sense of musical expectation. At points in this figure the harmony is also jarring and in combination with its frantic movement, the overall effect is that one feels agitated and a sense of unease. The “Vertigo” figure is meant to function as the musical equivalent of a bout of Scottie’s vertigo and as Robin Wood, author of Hitchcock’s Films, notes, it also mirrors Scottie’s ambivalent neurosis in that he has “both a fear of falling and a desire to fall.”

As well as the “Vertigo” figure, “Prelude” also features another important piece of musical material. Comprised of four descending notes, what is best described as the “Love” motif acts as a harbinger of Scottie and Madeline’s doomed romance. Its slow downward movement suggests both Scottie’s longing and his self-destructive desire to fall. This motif permeates Vertigo’s entire score and functions as a constant reminder to the audience of Scottie’s obsession with Madeline and the alienation both this obsession and his debilitating vertigo cause him. For example, one of the film’s most heart-wrenching scenes shows Scottie wandering the streets of San Francisco alone in the early hours of the morning after having just been released from the sanatorium. The scene is accompanied by Herrmann’s sparse cue, “3.A.M”, featuring the “Love” motif and given that there is no dialogue or any visual clues Herrmann is able to speak for the lonely, voiceless Scottie. As the “Love” motif has come to signify Madeline and their romance in the film, Herrmann is telling the viewer/listener that Scottie has clearly not been cured of his obsession with Madeline.

What Herrmann’s “Prelude” cue for the opening credits does is present clues as to the reasons behind Scottie’s neurosis. By linking the “Vertigo” figure and “Love” motif Herrmann is highlighting the correlation between Scottie’s vertigo and his obsession for Madeline. Just as his vertigo causes him to lose control and become vulnerable, so to does Madeline.

Herrmann’s score for Vertigo remains one of the most striking and innovative in cinema and one that can still be enjoyed removed from the images it accompanies. Seriously, it’s that good. Get yourself a copy right now if you don’t already have it. Now. In utilizing Herrmann, Hitchcock found a composer who had a rare understanding of the hidden meaning behind images and dialogue and could translate these meanings musically. As Herrmann biographer, Stephen Smith notes, Vertigo is “Hitchcock’s most uncompromising film, and Bernard Herrmann’s fullest realization of his favorite dramatic themes: romantic obsession, isolation, and the ultimate release from death.” Due to their both being crotchety, uncompromising old bastards, the pair had a falling out in the late ‘60s but their collaboration left a hefty legacy in the form of classics like Psycho (1960), a film that boasts an iconic murder scene with the most recognizable film music in cinematic history apart from maybe John Williams’ theme for Jaws (1975). Though poor Bernie couldn’t get much work for a time after his spat with Hitch, all was not lost as he was rediscovered in the 1970s by young, hip American directors like Martin Scorsese and Brian DePalma.

Undertones is Clare Nina’s fortnightly guide to the world of film scores.

Clare Nina Norelli