{"title":"Sarah Bernhardt on Stage and Screen: Nineteenth-Century Theater Music and Early Silent Film","authors":"E. Brooks","doi":"10.1558/JFM.V5I1-2.57","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.V5I1-2.57","url":null,"abstract":"Silent film accompaniment owes much to the musical practices of nineteenth-century theater. Yet if we are to fully acknowledge these debts, we must first embrace theater music as a complex entity in its own right. Analyzing the eclectic sixty-year career of legendary French actress Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923) is one way to approach these connections between theater and film. Bernhardt employed a great deal of music in her theatrical performances, and by the early twentieth century embraced the new medium of film as well, appearing in a number of motion pictures. Drawing on scores, newspaper accounts, production materials, and advertisements, I examine how music for Bernhardt stage dramas such as Theodora, Cleopâtre, Phedre, and La belle au bois dormant compares and contrasts with accompaniments for her silent films such as Camille, Queen Elizabeth, Jeanne Dore, and Les meres francaises. Through this case study, I hope to provide a more nuanced perspective of the historical lineage between nineteenth-century stage music and early cinema practice.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"48 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130882190","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Melodramatic Music in the Western","authors":"Mariana Whitmer","doi":"10.1558/JFM.V5I1-2.109","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.V5I1-2.109","url":null,"abstract":"The Western film developed from a variety of sources, including written and visual sources, such as the classic and dime novels, as well as paintings and photographs. Eventually these were dramatized with live action in the rodeo, Wild West shows, and on stage, particularly in melodramas. In his history of the Western film, David Lusted points out, “Whether gunfighter or outlaw criminal, cowboy or sheriff, the Western hero is invariably a romantic hero of melodrama.” The Western owes a great deal to melodrama, not the least of which is the music that usually accompanies it. Owing to the substantial amount of action and infrequent dialogue, Westerns particularly rely on music to convey excitement, tension, and all the other emotions so necessary to their popularity. As exhibited in the collections of photoplay music and silent film cue sheets, the Western film score appropriated many of the musical cliches that accompanied the staged works of the late nineteenth century. This presentation will begin to trace the history of the music that accompanied the Western narrative from the stage to the screen, demonstrating how many of the aural clues that enhance our enjoyment of this genre today have their roots in late nineteenth century melodrama.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124004239","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Corsican Brothers and the Legacy of its Tremulous “Ghost Melody”","authors":"M. Pisani","doi":"10.1558/JFM.V5I1-2.29","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.V5I1-2.29","url":null,"abstract":"Audiences for stage plays, like audiences for narrative film, rarely remember much about the music, only whether or not it was appropriate to the dramatic genre. The “Ghost Melody” represents one specific case of nineteenth-century music for melodramatic theatre that lingered in the minds of audiences long afterward. It appeared in the original French production of The Corsican Brothers (1850) and carried over into British and American stage productions. Always coupled with special scenic effects, it worked as a persuasive tool to help suspend disbelief. The melody with its setting represents a specific type of melodramatic music, one used for the supernatural appearance of a deceased loved one. Its effect resonates in the music of other stage plays and in music composed to films of a similar genre.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124108238","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Juxtaposing teatro de revista and cine: Music in the 1930s comedia ranchera","authors":"Jacqueline A. Avila","doi":"10.1558/JFM.V5I1-2.121","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.V5I1-2.121","url":null,"abstract":"In the early 1900s, Mexico’s popular entertainment spectacle was the teatro de revista, a satirical theatrical genre derived from the Spanish zarzuela that combined social analysis and political commentary with burlesque. Combining monologues and comedic skits with music and dance performances, the revista became an important component in the daily lives of urban Mexicans, placing the popular of contemporary culture center stage. With the advent of sound cinema, several key players from the revista transferred their talents from the stage to the screen and molded a cinematic practice with strong theatrical origins. As a consequence of the crossover, these actors, musicians, and composers kept their fingers on the popular pulse of the nation as the overlap of revista structures into sound film provided an easy and non-intimidating way of enticing the urban audience to screening spaces. For the comedia ranchera (ranch comedy) during the 1930s, the synthesized revista provided a sturdy dramatic foundation, but the development of the film genre depended on musical performance because the protagonist, the singing charro, sang. Rancheras performed by mariachis dressed in full trajes de charros (charro suits) became one of the genre’s musical and visual signifiers, but the comedia ranchera’s musical compilation is much more diverse, juxtaposing several originally composed canciones mexicanas, canciones rancheras and traditional music. This paper examines the comedia ranchera of the 1930s not with the intention of concentrating on a picturesque representation of folklore on screen, but as an experimental product of a specific socio-cultural context and a vehicle of musical hybridization that created a successful cinematic formula for the national industry. I discuss those hybrid components such as the singing charro protagonist, theatrical practice, and melodramatic currents that structured the comedia ranchera, examining in particular Fernando de Fuentes’s groundbreaking Alla en el Rancho Grande (Over on the Big Ranch, 1936).","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"75 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126184973","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Easy to Cut: Modular Form in the Film Scores of Bernard Herrmann","authors":"T. Schneller","doi":"10.1558/JFM.V5I1-2.127","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.V5I1-2.127","url":null,"abstract":"One of the defining characteristics of Bernard Herrmann’s film music is its modular construction: his cues are typically assembled from short blocks of musical material rather than extended melodic lines. While this feature of his style has been much discussed in general terms, there have been few attempts to identify specifically how these blocks are constructed and how they are chained together to yield coherent musical statements. Using examples from Psycho, Marnie, and other Herrmann scores, I will demonstrate that the phrase structure and melodic trajectory of much of Herrmann’s music is based on a small set of frequently recurring prototypes. This structural consistency contributes to making the “Herrmann sound” instantly recognizable.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"60 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127628609","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Ben-Hur Legacy","authors":"Roger Hickman","doi":"10.1558/JFM.V5I1-2.41","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.V5I1-2.41","url":null,"abstract":"Lew Wallace completed his third literary effort, Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, in 1880. The work quickly became America’s top selling novel of the nineteenth century, and a spectacular melodrama was staged in 1899. After watching a rehearsal, Wallace remarked, “My God, did I set all of this in motion?” One can only imagine what his reaction might have been to the two major films based on his novel produced by MGM in 1925 and 1959. According to one historian, Ben-Hur was the “most dependable theatrical war horse of the twentieth century.” \u0000 The melodrama Ben Hur created an enormous sensation. It is estimated that it was performed over 6,000 times for an aggregate audience of twenty million people, making this the most widely seen dramatic presentation by an American author. Part of the success of this theatrical blockbuster is Edgar Stillman Kelley’s original musical score, which includes orchestral excerpts, choral numbers, and a solo song. This study provides an historical overview of the Ben-Hur story, including the background of the novel and stage play, a comparison of the melodrama and early epic films, and the general similarities between Kelley’s incidental music and the two subsequent film scores.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126145330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“Regeneration” in Rebecca: Confronting Compilation in Franz Waxman’s Score","authors":"Nathan Platte","doi":"10.1558/JFM.V5I1-2.169","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.V5I1-2.169","url":null,"abstract":"The music of Alfred Hitchcock and David O. Selznick’s Rebecca flows from many sources. In addition to Franz Waxman’s original music, eighteen passages are drawn from nine other films. This practice of transplanting old scores into new films relates back to the compiled scores of theatrical melodrama and silent film, but its consequences in Rebecca, a film centered on an unnamed heroine whose trials were intended—in the words of Selznick— to “make every woman say ‘I know just how she feels,’” are especially complex. Close study of the film and its production documents reveals that these recycled passages alternately clarify and complicate the heroine’s characterization and Waxman’s artistic control over the scoring process.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122272567","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Marcia J. Citron. When Opera Meets Film , Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010 [xviii, 324p. ISBN 9780521895750. 55.00€ or $95.00 (hbk)] Cambridge Studies in Opera.","authors":"James L. Zychowicz","doi":"10.1558/JFM.V4I1.69","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.V4I1.69","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"14 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114911416","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mark Slobin, ed. Global Soundtracks: Worlds of Film Music , Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2008 [xxiii, 387 p. ISBN 9780819568823. $34.95 (trade paper)].","authors":"James Wierzbicki","doi":"10.1558/JFM.V4I1.73","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.V4I1.73","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126041618","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Philip Hayward, ed. Terror Tracks: Music, Sound and Horror Cinema , London: Equinox, 2009. ISBN: 9781845532024 and Neil Lerner, ed. Music in the Horror Film: Listening to Fear , New York: Routledge, 2010. ISBN: 9780415992039.","authors":"Tony Fonseca","doi":"10.1558/JFM.V4I1.65","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.V4I1.65","url":null,"abstract":"Philip Hayward, ed. Terror Tracks: Music, Sound and Horror Cinema \u0000\u0000London: Equinox, 2009 [xii, 286 p. ISBN: 9781845532024. $29.95 (trade paper)] Genre, Music, and Sound. Music examples, illustrations, tables, endnotes, bibliographies, and index. \u0000\u0000\u0000and\u0000\u0000Neil Lerner, ed. Music in the Horror Film: Listening to Fear \u0000\u0000New York: Routledge, 2010 [xii, 240 p. ISBN: 9780415992039. $32.95 (trade paper)] Routledge Music and Screen Media Series. Music examples, illustrations, tables, endnotes, and index.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"108 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2012-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124410467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}