Tag Archives: Film

by | February 4, 2025 · 6:00 am

Tin Pan Alley and early film music

From 1918 to 1928, Tin Pan Alley solidified its connection with the film industry. Although early films lacked sound, music played a crucial role in enhancing the viewing experience, often provided live by a pianist in theaters. Charles N. Daniels, writing under the pseudonym Neil Moret, teamed up with lyricist Harry Williams to compose the first commissioned title song for a film. The song, Mickey, was released by Daniels and Wilson in 1918 to coincide with the film’s debut, starring Mabel Normand, whose image was featured on the sheet music cover. Later that year, Mickey was acquired by Waterson, Berlin, and Snyder, who published it in two small editions, helping to launch the trend of title songs that remains popular to this day.

Many famous silent film stars, such as Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and Pearl White, graced the covers of sheet music as early as 1914. March of the movies by M. A. Althouse (1915) features an illustration of an audience in a nickelodeon, watching Chaplin in his tramp costume, accompanied by a pianist in the pit. Those Keystone comedy cops by Charles McCarron (1915) showcases a classic photo of Mack Sennett’s Keystone cops on the cover, with Ford Sterling on the phone and Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle eavesdropping on the conversation. Over the next twenty years, the film industry would become a powerful promoter of songs, with major studios even acquiring some of Tin Pan Alley’s most prominent firms to manage their musical needs.

The composer Ernö Rapée helped popularize the use of thematic music—stock melodies designed to accompany common silent film scenes—through two well-known collections he published in the mid-1920s. Many orchestra leaders in smaller towns and cities relied on these books as a guide to provide music for films. Rapée also composed several original scores, with his most famous being the 1926 What price glory? The theme song from the film, with lyrics by Lew Pollack, became a major hit under the title Charmaine.

Below is a recording of Charmaine performed by David De Groot and The Piccadilly Orchestra in 1927.

The advent of talking pictures made music’s role in film even more crucial. Broadway musicals were a natural fit for adaptation to the new medium, and film studios quickly realized the need to hire composers and lyricists to create both background music and songs for their films. Hit songs also served as excellent promotional tools to attract audiences to theaters, prompting studios to acquire music publishers to profit from their catalogs. Major studios like Warner Bros., MGM, and Paramount became heavily involved in music publishing.

The Great Depression had a significant impact on Broadway, forcing many writers who relied on the numerous revues and shows to turn to Hollywood for work. While some were dissatisfied with how their songs were often treated as mere commodities—added or removed from films at will—others found the medium creatively fulfilling. Over time, unique musical films emerged featuring songs that were just as memorable and well-crafted as the Broadway hits of the Tin Pan Alley era.

This according to Tin Pan Alley: An encyclopedia of the golden age of American song (2012). Find it in RILM Music Encyclopedias.

An example of the early use of music in film from One week featuring Buster Keaton (1920).

Related posts in Bibliolore:

https://bibliolore.org/2019/10/29/the-smithsonian-institutions-object-of-the-day-october-29-2019-fred-beckers-beale-street-blues/

https://bibliolore.org/2023/01/23/random-film-accompaniment/

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by | January 7, 2025 · 6:00 am

Dolly Parton, from country and pop to film

The country singer, songwriter, actor, and businesswoman Dolly Parton was the fourth of twelve children in a family of sharecroppers in Sevierville, Tennessee, located in the Appalachian Mountains. Commenting on her childhood, Parton once said, “Everybody where we grew up had a hard time. We were mountain people. Most people were poor, but we didn’t realize that we were poor until some smart head said so. Everybody around us lived the same way, but you don’t think about that until you’re away. We had good parents, but we didn’t have all the big luxuries that I’m able to afford now. But I wouldn’t trade it for nothing.”

Surrounded by hymns, traditional mountain music, and popular music genres from the 1940s and 1950s, Parton began playing the guitar at a young age. By 10 years old, she was already performing regularly on radio and television shows in Knoxville, Tennessee, hosted by Orton Caswell (Cas Walker). In 1960, Parton traveled to Louisiana to record two rockabilly songs for the Goldband Records label. While still in high school, she performed at local venues, and after graduation, she moved to Nashville, where her uncle, the well-established songwriter Bill Owens, assisted her in finding work and refining her songwriting abilities.

Parton and Porter Wagoner on the set of their 1960s television show.

Parton achieved her first commercial success as a songwriter in Nashville in 1966 when she recorded her debut country record. Country singer Porter Wagoner invited her to become a regular partner on his television show and also produced her solo recordings, helping her establish a moderately successful career. Parton’s major breakthrough came when she recorded a cover of Muleskinner blues, followed by her original song Joshua, which reached number one on the Billboard country charts. In the early 1970s, Parton rose to become one of country music’s biggest female stars, crafting a public image that celebrated her Appalachian roots, such as in the songs The Appalachian trail and Coat of many colors, while also embracing a distinctly female perspective, showcased in songs such as Jolene.

Parton performs I will always love you.

In 1974, Dolly Parton made the bold decision to separate professionally from Porter Wagoner, taking full control of her solo career. This decision proved successful, as she soon achieved a string of number one hits, including her most famous composition, I will always love you (later covered by the pop singer Whitney Houston). By 1977, Parton began embracing a crossover pop sound with songs like Here you come again. A new manager played a key role in facilitating her transition to the larger pop market. Parton also ventured into Hollywood, playing a leading role in the 1980 film 9 to 5, followed by other films like Steel magnolias (1989). Her commercial success continued into the early 1990s, including the acclaimed Trio album with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, and Honky tonk angels with Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. In the mid-1990s, Parton shifted her musical style again, returning to more acoustic, bluegrass-inspired sounds reminiscent of her early work. Since the early 2000s, she has continued to release new albums, some of which were produced through her own record label.

Parton has been inducted into both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has also received a National Medal of Arts in 2005 and a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011 and is the recipient of over two dozen major country music industry awards.

Read the full free article on Dolly Parton in MGG Online.

Related Bibliolore posts:

https://bibliolore.org/2016/01/19/dolly-parton-semiotically-speaking/

https://bibliolore.org/2014/05/10/my-homeland-tennessee/

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by | October 31, 2024 · 6:00 am

Vocality and the Frankenstein complex

A monster’s vocality and capacity for communication have been complicated themes since the earliest adaptations of the novel. The evolution of the monster’s speech, along with the dynamics of its silence, reveals how essential vocality is to forming a sympathetic portrayal of the character. Each new version highlights this relationship, demonstrating that even in adaptations where the monster’s voice is largely absent, vocality remains crucial to shaping audience empathy.

This dynamic mirrors what performance theorist Marvin Carlson describes as “ghosting”, a phenomenon where theater productions are infused with multiple layers of history. This creates interpretations linked to the audience’s memories of the written text, the performers, props, and even the performance space. In the case of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, these layers are even more complex and elusive, reflecting its extensive and varied influence over the two centuries since the novel’s publication.

Within this context, the monster is frequently depicted as dim-witted and inarticulate, if not entirely silent. Restoring the creature’s voice–along with the eloquence and insight it can convey–highlights an often-overlooked aspect of Shelley’s novel, particularly in relation to the pop culture narrative surrounding the “Frankenstein complex”, which influences how we interpret all Frankenstein texts, from film adaptations to staged dramas and the original novel. In this sense, the silencing of the monster significantly affects our capacity to empathize with them and shapes our understanding of their connection to our own humanity.

This according to “Listening to the monster: Eliding and restoring the creature’s voice in adaptations of Frankenstein” by Jude Wright (Journal of adaptation in film & performance 8/3 [2015] 249–266; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature, 2015-90335).

The scene below from the 1931 film Frankenstein (directed by James Whale), illustrates how vocality can shape character empathy.

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by | November 3, 2023 · 6:00 am

Amália Rodrigues and the politics of fado

Amália Rodrigues was born into a family of immigrants from the northern province of Beira Baixa in 1920. She initially performed as an amateur at local clubs before starting her self-taught professional career at the age of 19 in Lisbon’s fado clubs. From 1940 to 1946 she appeared in various productions of traditional Portuguese vaudeville (revista), playing the lead in the two films in 1947 Capas Negras and Fado. The film História de uma Cantadeira consolidated her reputation as a fado star. Amália’s first international performance took place in 1943 at the invitation of the Portuguese embassy in Madrid. From 1944 to 1946 she had two major engagements in Brazil, where she made her first recordings in 1945 for the Brazilian label Continental.

In 1950 she began recording for the Lisbon music label Valentim de Carvalho, to which she returned in 1961 after briefly switching to the French label Ducretet-Thompson in 1958. In 1949, Amália sang in Paris and London under the patronage of the Portuguese government. As part of the Marshall Plan cultural program in 1950, she gave a series of concerts in Berlin, Rome, Trieste, Dublin, Bern, and Paris. Some of these concerts were broadcast globally by The Voice of America (VOA) radio network, which contributed significantly to making her better known internationally. Although the Portuguese government supported her first international appearances, Rodrigues’ career was not dependent on political protection, especially considering her performances in communist Romania and the Soviet Union.

In 1952 she successfully performed a series of concerts at the New York club La Vie en Rose over the course of several weeks. This was followed by tours of Mexico and the United States, where she performed in 1953 as a guest on the Eddy Fisher Show. In 1955, she appeared in the French film Les Amants du Tage and recorded her hit song Barco negro. The film achieved record sales in France which led to an invitation to perform at the Olympia in Paris, the most renowned music hall in Europe at the time. Over the next two decades, Amália gave concerts throughout Europe, Brazil, the United States, Japan, the former Soviet Union, and the Middle East and performed at many festivals, including two appearances at the Brasov Festival in socialist Romania.

In the 1970s, Amália became a scapegoat for fado’s perceived ties to fascism after the genre became associated with the regimes of Antonio de Oliveira Salazar, the dictator who ruled Portugal from 1932 to 1968, and Marcelo Caetano until 1974. Contradicting her reputation as a fascist sympathizer, Amália tapped into fado’s earlier radical tradition staying ahead of the censors by singing artfully subversive songs with lyrics inspired by socialist and anarchist poets and donating to underground antifascist political organizations. She continued to record and perform until 1990 and retired from public life in 1994 for health reasons that had already affected the quality of her voice. Amália received numerous awards and decorations both in her native Portugal and internationally.

Read the newly published entry on Amália Rodrigues in MGG Online. Listen to her recording “Saudades de ti” below.

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by | October 3, 2023 · 6:00 am

“The Overture” and Thai classical music

When people ask me about an introduction to Thai classical music, I (and many others) suggest watching a film entitled The Overture. It is indeed a good beginning into the world of Thai classical music. 

The Overture (โหมโรง Hom Rong), released in 2004, is a fictional film based on the life of the legendary Thai classical musician, Sorn Silpabanlen (1881-1954), also known as Luang Pradit Pairoh. The film parallels two different eras in which Sorn lived: the late 19th century, when he was young and Thai classical music was under patronage, and the 1940s, when Sorn became an old master and Thai classical music was regarded as uncivilized in the face of modernization programs led by Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram. Below is a brief synopsis and analysis of key scenes and themes in the film.

As a young man born into a musical family, Sorn is a talented ranat ek (Thai xylophone) player, who has gained great recognition for his skills. His confidence, however, is shaken after losing a spontaneous public match to the ranat ek master Khun In. This defeat leads Sorn to devote himself to more rigorous practice. Ultimately, a chance for a revenge comes when Sorn joins the Royal ensemble leading to a one-on-one ranat ek match with Khun Inn with elites, locals, and even foreigners in the audience. After an intense performance, Sorn finally defeats Khun In. The scene then changes to the 1940s, where an older Sorn reflects on the day of the match while looking at photographs of his masters, including Khun In, hanging on the wall of his home. One night, a military officer visits his home to request that Thai classical music be abandoned for the purpose of promoting modernization in Thailand. The officer emphasizes to Sorn the need to civilize the nation. To this request Sorn replies, “If rooted deep and strong, a tree can stand still to any forces. If we do not take care of the roots, how can we survive?”

The performance of ranat ek throughout the film depicts several glamorous aspects of Thai classical music: virtuoso techniques (especially when playing in octaves at a faster tempo), various improvisations, and exciting Ranat ek matches. The breathtaking intensity of the ranat ek match is thrilling and a high point of the film. The Overture also introduces other instruments such as saw ou, a Thai fiddle that plays a very sweet and romantic song as the young Sorn meets his future wife. 

Although Sorn and other Thai classical musicians oppose the governmental recognition of Thai classical music as uncivilized, it does not hinder their exploration of Western music. In a scene from the 1940s, the elderly Sorn plays the ranat ek alongside a piano brought by his son, who had studied Western music in Japan. This encounter is depicted as peaceful and filled with possibilities for the further development of Thai classical music. They appear open to any musical possibilities, as long as they have the autonomy to do so.

The film also reminds us about how Thai classical music and its position have been deeply embedded in the society and changes that have occurred to the tradition–once a symbol of the elites and royalty, it later became the unrefined object to be civilized and abandoned. This simultaneously raises questions about whether any authority can truly control music. When the military officer leaves Sorn’s house, Sorn plays ranat ek with the windows open, as if challenging the officer and the desire for modernization—this leaves Sorn open to arrest under government regulations. The officer looks around to find that local residents have gathered in front of Sorn’s house to enjoy the spontaneous performance. The enjoyment is clear on their faces. Instead of arresting Sorn, the officer and his cadets leave the house in their military automobiles while the sound of Thai classical music resonates and fills the air.

–Written by Shiho Ogura, RILM intern and MA student in Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. Her research interests include Thai classical music, intercultural music-making in contemporary Asia, Japanese ethnomusicology, nationalism, and music education.

Below is the classic scene of the match between Sorn and Khun In. The video below it is the ranak ek and piano duet scene.

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by | April 28, 2023 · 6:00 am

The dark side of the rainbow

Fifty years ago today Pink Floyd’s album The dark side of the moon soared to number one on the US Billboard chart, beginning a record-breaking 741-week chart run; it has since sold over 45 million copies worldwide, making it the fourth-best-selling album in history.

Let’s celebrate this historic event by visiting an odd corner of the album’s reception history: a meticulous and complex theory claiming that it was conceived, constructed, and produced as a deliberate and calculated musical accompaniment to the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, and that its sounds and silences will, if correctly decoded, reveal explicit and specific congruences with key scenes in the movie.

The theory’s origins can be traced to the mid-1990s, when fans began excitedly posting on Pink Floyd websites about synchronicities that result from simultaneously watching the film and listening to the album. Soon these fansites provided detailed instructions for experiencing these audio-visual parallels. Typically viewers are told to start the film and begin playing the album at the MGM trademark lion’s third roar; if the music begins at the moment that the words “Produced by Mervin Leroy” appear on the screen the synchronization is on track, and the coincidences begin:

  • Just after the words “look around” in Breathe, Dorothy turns around;
  • The words “balanced on the biggest wave” accompany Dorothy balancing on a fence;
  • At the words “no one told you when to run” Dorothy breaks into a trot;
  • The great gig in the sky starts just as the tornado arrives, and ends when it ceases;
  • Many aspects of the Munchkin scene are coordinated with Money;
  • The chimes in Time coincide with the appearance of the Wicked Witch of the West;

and so on, with different websites claiming as many as 70 to 100 moments of synchronicity.

Although the band members have dismissively refuted any association between the album and the film, enthusiasm for the theory continues unabated. On one level, this phenomenon may be an example of an urban myth. On another level, it may reveal much about how texts can generate multiple meanings that dispel the tyranny of the imposed explanation—one of the principal tenets underlying the relocation of the consumer as active rather than passive.

This according to “‘We’re not in Kansas any more’: Music, myth and narrative structure in The dark side of the moon” by Lee Barron and Ian Inglis, an essay included in “Speak to me”: The legacy of Pink Floyd’s “The dark side of the moon” (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005, 56–66; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2005-6807).

Below, we invite you to see how many coincidences you can discover!

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by | October 18, 2021 · 6:00 am

“West Side story” redux

Darker than a musical comedy, less imposing than an opera, more balletic than a song-and-dance show, West Side story’s tightly integrated movement, drama, design, and music signaled an important shift in U.S. musical theater.

Although its unity and coherence have drawn popular and scholarly attention, further study of the work reveals myriad interpretations and approaches—the inevitable result of a collaborative process. The choreographer Jerome Robbins wanted to create a classic, tragic dance vehicle combining ballet and popular styles; for Leonard Bernstein, it would mark the second attempt at writing the long-sought major American opera.

Torn between conflicting desires for popular success and status as a “serious” composer, Bernstein used eclecticism as a starting point for the creation of an accessible American art music. At the same time, pressure to create something “serious” within the compositional environment of the 1950s seems to have led him to employ the tritone both as a structural tool and a unifying surface detail, as well as reflecting the unusually dark subject matter of the work.

West Side story brought together some of the most prevalent and pressing issues of musical and cultural life of its day, from the New York Puerto Rican “problem” to the insurgence of juvenile delinquency. In addition, Robbins’s strongly ritualistic, tableau-oriented vision, with its privileging of male over female characterization, suggests a reading linking the work to longstanding mythical and literary archetypes—but also bringing up questions of the depiction of gender and ethnicity.

Such archetypes also inform Arthur Laurents’s book, one of the shortest on record for a Broadway musical. As in his other socially conscious works, Laurents mirrored Robbins’s dramatic agenda: the creation of an American mythology of urban life that could be contemporary but also lasting.

This according to West Side story: Cultural perspectives on an American musical  by Elizabeth A. Wells (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2011; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2011-402).

Today is the 60th anniversary of the Academy Award-winning 1961 film of West Side story! Above and below, the film’s much-celebrated Prologue.

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by | January 18, 2021 · 6:00 am

Re-encoding Carmen’s identity

The 2005 film U-Carmen eKhayelitsha is a South African adaptation and reconceptualization of Bizet’s Carmen. The change in culture and context affects the interpretation of the character of Carmen, who emerges as a strong black woman striving for autonomy within a patriarchal and sexist postcolonial South African society.

The film involves an interpretation of identity as a social construct dependent on the interaction between character and place within a specific period of time–in this case, Khayelitsha, a township on the outskirts of Cape Town, at the beginning of the 21st century. Its portrayal of the modern Carmen as an emancipated woman within a postcolonial and postmodernist context can be traced by interpreting semiotic signs and specific narrative strategies.

The re-encoding of Carmen’s identity questions intransigent or stereotypical perceptions of Carmen as the iconic femme fatale to which audiences have become accustomed; the indigenized production offers recourse to alternative perceptions of Carmen’s identity. U-Carmen eKhayelitsha does not deny the sensuality and femininity attributed to Carmen in the precursory texts, but it depicts her as an even more complex character than the one in Bizet’s opera.

This according to “The same, yet different: Re-encoding identity in U-Carmen eKhayelitsha” by Santisa Viljoen and Marita Wenzel (Journal of the musical arts in Africa XIII/1–2 [2016] 53–70; RILM Abstracts of Music Literature 2016-49747).

Below, the trailer for the film.

Related articles:

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by | April 9, 2019 · 6:00 am

Musiri’s moustache

 

The revered Karnatak vocalist Musiri Subramania Iyer only acted in one film: Thukkaram (1938), in which he portrayed the 17th-century Hindu poet and saint Tukaram.

The shooting of the film ran into an unusual problem. The hero had to sport a bushy moustache, and in those days makeup materials were crude and even primitive. Moustaches and beards were stuck to the actor’s face with spirit gum, and when the gum dried the skin would burn and pull, the degree of irritation depending on the sensitivity of one’s skin.

Musiri suffered unbearable irritation, and he threatened that he would walk out if he had to endure the suffering any longer. Left with no choice, the producers permitted him to grow his own moustache. The shooting had to be stopped while Musiri waited for his lip hair to grow to the degree of bushiness required by the script.

This according to “Filmsinger in saint’s clothing: Tuka-ram” by Randor Guy (Sruti 176 [May 1999] pp. 35–38).

Today is Musiri’s 120th birthday! Above, a publicity shot for the film.

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by | March 21, 2019 · 6:00 am

Disney and Musorgskij

 

Night on Bald Mountain, Walt Disney’s animated rendition of Modest Musorgskij’s Ivanova noč’ na Lysoj gore, follows the structure of the work, linking the main theme to the demonic figure of Černobog and introducing new ghostly or monstrous creatures for each new musical section.

The climactic orgy includes all of the previously introduced characters as well as newly introduced ones, often depicted in an expressionist style that contrasts with Musorgskij’s own realist aesthetic—indeed, expressionism was an overt rebellion against realism’s Romantic ideals.

Disney’s version also follows the program of Musorgskij’s work as the village church bells put a stop to the hellish festivities, but a happy ending was deemed necessary, resulting in an unfortunate segue into an inappropriately Romanticized arrangement of Schubert’s Ave Maria.

This according to “Klasična glazba u crtanom filmu <Fantazija> (1940.) Walta Disneya” by Irena Paulus (Arti musices: Hrvatski muzikološki zbornik XXVIII/1–2 [1997] pp. 115–27).

Today is Musorgskij’s 180th birthday! Below, the full segment from Disney’s Fantasia.

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