Book chapter
Music for Tricksters and Music as Trickster in the Classical Hollywood Score
The Palgrave Handbook of Music in Comedy Cinema, pp.481-496
Springer International Publishing
2023
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-33422-1_28
Abstract
Episodes of musical humour abound in dramatic scores of Hollywood’s classical era, but their exceptional qualities tend to discourage sustained engagement. Comedic effects in dramatic underscore rarely further motivic unity, nor do they chart the contours of more emotionally sustained states of romance, suspense, or the sublime. In most Hollywood films of the classical era, such musical events are designed to prompt initial surprise and amusement without fundamentally undermining the nondiegetic score’s role within the film. Such acts constitute a form of musical trickery and, in films where such tricks form a coherent musical strategy, lend the score a trickster-like quality. Case studies drawn from Steiner’s music for The Adventures of Don Juan (1948, dir. Vincent Sherman) and Bernard Herrmann’s score for The Trouble with Harry (1955, dir. Alfred Hitchcock), amongst others, show how musical misbehaviour may elicit mirth while making conventions that otherwise operate quietly more audible.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Music for Tricksters and Music as Trickster in the Classical Hollywood Score
- Creators
- Nathan Platte - University of Iowa, Music
- Resource Type
- Book chapter
- Publication Details
- The Palgrave Handbook of Music in Comedy Cinema, pp.481-496
- Publisher
- Springer International Publishing; Cham
- DOI
- 10.1007/978-3-031-33422-1_28
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 2023
- Academic Unit
- Music; Cinematic Arts
- Record Identifier
- 9984502894102771
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