{"title":"Index","authors":"","doi":"10.5406/j.ctvz0hcn6.21","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/j.ctvz0hcn6.21","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":193833,"journal":{"name":"Voicing the Cinema","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122080434","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":"Acknowledgments","authors":"","doi":"10.5406/j.ctvz0hcn6.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/j.ctvz0hcn6.3","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":193833,"journal":{"name":"Voicing the Cinema","volume":"193 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115630240","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}
Pub Date : 2020-03-01DOI: 10.5622/illinois/9780252043000.003.0005
This chapter examines archived correspondence between the Los Angeles–based Goldwyn Studios and London’s Pinewood Studios during the creation of Fiddler on the Roof’s four-track sound design. Goldwyn’s sound team argued that Pinewood’s mixers were not capable of delivering a Hollywood-caliber soundtrack. In response, Pinewood accused Goldwyn of not adhering to the industry standards for stereo mixing. Taken together, these communications expose how competitive the postproduction sound industry was for premier Hollywood projects during the early 1970s. While this chapter is devoted to the analysis of the voices of the sound practitioners, the author argues that the correspondence regarding Fiddler’s soundtrack also reveals the aesthetic ideals of both Goldwyn and Pinewood at a time when the definition of a Hollywood film was in contention.
这一章研究了洛杉矶Goldwyn工作室和伦敦Pinewood工作室在《Fiddler on the Roof》的四轨声音设计创作期间的存档通信。戈德温的声音团队认为松林的混音师没有能力发出好莱坞水准的原声。作为回应，松木公司指责戈德温没有遵守立体声混音的行业标准。综上所述，这些交流揭示了在20世纪70年代早期，后期音效行业对好莱坞主要项目的竞争是多么激烈。虽然本章致力于分析声音实践者的声音，但作者认为，关于小提琴手的配乐的通信也揭示了戈德温和松林的审美理想，当时好莱坞电影的定义是有争议的。
{"title":"Pinewood’s Fiddler Fans Goldwyn’s Folly","authors":"","doi":"10.5622/illinois/9780252043000.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5622/illinois/9780252043000.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines archived correspondence between the Los Angeles–based Goldwyn Studios and London’s Pinewood Studios during the creation of Fiddler on the Roof’s four-track sound design. Goldwyn’s sound team argued that Pinewood’s mixers were not capable of delivering a Hollywood-caliber soundtrack. In response, Pinewood accused Goldwyn of not adhering to the industry standards for stereo mixing. Taken together, these communications expose how competitive the postproduction sound industry was for premier Hollywood projects during the early 1970s. While this chapter is devoted to the analysis of the voices of the sound practitioners, the author argues that the correspondence regarding Fiddler’s soundtrack also reveals the aesthetic ideals of both Goldwyn and Pinewood at a time when the definition of a Hollywood film was in contention.","PeriodicalId":193833,"journal":{"name":"Voicing the Cinema","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125963063","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}
This essay examines two contrasting aesthetics of the voice in early 1930s French cinema and the role that music played in each. Filmed theater, or théâtre filmé, emerged from the conception that sound cinema was primarily a recording medium. In French theatrical adaptations, the speaking voice took precedence over all other elements of the soundtrack. The author argues, however, that in théâtre filmé, speech takes on almost musical qualities, folding music and sound effects into the voice itself. Avant-garde filmmakers took a contrasting approach, rejecting the restriction of camera movement imposed by the theatrical model and hoping to recapture some of the visual freedom characteristic of silent cinema. These filmmakers told their stories with as little spoken dialogue as possible, incorporating music prominently into their soundtracks in order to silence the speaking voice. Though the intent may have been to strip the voice of its dominance within the soundtrack, these directors’ strategic denial of the voice often granted it a much greater significance. By examining early experiments with the voice on the soundtrack in the transition years—including those by Jean Renoir, René Clair, and Jean Grémillon—the author’s analysis expands the concept of “vococentrism,” as articulated by Michel Chion and David Neumeyer, to include different models of understanding the voice in cinema beyond those found in classical Hollywood and helps shed light on competing conceptions of the voice’s role in cinema before practices became codified.
{"title":"Silencing and Sounding the Voice in Transition-Era French Cinema","authors":"H. Lewis","doi":"10.5406/j.ctvz0hcn6.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/j.ctvz0hcn6.6","url":null,"abstract":"This essay examines two contrasting aesthetics of the voice in early 1930s French cinema and the role that music played in each. Filmed theater, or théâtre filmé, emerged from the conception that sound cinema was primarily a recording medium. In French theatrical adaptations, the speaking voice took precedence over all other elements of the soundtrack. The author argues, however, that in théâtre filmé, speech takes on almost musical qualities, folding music and sound effects into the voice itself. Avant-garde filmmakers took a contrasting approach, rejecting the restriction of camera movement imposed by the theatrical model and hoping to recapture some of the visual freedom characteristic of silent cinema. These filmmakers told their stories with as little spoken dialogue as possible, incorporating music prominently into their soundtracks in order to silence the speaking voice. Though the intent may have been to strip the voice of its dominance within the soundtrack, these directors’ strategic denial of the voice often granted it a much greater significance. By examining early experiments with the voice on the soundtrack in the transition years—including those by Jean Renoir, René Clair, and Jean Grémillon—the author’s analysis expands the concept of “vococentrism,” as articulated by Michel Chion and David Neumeyer, to include different models of understanding the voice in cinema beyond those found in classical Hollywood and helps shed light on competing conceptions of the voice’s role in cinema before practices became codified.","PeriodicalId":193833,"journal":{"name":"Voicing the Cinema","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131130993","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}
Since its first feature, Snow White (1937), Disney musical films have often centered on the coming-of-age experiences of young girls; however, the reliance on fairy tale models has often meant a highly conservative structure in which the girl “is won” rather than “wins.” The modern rebirth of the Disney musical with The Little Mermaid (1989) prefigures the 1990s rise of stories of girls’ finding their voices (both literal and metaphorical), often based on literary sources or true stories. In these films, music has a significant narrative role, since the “journey” is so often inward and therefore difficult to portray in image and action. Brave (2012) and Frozen (2013) build on traditional inward/spiraling “girl” storytelling tropes by doubling them with more external, linear “boy” trajectories. In both, two female characters orbit each other along their journeys. Brave is a sense-and-sensibility tale in which Merida already has a strong sense of self, and she and her mother learn from each other and bond (established with parallel songs at beginning and end). In Frozen (loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen), the elder of the two royal sisters was originally written as a villain; after the songwriters delivered “Let It Go,” they report that the producers’ response was that “Elsa could no longer be a villain.” The emotive power of the song had deformed the narrative and dominates the film’s reception. The younger Anna rescues Elsa to rescue their kingdom; however, the price is the symbolic palace of selfhood that Elsa constructs during the extended prolongation of the song’s bridge. “Let It Go” is also in a line of showtunes from “Nobody’s Side” from Chess to “Defying Gravity” from Wicked, all associated with singer Idina Menzel and sharing musical traits that suspend the tonic between the dominant and subdominant poles, blurring harmonic drive, and giving the voice particular agency. “Let It Go” is the simplest of these, sitting well in even untrained voices, making it particularly gratifying for the many young girls who sing along to the movie and, in astonishing numbers, on YouTube.
自从第一部故事片《白雪公主》(1937)问世以来，迪士尼的歌舞片经常聚焦于年轻女孩的成长经历;然而，对童话模型的依赖往往意味着一个高度保守的结构，在这个结构中，女孩是“赢”的，而不是“赢”的。迪斯尼音乐剧《小美人鱼》(1989)的现代重生预示着20世纪90年代女孩寻找自己声音的故事的兴起(无论是字面上的还是隐喻上的)，通常基于文学来源或真实故事。在这些电影中，音乐扮演着重要的叙事角色，因为“旅程”往往是内在的，因此很难用图像和动作来描绘。《勇敢传说》(2012)和《冰雪奇缘》(2013)在传统的内向/螺旋形的“女孩”叙事手法的基础上，用更外向、线性的“男孩”轨迹将其加倍。在这两部电影中，两位女性角色在各自的旅程中相互围绕。《勇敢》是一个理智与情感的故事，梅里达已经有了强烈的自我意识，她和母亲相互学习，建立了联系(开头和结尾是平行的歌曲)。在《冰雪奇缘》(大致根据安徒生的《冰雪女王》改编)中，两姐妹中的姐姐最初被写为一个恶棍;在歌曲作者发表了《Let It Go》之后，他们报告说，制作人的反应是“艾尔莎不能再演反派了”。这首歌的情感力量扭曲了叙事，主宰了电影的接受度。年轻的安娜拯救艾尔莎拯救他们的王国;然而，代价是埃尔莎在这首歌的桥的延伸过程中建造的象征自我的宫殿。《Let It Go》也在一系列的表演曲目中，从《Chess》的《Nobody’s Side》到《Wicked》的《Defying Gravity》，这些曲目都与歌手伊迪娜·门泽尔(Idina Menzel)有关，它们都有共同的音乐特征，即在主极性和次极性之间暂停主音，模糊谐波驱动力，赋予声音特殊的代理力。《Let It Go》是其中最简单的一首，即使是未经训练的声音也能很好地发挥作用，这让许多跟着电影一起唱歌的年轻女孩特别满意，而且在YouTube上的视频数量惊人。
{"title":"Girls’ Voices, Boys’ Stories, and Self-Determination in Animated Films since 2012","authors":"Robynn J. Stilwell","doi":"10.5406/j.ctvz0hcn6.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/j.ctvz0hcn6.11","url":null,"abstract":"Since its first feature, Snow White (1937), Disney musical films have often centered on the coming-of-age experiences of young girls; however, the reliance on fairy tale models has often meant a highly conservative structure in which the girl “is won” rather than “wins.” The modern rebirth of the Disney musical with The Little Mermaid (1989) prefigures the 1990s rise of stories of girls’ finding their voices (both literal and metaphorical), often based on literary sources or true stories. In these films, music has a significant narrative role, since the “journey” is so often inward and therefore difficult to portray in image and action. Brave (2012) and Frozen (2013) build on traditional inward/spiraling “girl” storytelling tropes by doubling them with more external, linear “boy” trajectories. In both, two female characters orbit each other along their journeys. Brave is a sense-and-sensibility tale in which Merida already has a strong sense of self, and she and her mother learn from each other and bond (established with parallel songs at beginning and end). In Frozen (loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen), the elder of the two royal sisters was originally written as a villain; after the songwriters delivered “Let It Go,” they report that the producers’ response was that “Elsa could no longer be a villain.” The emotive power of the song had deformed the narrative and dominates the film’s reception. The younger Anna rescues Elsa to rescue their kingdom; however, the price is the symbolic palace of selfhood that Elsa constructs during the extended prolongation of the song’s bridge. “Let It Go” is also in a line of showtunes from “Nobody’s Side” from Chess to “Defying Gravity” from Wicked, all associated with singer Idina Menzel and sharing musical traits that suspend the tonic between the dominant and subdominant poles, blurring harmonic drive, and giving the voice particular agency. “Let It Go” is the simplest of these, sitting well in even untrained voices, making it particularly gratifying for the many young girls who sing along to the movie and, in astonishing numbers, on YouTube.","PeriodicalId":193833,"journal":{"name":"Voicing the Cinema","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127875188","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}
Bergman’s Magic Flute (1975) is one of the highlights of opera-film. It represents a splendid example of Bergman’s mastery of image and film technique, and a memorable interpretation of Mozart’s late opera. Except for chapters by Jeongwon Joe (1998) and Jeremy Tambling (1987), it has been underrepresented in research on opera-film. There is much more to be said, especially with respect to sound. Not only are Flute’s sound practices critical to the film, but its emphasis on vococentrism is unusual for an opera-film and also connects Flute to Bergman’s cinema as a whole. Many elements in the soundscape contribute to Bergman’s highly personal interpretation. One is the dry environment in the passages of spoken dialogue, recorded live and its contrast with the warmer environment in the musical numbers, which were prerecorded. The spoken sections impart a sense of intimacy and interiority, qualities found in other Bergman films, such as Persona, The Seventh Seal, and The Hour of the Wolf. Ambient noise occurs in some places, its use linked to certain moods and situations. Variations in the resonance of the vocal music add another element to the mix. This chapter focuses on three places in Flute. The second tableau, numbers 1-5, uses sound to delineate the juxtaposition of theater and cinema and establish a link between dry speech and interioirity. In the scene of Tamino’s crisis at “O ew’ge Nacht,” an expanded array of effects, including the acousmêtre and reverberation in addition to dryness, limn Tamino’s psyche and underscore a key moment of the opera. And at Pamina’s parental crisis in the first half of Act II, silence as well as sound plays an integral role. The striking sound design of Bergman and his team is crucial to the film’s aesthetic style, in which “less is more,” and its reputation as a landmark of opera-film.
伯格曼的《魔笛》(1975)是歌剧电影的亮点之一。它代表了伯格曼对图像和电影技术的精湛掌握，以及对莫扎特晚期歌剧的令人难忘的诠释。除了Jeongwon Joe(1998)和Jeremy Tambling(1987)的章节外，它在歌剧电影的研究中代表性不足。还有很多要说的，特别是在声音方面。长笛的声音实践不仅对电影至关重要，而且它对声音中心主义的强调对于歌剧电影来说是不同寻常的，这也将长笛与伯格曼的电影作为一个整体联系起来。音景中的许多元素促成了伯格曼高度个人化的诠释。一个是现场录制的口语对话段落中干燥的环境，与预先录制的音乐数字中温暖的环境形成对比。影片的台词部分给人一种亲切感和内在感，这种感觉在伯格曼的其他电影中也有体现，比如《假面》、《第七封印》和《狼的时刻》。环境噪音出现在一些地方，它的使用与某些情绪和情况有关。声乐共振的变化为混音增添了另一种元素。本章着重于笛子中的三个地方。第二个场景，编号1-5，用声音来描绘戏剧和电影的并置，并在干巴巴的言语和内心之间建立联系。在《新夜》(O new 'ge night)中塔米诺的危机场景中，除了干燥之外，还有acousmêtre和混响等一系列扩大的效果，触动了塔米诺的心灵，强调了这部歌剧的关键时刻。在第二幕前半部分帕米娜的父母危机中，沉默和声音都扮演了不可或缺的角色。伯格曼和他的团队惊人的声音设计对电影的美学风格至关重要，其中“少即是多”，并被誉为歌剧电影的里程碑。
{"title":"Vococentrism and Sound in Ingmar Bergman’s The Magic Flute","authors":"M. Citron","doi":"10.5406/j.ctvz0hcn6.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/j.ctvz0hcn6.9","url":null,"abstract":"Bergman’s Magic Flute (1975) is one of the highlights of opera-film. It represents a splendid example of Bergman’s mastery of image and film technique, and a memorable interpretation of Mozart’s late opera. Except for chapters by Jeongwon Joe (1998) and Jeremy Tambling (1987), it has been underrepresented in research on opera-film. There is much more to be said, especially with respect to sound. Not only are Flute’s sound practices critical to the film, but its emphasis on vococentrism is unusual for an opera-film and also connects Flute to Bergman’s cinema as a whole. Many elements in the soundscape contribute to Bergman’s highly personal interpretation. One is the dry environment in the passages of spoken dialogue, recorded live and its contrast with the warmer environment in the musical numbers, which were prerecorded. The spoken sections impart a sense of intimacy and interiority, qualities found in other Bergman films, such as Persona, The Seventh Seal, and The Hour of the Wolf. Ambient noise occurs in some places, its use linked to certain moods and situations. Variations in the resonance of the vocal music add another element to the mix. This chapter focuses on three places in Flute. The second tableau, numbers 1-5, uses sound to delineate the juxtaposition of theater and cinema and establish a link between dry speech and interioirity. In the scene of Tamino’s crisis at “O ew’ge Nacht,” an expanded array of effects, including the acousmêtre and reverberation in addition to dryness, limn Tamino’s psyche and underscore a key moment of the opera. And at Pamina’s parental crisis in the first half of Act II, silence as well as sound plays an integral role. The striking sound design of Bergman and his team is crucial to the film’s aesthetic style, in which “less is more,” and its reputation as a landmark of opera-film.","PeriodicalId":193833,"journal":{"name":"Voicing the Cinema","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124680047","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}
In studio production between the mid-1960s and early 1980s, the period often referred to as “New Hollywood,” the music soundtrack was the site of significant upheaval. As box office revues continued to plummet, the studios allowed filmmakers greater freedom to experiment with narrative structures and with soundtrack conventions. Specifically, they allowed directors to exert new control over film music, which they did often by jettisoning new composed orchestral scores in favor of compilations of preexisting, recorded music. Film music scholars have long acknowledged this shift, but few have recognized the degree to which the new soundtrack practices that emerged in the New Hollywood period were also the result of radical shifts in popular music and contemporary listening practices. By looking at two films from the early 1970s, Zabriskie Point (1971) and The Strawberry Statement (1970, this article considers the degree to which progressive rock, FM radio, and countercultural listening practices changed not only the content of film soundtracks but also the placement of music in film, unseating long-standing sound hierarchies and privileging music in new ways.
{"title":"FM Radio and the New Hollywood Soundtrack","authors":"Julie Hubbert","doi":"10.5406/j.ctvz0hcn6.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/j.ctvz0hcn6.7","url":null,"abstract":"In studio production between the mid-1960s and early 1980s, the period often referred to as “New Hollywood,” the music soundtrack was the site of significant upheaval. As box office revues continued to plummet, the studios allowed filmmakers greater freedom to experiment with narrative structures and with soundtrack conventions. Specifically, they allowed directors to exert new control over film music, which they did often by jettisoning new composed orchestral scores in favor of compilations of preexisting, recorded music. Film music scholars have long acknowledged this shift, but few have recognized the degree to which the new soundtrack practices that emerged in the New Hollywood period were also the result of radical shifts in popular music and contemporary listening practices. By looking at two films from the early 1970s, Zabriskie Point (1971) and The Strawberry Statement (1970, this article considers the degree to which progressive rock, FM radio, and countercultural listening practices changed not only the content of film soundtracks but also the placement of music in film, unseating long-standing sound hierarchies and privileging music in new ways.","PeriodicalId":193833,"journal":{"name":"Voicing the Cinema","volume":"56 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131580144","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}
Pub Date : 2020-03-01DOI: 10.5622/illinois/9780252043000.003.0013
This chapter investigates how the introduction of stereo complicated Hollywood’s vococentric practices. It also reveals how sound technicians developed mixing techniques that preserved the salience of dialogue in multi-channel soundscapes. The author refers to such techniques as monocentrism and illustrates monocentric norms by analyzing the climactic scene from The Martian (2015). The chapter then examines how technicians often play with these norms in order to change the meaning of a given sequence. To demonstrate this phenomenon, the author analyzes the Louis and Bebe Barrons’s score to Forbidden Planet (1956) and argues that MGM’s rerecording engineers mixed the musical effects so that they panned to different locations within each theater, which thereby invited audiences to interpret these sounds as the voices of the film’s invisible monsters.
{"title":"Monocentrism, or Soundtracks in Space","authors":"","doi":"10.5622/illinois/9780252043000.003.0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5622/illinois/9780252043000.003.0013","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter investigates how the introduction of stereo complicated Hollywood’s vococentric practices. It also reveals how sound technicians developed mixing techniques that preserved the salience of dialogue in multi-channel soundscapes. The author refers to such techniques as monocentrism and illustrates monocentric norms by analyzing the climactic scene from The Martian (2015). The chapter then examines how technicians often play with these norms in order to change the meaning of a given sequence. To demonstrate this phenomenon, the author analyzes the Louis and Bebe Barrons’s score to Forbidden Planet (1956) and argues that MGM’s rerecording engineers mixed the musical effects so that they panned to different locations within each theater, which thereby invited audiences to interpret these sounds as the voices of the film’s invisible monsters.","PeriodicalId":193833,"journal":{"name":"Voicing the Cinema","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116586152","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}
Pub Date : 2020-03-01DOI: 10.5622/illinois/9780252043000.003.0009
An orchestrator elopes with a composer’s beloved and then dies, leaving behind a pregnant widow and an incomplete melody. Discouraged but not defeated, the composer proposes, offering to adopt the orchestrator’s child and melody. Just before the composer conducts his new arrangement of the orphaned theme, a child is born. This synopsis describes one plot line within the Warner Bros. film, Four Daughters (1938), and its sequel, Four Wives (1939). Loosely based on a story by Fannie Hurst, the Four Daughters films appear fashioned specifically for musicological musing. But if the films’ intertwined creative crises receive a pat resolution, the film’s production was less tidy. This essay lends a careful ear to the offscreen voices of studio staff whose dissensions and compromises inflect the musical content and onscreen musicians of the films. Screenwriter Lenore Coffee, who replaced an “unreal and ridiculous” contortionist character with an orchestrator, waged battle with male colleagues for credit and narrative control. Collaborative construction of the fictional compositions—credited to Max Steiner but based on themes written by Heinz Roemheld and Max Rabinowitsch—was also initially muffled. After the onscreen orchestrator’s unfinished “Symphonie Moderne” became a central plot point, Steiner and his colleagues were impelled to concede, even celebrate, their shared compositional efforts more publicly. Drawing on sketches from the Max Steiner Collection (BYU) as well as scripts and production documents from the Warner Bros. Archives (USC), this paper considers how battles over creative control were waged through the conception, composition, and onscreen depiction of a musical work that became an unlikely vessel for anxieties over Hollywood’s intensely collaborative methods.
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