Hitchcock and Herrmann: A Tale of Two Maestros - Assignment Example

Hitchcock and Herrmann: A Tale of Two Maestros Introduction: Movie forms a significant way to spread social messages to people across the globe in different parts of the world. Music, background score both plays a key role in developing a successful movie. In every country a good relation between a film director and composer is absolutely necessary to develop a meaningful movie which can deliver a social message or can portray different social incident which in turn helps immensely to develop an advanced society with broader mindset. Director of any movie creates a complete vision through which a film is ultimately realized. In order to recognize this vision any director has to control a film's artistic as well as the dramatic features associated with the story of the film, and think about the script while doing supervisory the technical team and actors in the way of that vision (The Princeton Review, n.d). The objective of this paper is to critically analyze the relation between a composer and director in movie making and how their relations helped to develop a great movie which can critically review the social and related aspects. From the early days of movie making in the world there were great director-composer partnerships that effectively brought out the social situation, the political stories, and several incidents that changed the concept of the social entities forever. In this paper the critical review is based on two of such great director-composer partnerships in the history of world cinema: association between Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Hermann and Federico Fellini and Nino Rota relationship. Critical Overview of Relationship between Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Hermann: Alfred Hitchcock is one of the best movie directors of all time in the world. All his movies are new trend setter in the modern cinema. He was an English film director and producer, well known for his role in introducing many techniques in the development of suspense movies and psychological thriller. Over a span of six decades he was involved with fifty movies all are path breaking in many ways. “He framed shots to maximize anxiety, fear, or empathy, and used innovative film editing”. (Lehman, 2007). On the other hand Bernard Hermann was an American composer who is well known for his composition for the motion pictures. Herrmann was most closely linked with director Alfred Hitchcock. He composed the music for almost every Hitchcock film starting from The Trouble with Harry (1955) to Marnie (1964). For a long period of time he was associated with almost all the Hitchcock movies which included Vertigo, Psycho, and North by Northwest. The relation between Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Hermann is a very unique in nature and also play an important role making Hitchcock one of the best directors of all time in the USA and also in the world. During the most successful year of the Hitchcock’s career as a movie director role of Hermann’s role also was important. In all of Hitchcock’s greatest critical, marketable and artistic success in the Hollywood, no one exemplified the theatrical, anguish and soberness of Hitchcock’s agenda more efficiently than Bernard Herrmann through his musical brilliance (Vertlieb, 2002). The collaboration between Hitchcock and Hermann gave a new dimension to all the Hitchcock movies. Hitchcock had been looking for a composer like Herrmann for a long period of time and they finally got together for The Trouble with Harry (1955), an unconventional comedy thriller created on the basis of English novel, now set in New England, with more than a trace of Agatha Christie. Hitchcock was very pleased with the music composition and as a demonstration of his esteem for the director. Herrmann reformed it into a suite, A Portrait of Hitch. Despite Hitchcock's much extensive profile, it portended well for their partnership. It was the trend in the Hollywood at that time that composers used to get less attention, but Herrmann was a composer who desired the visual experience in order to get inspired more to deliver. This concept was the way he wanted to work and this concept was testified by his compositions ofWuthering Heights, the novel by Emily Brontë. The great thing about their association was the understanding. Hitchcock found in him a trustworthy and loyal assistant who could easily touch musical concept beyond the director's own filmic presentation through his own composition. This was a big help for him to add an additional dimension to his work. In The Wrong Man (1957), Herrmann composed a jazzy prologue with a Latin-American taste for the black tie custom at the Stork Club with Henry Fonda, the mistreatedman; on bass- the score gave the movie a great value. (Gramophone,2013). The movie Vertigo (1958) made their association more closely and gave it a new dimension. Their relationship in the emotional world of the characters on screen was clearly depicted in the movie as well as through the background scores and music of the film. The film's sketchilypeacefulexternal masks; a dark and instablecenter that embraces a copy to their two contrasting natures: the cool butdemanding nature of Hitchcock and the moody, fickle Herrmann.North By Northwest (1959) movie was also a great work of Herrmann. The yearning, almost heartbreaking, melody 'Conversation Piece' to accompany Cary Grant's courtship of Eve Marie Saint is one of the great parts of all Herrmann's compositions”. (Gramophone, 2013). Their relationship was built on trust. Whatever might be the way they look at their relationship in their own mind; they operated together in conjointadmiration and forged a friendship. Hitchcock had a great trust in his composer. One can speculate on the depth of their association from The Man Who Knew Too Much, where Herrmann appeared in the film's climax, showing the London Symphony Orchestra to his own instrumentation of Arthur Benjamin's "Storm Cloud Cantata.(Karlin, 2011) When everyone started to believe that the relation between them is an everlasting one the differences started to creep up. The initial difference started to build up in1960 when in 1960, during a low budget movie Psycho, Hitchcock allowed Herrmann to compose for this low budget movie in his absence. He also gave him instruction to leave the disreputable shower scene alone but Herrmann scored it nevertheless, put together a series of stabbing chords opening high up on violins that lead shock waves among the audience. (Gramophone,2013). In Sixties, with the continuously growing youth society Hitchcock was eager to direct movie which could attract youth of US. For the period of the tectonic deviations in the US filmindustry, one of the world's supreme directors was in a conglomerate situation. His un-Hitchcocklike response was to bend to executives. Hitchcock asked his onetime most trusted music composer Herrmann to write a pop song for Julie Andrews to sing his next film Torn Curtain. This was on the back of slight misunderstanding between them after the incident in the movie Psycho.After meeting Hitchcock, Herrmann wrote the score that he felt would best suit the movie and could improve a plan that was seemingly all wrong, from script to casting. While recording, Hitchcock showed up in the studio. After hearing the music, he was very disappointed and also angry with his onetime best friend and composer Herrmann, which was a rarity for a man like him who always evaded conflict whenever possible with his composer. “According to some accounts, he dismissed the musicians and canceled future recording sessions, effectively firing Herrmann. And that was the time when one of the great relations between two of the best in their respective field ended”. (Karlin, 2011;Vertlieb, 2002). Critical overview of Federico Fellini and Nino Rota Relationship: Like Hitchcock- Herrmann relationship in the history of movies across the world, another most well-known director-composer relationship was the relation between Federico Fellini and Nino Rota. Federico Fellini is considered as one of the most important movie makers of the 20th century. Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini was most well-known for his surreal, use of outstanding images, narrative detail and fragmented stories to make poetic films that overwhelmed audiences across the world. As an initial representation of the Italian Neorealism drive, Fellini started as a scriptwriter before directing his first movie "Variety Lights" (1950). Some of his great works are "La Dolce Vita" (1960), which gave the viewers an idea about a wild sarcastic side of corrupt Italian life; "8 1/2" (1963), an all-in-one mixture of deception and life story that gave a full range of his thoughtful artistry. In spite of falling into mediocrity later in his career of movie making, Fellini always considered as one of the great moviemaker whose impact spanned generations all over the world. (Dwyer, 2014) Nino Rota was a musician who pushed the dreams centering on western music to a new level. Though he was not a jazz composer and only a musician who is classically qualified from the Milan conservatoire and Rome's Santa Cecilia academy, Rota was well known for his compositions of ten different operas, five ballets and a countless volume of instrumental and chamber music.(May, 2012). May in his review cited a statement made by Rota - “When I'm creating at the piano, I tend to feel happy. But, the eternal dilemma: how can we be happy amid the unhappiness of others? I'd do everything I could to give everyone a moment of happiness. That's what's at the heart of my music”. (May, 2012) Nino Rota is most well-known for his unique 28-year-long relationship with Federico Fellini and his most popular and creative musical work for film and television. He was responsible for more than 140 musical scores in his entire career. Rota, a child genius, was classically qualified in composition and piano and composed his first oratorio. His first film composition wasTreno popolare, a movie directed by directed by Raffaello Matarazzo in the year 1931. From there he started his journey as a composer. During the span of over 10 years in 1940s and 1950s he was the main composer for Lux Films. It was all through this time that he initiated subtle merging of leitmotif with musical framework and imposed that into the dialogues, based on characters and situations of the movie. All the music and background scores used in Fellini's films from 1951 until 1979, were either written or chosen by Rota and those are very well suited with the film. The music of Rota was simple, melodic, stanzaic, and, always diatonic. In the movies of Fellini and music of Rota were complementary to one another. Due to Fellini's fragmentary style of movie making, Rota's arrangements became the amalgamating force which gave the necessary continuity to each of Fellini's films. According to Fellini, Rota did not compose a wholesome supplement to the actions depicted in a film, as his compositions only represent a few original sensitive or melodramatic moments. His music always backed the pattern of structure of the movie, nature of the characters in the film, helped develop similarities between several situations, between the facts and the action of the film. It preserved an undoubtedindependence that paralleled the character and the worth of the picturesque action and narration of the film. (Thomas, 2014). Sciannameo (2005) in his review mentioned that “the story of Nino Rota and Federico Fellini may well come to be understood as the model for the future of classical composers and their music, rather than as a glamorous anomaly”. (Sciannameo, 2005) The movie and music of both of them clearly represents a great association between their courses of action. A detail of Rota's composition throughout the Fellini’s works of movie making, led the experts to review discriminatingly how Rota and Fellini together found a perfect fusion of music and film in the Nineties. Analysis of both of their work as a single unit clearly proves the fact that, alteration of Fellini's tribute to Rota was predominantly touching, and telling addition. The lover of melody was able to find much to ponder about the originality of his work and the passion holder of film was pleased throughout the length of each of his film. (Sciannameo, 2005) Conclusion: A cohesive and mutual understanding is absolutely necessary between the director of any movie and the music composer associated with the movie. Director as an individual has the concept of story, scenario and also the message that he or she wants to give to the audience. From the time of black and white movie till date, the composer plays a key role in imparting the true worth into the movie. Music gives a movie its direction, helps to create an appropriate ambience and also always leave a lasting impression in the mind of the audience. If we analyze both the above reviews it is very clear that in case of Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Hermann, as long as Hitchcock gave Herrmann the permission to act with freedom his work was excellent. As a qualified musician he was easily able to understand the nature or the message that Hitchcock wanted to give his audience and accordingly he formed the music. His music gave the movies of Hitchcock a new dimension and their association was also a great one in the history of Hollywood movies. But the moment Hitchcock started to interfere in his work the association broke down and Hitchcock as a director also not able to modify his movies with the need of the youth in 1960s. On the other hand Federico Fellini and Nino Rota relationship was far more established and successful in terms of longevity and understanding. Rota as a music director always worked independently and Fellini never interfered in his work. He always gave him the freedom to compose scores and as a result their association played a major role to make the Italian Folk song a well-established and worldwide popular one through the movies of Fellini. References Dwyer, S. (2014), Federico Fellini: Biography; TCM, retrieved on 7.2.2014 from http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/60684|50893/Federico-Fellini/ Film Director; (nd); The Princeton Review; retrieved on 5.2.2014 from http://www.princetonreview.com/careers.aspx?cid=65 Karlin, E. (2011), Hitchcock and Herrmann: A Tale of Two Maestros, Alfred Hitchcock Geek; Retrieved on 5.2.2014 from http://www.alfredhitchcockgeek.com/2011/06/hitchcock-and-herrmann-tale-of-two.html Lehman, D. (2007), Alfred Hitchcock’s America, American Heritage Magazine, 58.2; retrieved on 5.2.2014 from http://web.archive.org/web/20070711184905/http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/2007/2/2007_2_28.shtml May C. (2012), Nino Rota: Collector Nino Rota; All About Jazz; retrieved on 7.2.2014 from http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=41799#.UvRxZoWBd-0 Sciannameo F. (2005), Reviews: Nino Rota, Federico Fellini, and the Making of an Italian Cinematic Folk Opera Amarcord; Retrieved on 5.2.2014 http://mellenpress.com/mellenpress.cfm?bookid=6347&pc=9 Thomas S. (2001); Rota, Nino ; International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers; Retrieved on 5.2.2014 from http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Nino_Rota.aspx Vertlieb, S. (2002), Herrmann and Hitchcock: The Torn Curtain; The Bernard Herrmann Society; retrieved on 5.2.2014 fromhttp://www.bernardherrmann.org/articles/misc-torncurtain/ When Hitchcock met Herrmann: Adrian Edwards traces the turbulent working relationship of two Hollywood legends, (2012), Gramophone; Retrieved on 5.2.2014 from http://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/focus/when-hitchcock-met-herrmann Read More