A film score is background music,
or incidental music or film music. The star wars series and Wagner’s ring are
very successful films. Contributing to their great success is the music in the
films. These films are said to have
brought back the symphonic score trend to the modern screen. Being the pioneers
of reviving the symphonic trend, a lot of assumptions about music borrowing in
these films have been raised. Borrowing in this case means, the use of already
existing music with some few improvements or different composition.
To understand the borrowing
concept fully, we could categorize the musical borrowing into three parts. One
will be the musical borrowing from existing western music in art and film
industry. These were used as temp tracks in the star wars. The second category
is the borrowing from Wagner’s operas and their structure. The last category
will focus on John Williams borrowing of his own musical pieces in the star
wars film to create unity in the film score.
Temp track
George Lucas made quite an impact
on the star wars score, with his temp track. Lucas was involved in planning of
the star wars musical concepts from the early stages of the first film. His
vision was for the film to have a fully symphonic score instead of musique concrete or electronic. Lucas
also had an idea to contrast the visual of the star wars film with almost 19th
century very romantic music with the aim of reaching the emotional level of the
audience. George sought help in coming up with the temp track from a collection
of his classical music.
An example would be the temp
track from Gustav Holst, ‘Mars the Bringer of War’ from the album, planets.
With the help of this song, we can clearly hear and get the ‘imperial attack’
theme which borrows its rhythmic pattern from ‘mars’. This is however a mere
rhythm allusion rather than directly quoting it form the original song. The
harmonic and melodic language in the ‘imperial attack’ is an original work of
William.
Another example is the striking
resemblance between the main theme of the star wars film and the main theme of
Kings Row of Korngold. The first eight notes in either of the pieces are the
same. These pieces also have the same orchestration character. This is another
instance of borrowing.
The third example features the
cue imitating Stravinsky’s famous The
Rites of Spring or La Sacre du
Printemps. Taking episode four into consideration, specifically where the
droids land on the Tatooine dune sea, it is possible to hear ‘the sacrifice:
Mystic Circles of the Young Girls’. The creative borrowing in this case is more
than just a mere allusion. It is like a transcription. Notable parts include
the two- note flute motif that is repeated and stated over woodwind chords that
are dissonant. This is then followed by an orchestra lower register full tutti,
mixed with atonality. These two features are notable in the two scores.
Wagner’s opera
The star wars has a lot of
similarities to Wagnerian opera. George Lucas, in an interview, admitted to
there being many mythic and parallels to Wagner’s ring cycle. The use of
leitmotifs, the sound and color of the orchestration and the unity of music are
some of the aspects that can be used to show the similarity of both Wagner’s
opera and the star wars film.
A specific example is the
comparison of the introduction of ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’ in the ring cycle
and episode 4 of star wars: A New Hope. This will show you the similarities in
the orchestration of both composers.
Creative borrowing within the film
Music is essential in maintaining
unity of the narration. The various episodes of the film need to be connected
and in addition, it also has to connect the current film with the subsequent
ones. A problem of unity arose when episodes one to three came up, which John
Williams solved by self-borrowing.
For instance, the melody of the
love theme in episode five: Empire Strikes Back is actually derived from episode
four: A New Hope. The opening melodies of these episodes are the same. These
themes start with a major tonality.
As can be seen, John Williams
applied a number of creative borrowings in the score of star wars and Wagner’s
ring. The music in star wars has referenced other music mostly by applying
style imitation, rhythmic allusion, using similar principle as leitmotif and emulating
some orchestral techniques. The keenness with which this was done shows that it
was not a mere allusion practice. The borrowing practice has been carefully
done such that it can be seen as John William’s work in
every level.
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