Wagner and Cinema

Jeongwon Joe (Edited by), Sander L. Gilman (Edited by)

9780253221636

Paperback / softback, published 26 February 2010

504 pages, 28 b&w illus., 35 musical exx.
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.5 cm, 0.481 kg

"Each contributor to this collection brings a unique perspective on Wagner's influences on cinema. Some of the essays suggest that given his vision of Gesamtkunstwerk (synthesis of the arts), the maestro would have been more comfortable in the modern age as a movie producer/director than as a composer/director of opera. Maybe or maybe not, but Wagner's influence on cinema was certainly profound; his work inspired filmmakers and score composers from cinema's earliest years and continues to inspire today. Joe (musicology, Univ. of Cincinnati) and Gilman (liberal arts and sciences, Emory Univ.) divide the essays into five thematic parts: 'Wagner and the Silent Fil'"; 'Wagnerian Resonance in Film Scoring,' which examines specific composers, e.g., Max Steiner and Franz Waxman; 'Wagner in Hollywood,' which considers implicit/explicit use of Wagner's music in Hollywood productions; 'Wagner in German Cinema,' which treats the composer's ideological presence in new German cinema of such directors as Werner Herzog and Alexander Kluge; and 'Wagner beyond the Sound Track,' which looks at Wagner's impact on the aesthetics of cinema, film noir in particular. A useful resource for serious students of film, theater, and/or music, the book includes numerous photos, and helpful music notation enhances the text. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty and professionals; general readers. —Choice"— A. C. Shahriari, Kent State University, December 2010
"[D]emands and deserves a commitment of time and space from a wide range of readers as they experience its transitions . . . and powerful enlightening moments. Vol. 64 2 Summer 2011"—Jrnl American Musicological Soc JAMS
"[Wagner and Cinema] looks at the plethora of senses in which Wagner's music and different kinds of Wagnerian reception histories have informed cinematic production throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. ...Wagner and Cinema is a text that will no doubt be consulted for many years henceforward.Issue 24, 2012"—Nathan Waddell, Scope
"[T]he book . . . present[s] the reader with a strong and very varied attempt to discuss the relation between Wagner, opera and cinema and includes a vast array of densely detailed information covering large historical periods in many of its well-written essays.Issue 29"—Screening the Past
"A useful resource for serious students of film, theater, and/or music, the book includes numerous photos, and helpful music notation enhances the text. . . . Recommended."—Choice
"Wagner & Cinema provides a comprehensive discussion of its subject . . . [I]t offers an excellent introduction for scholars interested in Wagner's influence on film and offers a starting point for future studies. 34/2 (2011)"—German Studies Review
"The essays in this collection engage in a critical dialogue with existing studies—extending and renovating current theories related to the topic—and propose unexplored topics and new methodological perspectives.March 01, 2010"—Camero-Stylo
"Timely, relevant, and absolutely central to what is going on in so many fields. The editors have done a terrific job in bringing together not only the most appropriate but also the most stimulating and exciting of contributors."—Linda Hutcheon, author of A Theory of Adaptation

The work of Richard Wagner is a continuing source of artistic inspiration and ideological controversy in literature, philosophy, and music, as well as cinema. In Wagner and Cinema, a diverse group of established and emerging scholars examines Wagner's influence on cinema from the silent era to the present. The essays in this collection engage in a critical dialogue with existing studies—extending and renovating current theories related to the topic—and propose unexplored topics and new methodological perspectives. The contributors discuss films ranging from the 1913 biopic of Wagner to Ridley Scott's Gladiator, with essays on silent cinema, film scoring, Wagner in Hollywood, German cinema, and Wagner beyond the soundtrack.

Foreword by Tony Palmer
Introduction: Why Wagner and Cinema? Tolkien Was Wrong \ Jeongwon Joe
Part 1. Wagner and the Silent Film
1. Wagnerian Motives: Narrative Integration and the Development of Silent Film Accompaniment, 1908–1913 \ James Buhler
2. Underscoring Drama—Picturing Music \ Peter Franklin
3. The Life and Works of Richard Wagner (1913): Becce, Froelich, and Messter \ Paul Fryer
4. Listening for Wagner in Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen \ Adeline Mueller
Part 2. Wagnerian Resonance in Film Scoring
5. The Resonances of Wagnerian Opera and Nineteenth-Century Melodrama in the Film Scores of Max Steiner\ David Neumeyer
6. Wagner's Influence on Gender Roles in Early Hollywood Film \ Eva Rieger
7. The Penumbra of Wagner's Ombra in Two Science Fiction Films from 1951: The Thing from Another World and The Day the Earth Stood Still \ William H. Rosar
Part 3. Wagner in Hollywood
8. "Soll ich lauschen?": Love-Death in Humoresque \ Marcia J. Citron
9. Hollywood's German Fantasy: Ridley Scott's Gladiator \ Marc A. Weiner
10. Reading Wagner in Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips (1944) \ Neil Lerner
11. Piercing Wagner: The Ring in Golden Earrings \ Scott D. Paulin
Part 4. Wagner in German Cinema
12. Wagner as Leitmotif: The New German Cinema and Beyond \ Roger Hillman
13. The Power of Emotion: Wagner and Film \ Jeremy Tambling
14. Wagner in East Germany: Joachim Herz's Der fliegende Holländer (1964) \ Joy H. Calico
Part 5. Wagner beyond the Soundtrack
15. Nocturnal Wagner: The Cultural Survival of Tristan und Isolde in Hollywood \ Elisabeth Bronfen
16. Ludwig's Wagner and Visconti's Ludwig \ Giorgio Biancorosso
17. The Tristan Project: Time in Wagner and Viola \ Jeongwon Joe
18. "The Threshold of the Visible World": Wagner, Bill Viola, and Tristan \ Lawrence Kramer
Postlude: Looking for Richard: An Archival Search for Wagner \ Warren M. Sherk
Epilogue: Some Thoughts about Wagner and Cinema; Opera and Politics; Style and Reception \ Sander L. Gilman
Interview with Bill Viola \ Jeongwon Joe
Filmography \ Jeongwon Joe, Warren M. Sherk, and Scott D. Paulin
List of Contributors
Index