The Dollars Trilogy-‐ a Musical Analysis
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1 The Dollars Trilogy- A Musical Analysis Benjamin Brown A Capstone Project 12 May, 2015 Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements For Bachelor of arts degree in Music Advisor: Ofer Ben-Amots 2 Introducing the Western The Western has been a longstanding staple in film dating back to the advent of the medium. This genre of film depicts the American West during the pioneer days, and offers a romanticized view of life on the frontier. The classic tale of hero versus villain set in a raucous, dusty town in the late nineteenth century has captivated American audiences for most of the twentieth century. “Audiences relished above all the satisfaction that came with knowing that the villain would be captured or killed, peace would be restored, order would replace disorder, and justice would prevail.”1 This predictable yet entertaining film style connected Americans with the roots of their country, and portrayed the cowboy protagonist as an embodiment of American virtues. The outcome of these films is always foreseeable; after a streak of successful heists, the desperado is defeated by a blue- eyed cowboy in a climactic shootout and peace is restored. The Hollywood western follows a strict form that closely resembles the major sections of the classical sonata. The sonata form begins with an exposition, which establishes the tonal center of the piece and introduces the main themes. Next is the development, a section of modulation during which the tonal center and thematic content undergo change. This section creates tension in the piece by leading the listener into a musically ambiguous area where the outcome is not necessarily known. Finally after a period of uncertainty, the recapitulation restates the opening themes in the key in which the piece began, providing the listener with definite resolution. An established compositional form used by many European composers, this formula of 1 Music in the Western, 131. 3 contrasting stasis with change translated well into other media of art and entertainment, including the Hollywood western. “As [the film critic] Robin Wood has observed, there are typically three main sections to the architecture of many Hollywood westerns: the exposition, which introduces the characters; the development, where disorder and conflict occurs; and the recapitulation, the eventual restoration of order.”2 Although audiences knew well in advance what the outcome of these films would be, they were nonetheless very entertaining and widely successful. The Spaghetti Western: A Paradigm Shift By the 1960s, western films had gained international popularity, and many non-American filmmakers began to create their own revised versions of westerns. During this period, Italy became notorious for producing what came to be known as “Spaghettis Westerns”. Spaghetti Westerns differed from the American westerns, and can be seen as a departure from the traditional style. “Just as the traditional forms of classical music eventually gave way to more unrestricted modern musical forms, so did the classic Hollywood western give way to less predictable and occasionally unsettling innovations of non-traditional, and often non-Hollywood, westerns. Italian filmmakers played a major role in this paradigm shift.”3 It is widely agreed that the Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone produced the greatest Spaghetti westerns in the history of the genre. Leone’s Dollars trilogy represents the epitome of the genre. From a cinematic point of view, this feat was accomplished by 2 Ibid, 131. 3 Ibid, 131. 4 Leone’s deliberate deconstruction and systematic alteration of seemingly every element in a traditional Hollywood western. However, what was even more significant than the cinematic aspects of the film in establishing the Spaghetti western as a new paradigm is the music, and, “Ennio Morricone is arguably the composer most responsible for accelerating this shift through his innovative scores for the westerns of Sergio Leone.” The success of Leone’s films can be attributed largely to the inventive interplay between Morricone’s scores and the on-screen drama. In order to fully comprehend the impact that Morricone’s music had on these films it is essential to isolate the specific techniques he employs and determine the role that this type of music plays in these films: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966). Morricone’s Style Morricone’s collaboration with Leone on the “Dollars” trilogy was instrumental in the novelty and eventual success of the series. As Laurence E. MacDonald notes, “Much credit for the success of Leone’s trilogy goes to the music.”4 The classically trained Morricone had scored twelve films preceding his first collaboration with Leone, A Fistful of Dollars. It is also important to note that prior to his experience in the film scoring industry he had worked as a producer in the popular music industry and was involved in an avant-garde improvisational group called Gruppo di Improvvisazione di Nuova Consonanza. It was during his time with 4 The Invisible Art of Film Music, 231. 5 this group that Morricone deeply explored the musical techniques established by John Cage, the musique concréte movement, jazz, and serialism. Much of Morricone’s uniqueness in his compositional style can be attributed to these musical experiences. The other factor that separated Morricone’s music from the Hollywood composers was his philosophy regarding the role that music should play in films. He once stated in an interview that “’Music in a film must not add emphasis but must give more body and depth to the story, to the characters, to the language that the director has chosen. It must therefore, say all that the dialogue, image, effects, etc., cannot say.”5 This outlook on music makes it possible for Morricone to add another dimension to any number of aspects within the film through his compositions. His music does not act as an accompaniment as in music in Hollywood Westerns; Morricone’s music acts as another voice, sharing another perspective on the story or providing the viewer with details that could not be conveyed through another medium. This notion of music being a fundamental element in the conveyance of information within the film acts as Morricone’s compositional foundation; he then manipulates sound and music to achieve his vision. When listening to Morricone’s music for the “Dollars” trilogy, one immediately notices several components that distinguish a Morricone score. While many of the Hollywood composers wrote music in the Wagnerian tradition, using Leitmotifs to correspond to a specific theme or character, Morricone preferred to use the formal elements of the Italian operatic tradition. The film critic Robert C. Cumbow noted that “Morricone doesn’t generally write leitmotif music in the ‘ So- 5 Ennio Morricone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, 18. 6 and-So’s Theme’ sense, as… other Wagnerians of film music tend to do. His music is more songlike than recitative – tapping, not surprisingly, the Italian operatic tradition (not the German) and running to the repetition of set-pieces (rather than to the commingling of themes or to the purely atmospheric of most film scores).”6 Rather than using various musical themes to create a sonic backdrop, Morricone organizes his music like a number opera in which there are sections of film where no music is heard. While a Hollywood Western may have music playing in the background throughout most of the film, Morricone’s scores contain much less music: “It is often the absence of music throughout much of a Leone film that makes the entrance of a musical cue much more noticeable and dramatic. Morricone does not hesitate to use the silences between musical cues in much the same way that Leone will use silences between dialogues and sound effects: to enhance the impact of the sound when it eventually arrives.”7 The decision to leave sections of film devoid of music was made in collaboration by both Morricone and Leone. The result makes the entrance of music much more powerful, especially in comparison to the music of the Hollywood Western. This use of silence to create anticipation for the music distinguishes the Morricone scores from Hollywood scores, but other elements must also be considered. Part of what set Morricone’s scores apart is his unique and eclectic approach to instrumentation. While composers for Hollywood Westerns used the timbres of the traditional orchestra and did not orchestrate their own scores, Morricone personally chose more obscure instruments that possessed widely different timbres 6 Ibid, 17. 7 Ibid, 14. 7 to create a different type of sonic texture that more closely reflects the old west. In describing the difference between his instrumentation techniques versus those employed by Hollywood film composers, Morricone states that, “In general the Americans use symphonic music even for Westerns, something I never do. I find symphonic language excessive, too rich for films.”8 Instead, Morricone used acoustic guitars, snare drums, trumpets, stand up pianos, and Native American flutes to evoke the sounds of the old west. Morricone thus paints an aural picture of the old west by using instruments that may have been available. He incorporates sounds from nature and sounds from day to day life, and in doing so, musically describes life during the time period in which the movies are set. The use of these instruments adds to the authenticity of the films by mimicing the noises from the environment, the noises that could very well have been occurring within the frame of the film. By using these eclectic textures and timbres, Morricone is able to create a musical language that is often more interesting than those of his American counterparts. When writing for such an interesting array of musical instruments, Morricone must match the harmonic, melodic, and thematic content with the appropraite instrument.