Hollywood As Music Museum & Patron

Hollywood as Music Museum & Patron: Bringing Various Musical Styles to a Wide Audience Charlotte Greenspan Abstract: The role of Hollywood ½lms in holding up a mirror–albeit sometimes a distorted one–to the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/142/4/73/1831595/daed_a_00235.pdf by guest on 29 September 2021 American public is indisputable. Less discussed is their role in bringing a wide range of music–popular, classical, jazz, avant-garde, ethnic–to an unsuspecting audience. Whether the music is in the foreground, as in biographical movies about composers, for example, or in the background supporting the narrative, watching a movie educates the viewers’ ears. Indeed, the role of movies in widening the public’s aural palate has parallels with the role of art museums in broadening the public’s visual taste. To supply the music needed for movies, Hollywood studios have employed a large number of composers of the most varied backgrounds, taking on a signi½cant function as patron of contemporary music. This essay briefly examines some of the varied interactions of movies, music, and the public. The Hollywood ½lm industry plays a crucial role in the preservation and dissemination of music of many styles. This role is not much discussed, however, because it is an unintended side effect of most Hollywood ½lms, the primary aim of which is com- mercial success. Nevertheless, despite differences in stated or inherent aims, and despite differences in ½nancial structure, the effect that Hollywood studios CHARLOTTE GREENSPAN is a have on the American public with regard to music musicologist and pianist based in is surprisingly similar to the effect the great museums Ithaca, New York. She has taught at the University of Wisconsin and have with regard to art. Cornell University. Her publica- The ½rst two major art museums in the United tions include Pick Yourself Up: States, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New Dorothy Fields and the American York City and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Musical (2010); “Irving Berlin in opened their doors in the same year, 1870. From the Hollywood,” American Music (2004); outset, they were committed to the education, en- and “Rhapsody in Blue: A Study of lightenment, and one might say elevation of a demo- Hollywood Hagiography,” in The Gershwin Style (edited by Wayne cratic populace. In her study of American art muse- Schneider, 1999). She is currently ums, Nancy Einreinhofer recounts how during “the writing a book about biopics of opening ceremony of the Museum of Fine Arts, composers. Boston’s mayor described the city’s museum as ‘The © 2013 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences doi:10.1162/DAED_a_00235 73 Hollywood crown of our educational system.’”1 Sim- had their ½rst contact with classical as Music ilarly, the 1876 Annual Report of the Met- music while watching cartoons as chil- Museum & Patron ropolitan Museum declared, “The Museum dren. In his book Tunes for ’Toons: Music today is not surpassed as an educational for the Hollywood Cartoon, musicologist power among the people by any university, Daniel Goldmark notes: college, or seminary of learning in the If cartoons have become associated over time metropolis.”2 with any one musical genre, it is classical The educational aim in bringing great music. When I talk to people about cartoon works of art to the attention of large num- music, that is inevitably what they ½rst think bers of people was not primarily aesthetic of and talk about: “Cartoons are where I –this was not art for art’s sake. Rather, it learned all the classics.” . With the increas- was believed that elevated taste led to ele- ingly limited attention given to classical Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/142/4/73/1831595/daed_a_00235.pdf by guest on 29 September 2021 vated morals, and that a more educated music in primary and secondary schools, populace produced a stronger democracy. cartoon scores have managed to keep the The sheer pleasure arising from contact classics in the public’s ears, albeit in a con- with works of art was not denied or text that gives them an entirely different set eschewed, but it was not highlighted as of meanings.3 a principal part of the mission of the museum. To be sure, the “classical music” that In contrast, bringing pleasure, or at least viewers are exposed to via cartoons is in entertainment, to the largest possible pay- fact only melodies or motives from larger ing audience was very much the raison pieces, fragments meant to capture a mood d’être for the ½rst American moviemakers. or semaphore a situation within seconds. Despite the slogan ars gratia artis, adopted The Wedding March from Wagner’s Lohen- by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio in grin, the Funeral March from Chopin’s 1917, commerce rather than art or edi½ca- Piano Sonata No. 2, the Ride of the tion guided decisions about movies. The Valkyries from Wagner’s Die Walküre, heads of studios wanted to make a prod- the Overture to William Tell by Rossini, uct for pro½t, just as other moguls pro- and many other works by Beethoven, duced steel or built railroads. Yet over Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, and time, the power of movies to influence Tchaikovsky: all have been mined for and educate could hardly be ignored. nuggets of instant musical meaning. Of The purported ability of movies to affect course, the extent to which exposure leads the consciousness, attitudes, and morals to appreciation remains an open question. of their audiences has been much debated. Familiarity is not the same as knowledge; For instance, the effect of violent movies but surely unfamiliarity is the same as and video games on people in possession lack of knowledge. of guns is just one aspect of this discus- Cartoons were also the entry point, for sion that has received recent attention. many innocent observers, into the world My interest here is in one small corner of of jazz. According to Goldmark, cartoons the debate: namely, the ability of movies “became an especially potent site for to expose usually unsuspecting audiences spreading the sound of jazz nationwide.”4 to a wide range of musical styles. Jazz entered the feature-½lm sound track in the 1950s, partly to create an atmosphere Musical indoctrination through Holly- of alternative morality. Alex North’s jazz- wood ½lms often began early in the life of inflected score for A Streetcar Named Desire a moviegoer. Many people claim to have (1951), for example, underlines the hover- 74 Dædalus, the Journal ofthe American Academy of Arts & Sciences ing sexuality as well as the New Orleans music, was brought in to help select the Charlotte setting. The Man with a Golden Arm (1956; pieces. In its ½nished form, Fantasia ran Greenspan score by Elmer Bernstein) is set in Chicago two hours and comprised eight musical and has as its hero a heroin-addicted jazz segments: the Toccata and Fugue in D minor drummer. But cartoons featured jazz per- by J. S. Bach, transcribed for orchestra; formances as early as the 1930s. Some of excerpts from The Nutcracker Suite by these cartoons suffer from their overt asso- Tchaikovsky; The Sorcerer’s Apprentice by ciation of the sounds of jazz with racial Dukas; The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky; stereotypes. Still, the musical performances Symphony No. 6 (the “Pastoral”) by themselves are notable. Beethoven; Dance of the Hours by Ponchiel- li; Night on Bald Mountain by Mussorgsky; and Franz Schubert’s “Ave Maria.” Directors of museums were aware that Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/daed/article-pdf/142/4/73/1831595/daed_a_00235.pdf by guest on 29 September 2021 while one can put works of art on view, The aspirations of Disney and Stokowski there is no guarantee that the observer were related, though not identical. Both will be elevated. To address this issue, mu- men wanted to bring classical music to a seums added staff members whose prin- larger audience, but Disney was also keenly cipal concern was the education of patrons. aware that Fantasia would raise the pres- The Cleveland Museum of Art, a leader in tige of the work coming out of his studio. this ½eld, gives the director of these ser- He and his colleagues envisioned a brave vices the lofty title Curator of Education. new world for animation. In the program Gallery talks and museum tours, public book written to accompany the limited- lectures and publications, classes in stu- release showing in 1940, one can sense dio art and art history for both children the almost messianic fervor the creators and adults, and outreach programs to local felt. “The beauty and inspiration of music schools are among the tactics that today’s must not be restricted to a privileged few museums use to help the public under- but made available to every man, woman stand their collections. and child,” Stokowski declared. “That is When and why the impulse to educate why great music associated with motion took hold of Hollywood ½lm studios is pictures is so important, because motion more dif½cult to pinpoint. The Disney ½lm pictures reach millions all over our coun- Fantasia (1940), however, represents a de- try and all over the world.” Disney added: cisive moment in the coming together of “In a profession that has been an unend- music, cartoons, and the educational urge. ing voyage of discovery in the realms of At a chance meeting in the West Holly- color, sound and motion, Fantasia repre- wood restaurant Chasens, Walt Disney sents our most exciting adventure. At last, explained to conductor Leopold Stokowski we have found a way to use in our medi- his idea to use Paul Dukas’s tone poem um the great music of all times and the The Sorcerer’s Apprentice as the basis for a flood of new ideas which it inspires.” As ½lm.

Load more