This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from Explore Bristol Research, http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk Author: Carter, Lindsay Title: Affective Communities Music, Emotion, and Subjectivity in the Popular Cinema of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, 1933-1949 General rights Access to the thesis is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Public License. A copy of this may be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode This license sets out your rights and the restrictions that apply to your access to the thesis so it is important you read this before proceeding. Take down policy Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions prior to having it been deposited in Explore Bristol Research. However, if you have discovered material within the thesis that you consider to be unlawful e.g. breaches of copyright (either yours or that of a third party) or any other law, including but not limited to those relating to patent, trademark, confidentiality, data protection, obscenity, defamation, libel, then please contact [email protected] and include the following information in your message: •Your contact details •Bibliographic details for the item, including a URL •An outline nature of the complaint Your claim will be investigated and, where appropriate, the item in question will be removed from public view as soon as possible. Affective Communities: Music, Emotion and Subjectivity in the Popular Cinema of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, 1933-1949 Lindsay Rachel Carter A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in accordance with the requirements for award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty or Arts. School of Arts September 2018 Word Count: 64,472 Abstract This thesis examines the use of music in the cinema of the Third Reich and the Soviet Union from the perspective of community construction. Each regime promoted its own myth of transcendent national-political communities and filmmaking was linked with the task of affective integration. Emotions were understood to serve an integrative function, whilst also containing the potential to provoke anarchic responses. As such, they required careful management. Whilst all films attempt to achieve certain emotional responses from their audiences, the ideological value placed on the emotions in encouraging affective integration into imagined political communities by the Nazi and Soviet regimes alters the ideological undertones of the films’ affective appeals. Through close analysis of how music functions in films from the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, this thesis reveals a high proportion of song and diegetic musical performances that foreground the affective role of music. It also reveals an attempted management of desire in which music plays a role in guiding the emotional responses of the audience as well as leading the meaning-making processes through intertextual referents and providing continuity and connections between the images represented. This is especially true of death scenes, which reveal anxieties over the representation of death on-screen in both contexts. In analysing the relationship between music and ideologies of community in the films, this thesis fills a number of significant gaps in the literature. It moves beyond a focus on production history to discuss how music functions in these films, combining film theory with historical research to provide historically-informed readings of the music in films. In addition, the comparative aspect considers whether the films do similar things with music in film and if so, what this might reveal retrospectively about their historical contexts. i ii Acknowledgements In 2009 I came to the University of Bristol for an open day. Over the past 9 years in the Department of Music in Bristol, I have had the privilege to meet and get to know many wonderful students and staff who have in one way or another contributed to the writing of this thesis. My deepest appreciation goes to my supervisors. To Pauline Fairclough, for her continued enthusiasm for the project which kept me going throughout the process, especially during moments of self-doubt and frustration. The attention and support she has provided not only to my thesis but also to my professional development has gone far beyond her role as supervisor. To Guido Heldt, for his insightful and meticulous comments which invariably sent me away from supervisions with new ideas and fresh perspectives. My work has benefited greatly from his input. Thank you to my examiners Carlo Cenciarelli and Sarah Hibberd for engaging so closely with my work and for a generous and stimulating discussion in my viva. Many people have contributed informally to this thesis through conversations, commenting on drafts and feedback on presentations. To Argun Çakır, Chris Charles, Katharine Ellis, Will Finch, Sara Garrard, Jonathan Godsall, Kate Guthrie, Emma Hornby, Cecilia Quaintrell, Paul Rouse, Florian Scheding, James Taylor, Sarah Thompson, and Justin Williams, thank you for your patient reading of drafts, your comments, advice, and for your general friendliness. To the wonderful community of staff at the University of Bristol, thank you for all your support and encouragement over the years. I would like to thank my friends and family who have supported me throughout this process. To Emma, Andrzej and my beautiful godson Nim. And to my family, who have provided love, support and encouragement over the past 28 years. You endured it all with no grumbles: from sleepless nights after receiving panicked and one-sided phone calls to the 9 years and 400 miles of separation I put between us when I chose to move to Bristol. It has been hard and for your unwavering support, I cannot possibly thank you enough. Lastly, to my partner Sarah for her never-ending patience, care and support over the last three years. This project is as much yours as it is mine. iii iv Author’s Declaration I declare that the work in this dissertation was carried out in accordance with the requirements of the University’s Regulations and Code of Practice for Research Degree Programmes and that it has not been submitted for any other academic award. Except where indicated by specific reference in the text, the work is the candidate’s own work. Work done in collaboration with, or with the assistance of, others, is indicated as such. Any views expressed in the dissertation are those of the author. SIGNED: ……………………………………………… DATE: ……………………………. v vi Table of Contents A Note on the Transliteration ix Table of Illustrations xi Table of Musical Examples xiii Introduction 1 Comparison Beyond the Totalitarian Model 6 The Case for a Listener-Centred Approach 14 Affect, Emotion, and Subjectivity 18 Defining Affective Communities 26 Chapter One: The Heart and the Matter: Comparative Contexts 31 Beyond Realism 33 The Attacks Against Musical ‘Illustration’ 38 Film as Affective and Emotional Tool 42 Radio and Recordings: Commodity or Mission? Media Convergence 48 The Genre Film 53 Generic Plot Constructions 60 Conclusion 62 Chapter Two: Shared Musical Experiences: Music, Mediation, and Affective 65 Communities The Utopian Function of the ‘Musical Moment’ 67 Case A: Wunschkonzert and listening with the nation 69 Pseudo-objectivity, Nostalgia, and the ‘virtual image’ 72 Music as Mediation 78 Listening Practices: Auditory Alignment and Shared Subjectivity 82 Music as Reconciliation 90 Case B: Kubanskiye Kazaki and the ‘brotherhood of the nations’ 91 Agro-romanticism and Nostalgia 93 Forms of Pseudo-objectivity 95 Narodnost’ as ‘Other’ 101 Listening Practices: Auditory Alignment and Shared Subjectivity 105 Music as Reconciliation 109 Conclusion 111 Chapter Three: Music in the Comedy Film 115 Humour and Community Construction 115 The ‘Problem’ of Comedy in the Soviet Union 117 Socialist Realism and Comedy: Unlikely Allies? 120 The ‘Eccentric’ Musical Comedies of Grigoriy Aleksandrov 122 Sight and Sound Gags 124 vii Musical Interference 129 Musical Bathos 132 The Crackdown on Political Comedy in Nazi Germany 134 Viktor und Viktoria, Wir machen Musik 136 Music, Bathos, and Ironic Detachment 140 Musical Bathos and the Crisis of Masculinity 141 Farce and the Carnivalesque 145 Conclusion 149 Chapter Four: Death as Audio-Visual Spectacle 151 Death Scenes and Issues of Spectatorship 153 The Political and Narrative Functions of Death Scenes 156 Death as Audio-Visual Spectacle 159 Music and Moments of Shared Subjectivity 160 Music and Legacy: Displacement to the Collective Register 165 ‘The Flag is More Than Death’: Song Links Death to the 166 Political Cause Instrumental Bridges That Mitigate the Finality of Death 170 Conclusion 176 Conclusion 177 Filmography 187 Bibliography 199 viii A Note on the Transliteration I have opted for a slightly modified form of the New Grove convention for transliteration in the main text, which has widely been adopted by anglophone music scholars. I have not used the familiar spellings of names and so Sergei Eisenstein becomes Sergey Eyzenshteyn. However, I have retained the original system used for sources cited. A guide can be found at http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/page/GMO-Users-Manual. ix x Table of Illustrations Figure 2.1. History refracted. The German Team salute Hitler; Wunschkonzert. 72 Figure 2.2. Pseudo-objectivity in the concert sequence. 76 Figure 2.3. Listeners performing tasks with their hands; Wunschkonzert. 79 Figure 2.4. Shwartzkopf communicates through the song ‘Gute Nacht, Mutter’; 81 Wunschkonzert. Figure 2.5. Zarah Leander as Zarah Leander in Die große Liebe. 84 Figure 2.6. The King as all-seeing and all-hearing in Der große König. 89 Figure 2.7. The camera moves from observational position to level of human 93 activity; Kubanskiye Kazaki. Figure 2.8. The camera finally settles on the narrative; Kubanskiye Kazaki. 94 Figure 2.9. Diegetic audience breaks the fourth wall; View from the stage; 96 Kubanskiye Kazaki.