Wagner at the Movies

In 1849, when Richard Wagner proposed the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk or an artistic effort coordinating all the arts, the motion picture camera was still 30 years in the future, silent films with a narrative structure were a further 20 years away and the first sound feature film ‘The Jazz Singer’ wouldn’t be released until 1927.  Yet when you stop to consider it, Gesamtkunstwerk is an apt definition of a motion picture a bringing together of all the arts disciplines under one artistic direction. Anyone who has sat through to the very end of a film will attest to the large number of disciplines and people involved.  It is appropriate then that Wagner’s music has been part of the history of film from the early days of silent cinema right through to the present day.

Wagner’s concept of Gestamtkunstwerk may be a good definition of a feature film, but his influence in the medium goes a lot deeper. Firstly, music as a psychological tool, which he used in his Music dramas, has been used to great effect by film composers. Who can forget John Williams’ ‘Jaws’ theme that instantly warns of danger by implying the shark's presence even when it can't be seen on screen? What about the famous shower scene in Hitchcock’s ‘Psycho’, that is underscored by Bernard Hermann’s truly terrifying music.

Secondly, film composers like Williams, Hermann and ‘Lord of the Rings’ composer, Howard Shore, have all acknowledged the influence that Wagner has provided in their work. Shore, for instance, talks about studying Wagner’s structure before starting his work on the three ‘Lord of the Rings’ films and, if you listen to the very end of the credits of the last film, ‘Return of the King’, you can hear a nod to the master in a passage that echoes the end of ‘Die Walküre’, the Nature/Rhine motif and the Rainbow Bridge.

Composer Max Steiner, who was a pupil of both Brahms and Mahler and was also the godson of Richard Strauss, was often complimented as the man who invented movie music. His response was “Nonsense. The idea originated with Richard Wagner. If Wagner had lived in this century, he would have been the Number One film composer.”

The third area of Wagner’s involvement in the movies is the use of his music either by direct quote or by adaptation. In the early days of the cinema the adaptation was common and some old movie scores are an absolute delight to listen to. You get Tchaikovsky into Wagner and on to Mendelsohnn all done to match the action on screen. In a 1930’s Flash Gordon film there is even a fight scene accompanied by music from the Prelude to ‘Parsifal’!

These days it is far more likely that direct quotes of Wagner’s music will be used. The Wedding March (‘Here comes the Bride’) would be the most common with most film weddings including it. Another popular piece is ‘The Ride of the Valkyries’ which moved in to mainstream cinema with the 1979 film ‘Apocalypse Now!’

Here’s a question for you.

Can you name the three most used ‘classical’ composers in film?

A fairly straight forward question but unless you know where to look one can do no better than to guess. These days the answer is literally at your fingertips and the key to finding the solution is the internet. Amongst the dull, dubious and dangerous sites on the world-wide-web there are some that are interesting and informative, including a number that allow you to search for information about feature films. A typical site is the Internet Movie Database www.imdb.com. It is exactly what it says: it is a database that contains a massive amount of information on movies including films made for television. The site allows you to search for all sorts of information about actors, directors, cameramen, clappers, best boys and gaffers! You can also retrieve information about the music.

To find out about the films that feature Wagner’s music, search for Richard Wagner. Within a second it will present you with a list of 8 Richard Wagners ranging from the composer to actors and technicians.

By clicking on the link to the composer (the one at the top, above) you are taken to a new page that lists all the films in which Wagner’s music appears (see top of centre column). As of the beginning of June we can see the latest film, Perceval (2008) is in pre-production and will feature extracts from Parsifal. The first to feature Wagner (on page 8, not shown) was the 1926 film Overture: Tannhäuser which is slightly strange as it would have been a silent film! Following this procedure, by combining all the information from the Internet Movie Database and a number of similar sites (for example: www.hollywood.com), I was able to produce a list featuring nearly 400 films!

Once the list had been compiled it was then a matter of trying to locate copies of the films. Many have disappeared without trace but, by cross checking with Amazon to see if the films were commercially on DVD or video and then searching one of the world’s great video libraries, Alice’s, based in Christchurch, it was possible to view well over 100 films and compile extracts from over 70 for a presentation.

Almost all film genres are represented from drama to comedy, action to war and arthouse to surreal! Unfortunately a Western featuring Wagner could not be found!

To get back to the question! You will no doubt have guessed that the most ‘used’ classical composer according to the Internet Movie Database is Richard Wagner followed in descending order by Mendelssohn, Mozart, JS Bach, Rossini and Beethoven.

Chris Brodrick

The Wagner Society in Queensland Inc.

 www.wagnersociety.com