Wagner and Cinema »

Jeongwon Joe is Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of Cincinnati. She is editor of Between Opera and Cinema (with Rose Theresa) and has published articles on Milos Forman's Amadeus, Philip Glass's La Belle et la Bête, David Lynch's Blue Velvet, Gérard Corbiau's Farinelli, and other works related to opera and film music.

Sander L. Gilman is Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences at Emory University. He is author of Fat: A Cultural History of Obesity; Multiculturalism and the Jews; Making the Body Beautiful: A Cultural History of Aesthetic Surgery; Freud, Race, and Gender; and Jewish Self-Hatred: Anti-Semitism and the Hidden Language of the Jews.

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 Tony Palmer ix

Introduction Why Wagner and Cinema? Tolkien Was Wrong Jeongwon Joe 1

Part 1 Wagner and the Silent Film

1 Wagnerian Motives: Narrative Integration and the Development of Silent Film Accompaniment, 1908-1913 James Buhler 27

2 Underscoring Drama-Picturing Music Peter Franklin 46

3 The Life and Works of Richard Wagner (1913): Becce, Froelich, and Messter Paul Fryer 65

4 Listening for Wagner in Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen Adeline Mueller 85

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 111

6 Wagner's Influence on Gender Roles in Early Hollywood Film Eva Rieger 131

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 152

Part 3 Wagner in Hollywood

8 "Soll ich lauschen?": Love-Death in Humoresque Marcia J. Citron 167

9 Hollywood's German Fantasy: Ridley Scott's Gladiator Marc A. Weiner 186

10 Reading Wagner in Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips (1944) Neil Lerner 210

11 Piercing Wagner: The Ring in Golden Earrings Scott D. Paulin 225

Part 4 Wagner in German Cinema

12 Wagner as Leitmotif: The New German Cinema and Beyond Roger Hillman 253

13 The Power of Emotion: Wagner and Film Jeremy Tambling 273

14 Wagner in East Germany: Joachim Herz's Der fliegende Holländer (1964) Joy H. Calico 294

Part 5 Wagner Beyond the Soundtrack

15 Nocturnal Wagner: The Cultural Survival of Tristan und Isolde in Hollywood Elisabeth Bronfen 315

16 Ludwig's Wagner and Visconti's Ludwig Giorgio Biancorosso 333

17 The Tristan Project: Time in Wagner and Viola Jeongwon Joe 358

18 "The Threshold of the Visible World": Wagner, Bill Viola, and Tristan Lawrence Kramer 381

Postlude Looking for Richard: An Archival Search for Wagner Warren M. Sherk 408

Epilogue Some Thoughts about Wagner and Cinema; Opera and Politics; Style and Reception Sander L. Gilman 419

Appendix Interview with Bill Viola Jeongwon Joe 431

Filmography Jeongwon Joe Warren M. Sherk Scott D. Paulin 441

List of Contributors 457

Index 461