hitchcock’s music (review)

Hitchcocks Music (review)

Ciarn Crilly

Music, Sound, and the Moving Image, Volume 4, Issue 1, Spring 2010,pp. 117-122 (Article)

Published by Liverpool University PressDOI: 10.1353/msm.0.0076

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There has long been considerable interest in music composed for AlfredHitchcocks films, in no small part due to the attention paid to thedirectors favourite collaborator, Bernard Herrmann. This famouslyirrascible New Yorker scored seven of Hitchcocks movies, including theglorious triumvirate of Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest (1959) and Psycho(1960), and an examination of his musical contribution to the Hitchcockcanon alone would be sufficient to fill a single study. In fact, Herrmannsscore for Vertigo has been deemed worthy of a volume in its own right (seeCooper 2001). Hitchcock also collaborated with many of the other greatmid-century Hollywood composers (Alfred Newman, Franz Waxman,Mikls Rzsa and Dmitri Tiomkin among them), but in Hitchcocks MusicJack Sullivan chooses to cast his critical net still further, with a firstattempt to consider all the musical contributions to Hitchcocks film andtelevision art. This is an ambitious endeavour, requiring the evaluation ofsome 53 feature films, plus work on the television shows Alfred HitchcockPresents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.

Faithful to the maxim expounded by Peter Conrad in The HitchcockMurders that anyone who is genuinely fascinated by Hitchcock will findall his work indispensable (xiv), Sullivan opts for a chronologicalapproach. The result is a painstaking journey through an enormousbody of work. On occasion, Sullivan allocates more space to material thathe feels warrants closer attention, or where there is an abundance ofsource material to draw upon. This enables extended sections on films inwhich music has a significant narrative role (Rear Window for example),where the music is of exceptional quality and already held in high regard(Vertigo), or where the background to the score is of particular conse-quence. To this end, there is a fascinating account of Hitchcocksseemingly endless memo-driven dealings with producer David O.Selznick on Rebecca, Hitchcocks first American-made film and his onlyone to have received a Best Picture Oscar (though it was Selznick whopicked up the award).

Sullivans book seeks to elevate the status of film music, enabling his

MSMI 4:1 Spring 10 117

Jack Sullivan, Hitchcocks Music (New Haven, CT, and London:Yale University Press, 2006), 354pp.

review by Ciarn Crilly

readers to rethink how they might experience a film, although onoccasion he is unnecessarily biased towards the importance or quality ofthe score. In The Paradine Case, for example, he believes that mostmemorable of all is Franz Waxmans music (140), while Miklos Rzsasrather overbearing music for Spellbound has stood the test of time longerthan [the scores of] Vertigo and Psycho (123). While Sullivan should belauded for attempting to leave no musical stone unturned in Hitchcocksoeuvre, some form of schematic appendix, such as that in Donald Spotosbiography and Franois Truffauts set of interviews, would have beenwelcome, with a focus solely on the music, composers and performers.

Sullivans critique is at its best when it highlights the contrasts betweendramatic action and musical message, a dissonant technique employed togenerate irony. Particularly notable examples include the use of theMerry Widow Waltz in Shadow of a Doubt (chapter 6) and the thematiccrisscrossing that mirrors the main plot twist in And The Band PlayedOn in Strangers on a Train (chapter 12). Chapter 9 contains some persua-sive passages concerning the strategically-placed clues in Roy Webbsscore for Notorious. Sullivan also draws some significant conclusions aboutfilm music in general, claiming that film nurtured the acceptance of newromantic music when it was otherwise unfashionable, while modernistmusic could be found in appropriate narrative contexts, such as the cuesassociated with murder and madness in Psycho (258).

Any attempt to tackle this topic in the past has been in the form ofcritical biographies of Hitchcock or of the individual composers, mostnotably Steven C. Smiths study of Herrmann, A Heart at Fires Center,which Sullivan cites extensively. The special relationship betweenHitchcock and Herrmann explored in Smiths book is portrayed on itscover: the composer is seen conducting the London SymphonyOrchestra in the climactic scene of The Man Who Knew Too Much (the 1956colour remake). Is the visual prominence of Hitchcocks favouritemusical collaborator a statement on the significance attached to music bythe director? Or does it simply flag up the significance of music in thisparticular film? As Herrmann was not a star in his own right this ishardly Stokowski with Mickey Mouse in Fantasia maybe it is neither.

However, this is surely a better illustration of the importance of musicin Hitchcocks films than the image chosen to adorn the cover ofSullivans ultimately disappointing book: Hitchcock, performing one ofhis thumbprint cameos, is seen boarding a train with a cumbersomedouble bass (an instrument echoing his own bulky shape) and getting inthe way of tennis pro Guy Haines (Farley Grainger) in Strangers on aTrain. Although this film still makes the connection between director andmusic before the books text has even begun, the link is, in fact, token.

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Jack Sullivan, Hitchcocks Music review by Ciarn Crilly

Such superficiality might be highlighted by an observation early in thebook that Hitchcocks first image was a musical one: the frantic, spinningjazz dancer in the opening shot of The Pleasure Garden, his debut filmfrom 1926 (xv). Had the image been of a jazz musician, this would havebeen truer; a jazz dancer is something rather different.

A more fundamental problem is Sullivans failure to deal with issuesone might expect to be discussed: how music functions in Hitchcocksfilms in terms of its language and construction; and how well it succeeds.From the perspective of musical analysis, two further issues might beaddressed: how the music functions on its own terms; and how it functionsin relation to the film. These do not appear to be critical priorities forSullivan, and too often we get an account of what the music is doing,rather than an analysis of how this is achieved, and whether or not itfunctions as intended. In Spellbound for example, we encounter theperfect illustration of a musical score that was a success on its own terms,as evinced by its reception on separate record release. Yet it tends tooverwhelm as a film score, as Hitchcock himself ackowledged whendiscussing a particular scene: Unfortunately, the violins begin to play justthen. That was terrible! (Truffaut 1985: 165). Rzsas score forces its wayinto the foreground at the expense of narrative seamlessness, yet Sullivancontends that what Hitchock regarded as the terrible schmaltz of thelove theme is what audiences go away with, holding this up as evidenceof the scores strength (109). Despite Hitchcocks musical authority anddecisiveness, Sullivan clearly feels that the director was mistaken: Rzsasscore is memorable precisely because its robust Romanticism worksagainst Hitchocks cool sensibility, claims Sullivan, highlighting effectivelythe basic problem (126). This is decidedly not in keeping with the thesisof Hitchcock-as-maestro proposed in the books final section, whichsuggests that every flick of the directors baton yielded a correspondinggesture musical, visual or otherwise in the body of the film. Apart fromthis, the Spellbound chapter is typical in its abundance of well-researchedbackgound information on the film (notably the constant interference ofSelznick) alongside an inventory-like briefing on the music. For Sullivan,however, nothing more penetrating is required, as Rzsa had the lastword. He won the Academy Award for Best Score (115).

Persistent problems throughout the book are the lack of specificityconcerning the music, and misappropriated musical terminology.Poulencs Mouvement Perptuel No. 1, for example, is deemed an early-minimalist piano solo, incorporating relentless circling and recapitula-tion of a single idea (145). Likewise, the Vertigo score is considered tohave a waltz for a Prelude, while the music for Scotties initial pursuit ofMadeleine consists of hypnotic cha-cha chords (230). In the absence of



any meaningful musical analysis, we are left with a catalogue of vaguestabs at jargon and description. On one page (161), we must make whatwe will of a Tchaikovskian variation, growling Bartkian brass, a carnyGtterdmmerung and somber Mussorgskian chimes, none of whichare qualified with any substantial reference point to the composers orworks cited. A few pages later (166), we are afforded a possible clue to theorigin of one of the above:

Tiomkin unleashes one of his most harrowing cues, a variation onMussorgskys coronation scene from Boris Godunov, its relentless chimessuggesting a huge clock rather than the Russian cathedral bells in theopera.

So, for somber Mussorgskian chimes, perhaps we simply have thechimes of a Russian cathedral, bypassing the redundant reference to theoperatic canon.

In the chapter on Vertigo, we are offered a claim that can be madeabout any number of films: This is one movie that is impossible toimagine without its music (222). And a couple of lines later: Indeed, itis hard to think of any movie more dependent upon the seductiveness ofits score (222). The nebulous terminology and bland critique becomestiresome for a reader demanding more substance, and it is nothing shortof exasperating when musical examples are printed from original scoreswhile their content is ignored in the text. Of the inaccuracies that occur,the most conspicuous is a reference to the composer of the Storm CloudsCantata from The Man Who Knew Too Much (both versions) as WalterBenjamin (144); this glaring error even makes its way into the index.

Sullivans study frequently gives the impression that Hitchcock himselfwas the scorer of his own films, or at least that he had absolute controlover the minutiae of musical contributions to them, a thesis submitted inthe final section (labelled Finale to match the opening Overture).Indeed, the very title of the book (and its cover image) signals thismessage. While the analogy of orchestra conductor and film director isno doubt apt, it does not support the claim that Hitchcock was entirelyresponsible for all musical decision-making. For a musicologist, it isjarring to read how Hitchcocks musical signatures were present fromthe beginning (320), or how he aligns himself with Ravel, Milhaud,Constant Lambert, and other European concert composers (320), or theway his music resonates in overt spin-offs, homages, installations, andpastiches (321). This is an injustice to the individuals truly behind themusic in his films. After all, one of Hitchcocks greater strengths lay in hisability to not obsess about the perception of him as sole author of these



works (although he was adept at taking credit for them when it suitedhim). In fact, it was Hitchcocks understanding of his own limitations thatspurred him on to find individuals best qualified to compose dialogue orameliorate other aspects of his movies. On the topic of composers,Hitchcock revealed the following in an interview:

Ive always found with musicians youre in their hands anyway. What canyou do? So very often Ive been asked not necessarily by Mr. Herrmann,but by other musicians they say, Come down, I want to know what youthink of this. You go down and you say, I dont care for it Well you cantchange it; its all scored. So the next time you take care and you say, Canyou play me some and let me hear some before you go to the expense of anorchestra? Oh no, no. You cant play it on a piano. Its not possible. Sothere is no way to find out. So you are in the hands of a musician.

(Telescope: a Talk with Hitchcock, 1964)

In the famous instance of the shower scene in Psycho, Herrmann related:

And, ah, when the music was recorded and we were dubbing the film andwe got to the murder scene and we ran the scenes without the music andthen I suggested to Hitch that I would like to show him the same sceneswith music. And he said, I thought we agreed not to have any. And I said,We can have it that way, but at least listen to it the way I feel about it, thatway I have written it. And he said immediately We must have the music,of course! And I said, But you were against it. And he said, Oh, no. All Imade was a poor suggestion.

(ibid.)

These recollections demonstrate how Hitchcock dealt with composers andthey with him, painting a picture at odds with Sullivans image of a directorwho could or would take credit for a unique musical legacy (318).

In this book, then, we seek critical appraisal, but instead find indis-criminate praise. Of three late Hitchcock films that do not match up tohis best work (and for which music must share some of the culpability),Sullivans assessment is that: What Hitchcock got from Maurice Jarre,Ron Goodwin, and John Williams was topflight (290). The sidesteppingor fudging of technical issues is at times infuriating. But it is the failureto recognise the potential weaknesses in some of the music underscrutiny, together with an inability (rather than active decision) to tacklethe music itself on any meaningful level, that proves to be the maininadequacy of the book. Hitchcocks Music disappoints because the idea ofsuch a study promises much but too often fails to deliver. It might haveworked better had Sullivan restricted himself to those films or TV showsin which music has a prominent narrative role, such as Young and



Innocent, Shadow of a Doubt, Rear Window or The Man Who Knew Too Much.Although Sullivan dedicates a chapter to the latter film (the 1956version), he neglects to explore Hitchcocks most telling pronouncementabout music in his films: on the attempted murder scene in the AlbertHall, involving a cymbal crash, the director felt that ideally, for that sceneto have maximum effect, all of the viewers should be able to read amusical score(Truffaut 1985: 231) an opportunity missed.

Sullivan makes a discouraging admission almost at the outset:

It is difficult to pin down Hitchcocks exact contribution and degree ofcontrol in the final mix Nonetheless, the musical patterns are so aston-ishingly consistent with Hitchcockian music in later films that it is reason-able to assume he controlled a great deal.

(3)

Such assumptions leave the scholar dangerously open to inaccuraciesand, in turn, falsely drawn conclusions.

References

Cooper, David (2001) Bernard Herrmanns Vertigo: A Film Score Handbook,Westport, Connecticut and London: Greenwood Press

Smith, Steven C. (2002) A Heart at Fires Center: The Life and Music of BernardHerrmann, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press

Telescope: a Talk with Hitchcock Pt.1. (1964) CBC Television programme (transcribed at the Bernard Herrmann Society website:http://folk.uib.no/smkgg/midi/soundtrackweb/herrmann/articles/transcript_telescope)

Truffaut, Franois (with Helen G. Scott) (1985) Hitchcock, New York: Simon &Schuster



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