Panel 2
November 9
12h15 –13h45
Chair: Pedro Rodrigues
(INET-MD –FCSH/UNL)
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Lucia di Lammermoor in Scorsese’s The Departed: Assimilations and Caesuras
Candida Mantica
(University of Southampton, UK)
26 years after his Raging Bull (1980), which included non-diegetic uses of music from Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, Guglielmo Ratcliff and Silvano, Martin Scorsese returned to Italian operatic quotations in The Departed (2006). While in Raging Bull the recurrence of opera provided a structural frame connoting boxer Jake La Motta’s descending trajectory, Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in The Departed performs an entirely different function. Associated to the multi-faceted Irish mobster Frank Costello, its verious occurrences include a diegetic performance, which precedes a cocaine orgy party, several non-diegetic presences accompanying Costello toward his epilogue, and a final irreverent appearance as the ringtone of Costello’s mobile phone, which strikes the tune of the opera’s famous ‘sextet’ as soon as he has been shot dead.
Scorsese’s use of Lucia in The Departed overtly references Howard Hawks’ pioneering gangster film Scarface (1932), in which Italian-American mobster Tony Camonte (Al Capone) used to whistle the tune of “Chi mi frena in tal momento” as a prelude to his murderous acts. I argue that on one hand, this reference in itself assimilates the Italian-American Mob in the first half of the twentieth century to the Irish Mob in present-day Boston (and ideally to any analogous context). On the other hand, Scorsese’s contextual use of Lucia in key sequences of The Departed, sets a caesura between these two worlds, and contributes to a more up-to-date depiction of Costello’s lifestyle made of sex, cocaine, technological devices, emancipated women and ‘rats’.
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Horror of Opera, Beauty of Violence: Dario Argento's Terror at the Opera (1987)
Rebecca Geoffroy-Schwinden
(Duke University, USA)
In his horror film Terror at the Opera (1987), Italian filmmaker Dario Argento exploits the tensions between opera and cinema to critique the hypocrisy of film critics' denigration of horror film as a popular genre. In doing so, he simultaneously puts the elite status of opera into question. Through his revelation of the similarities between Italian opera and Italian
horror film, Argento plays on the unsettled relationship between opera and cinema, and as a result challenges the taste of the spectator, who is at times rendered incapable of distinguishing between the two art forms. L. Andrew Cooper, Will Wright, Maitland McDonagh and Douglas Winter have all described Opera as Argento’s answer to his critics (1), yet none have considered his juxtaposition of opera and cinema as integral to this argument.
Through the analysis of musical and filmic techniques found within particular scenes of Opera, this paper will explore Argento's complication of the relationship between Italian opera and Italian horror film. Questions to be asked include: how does Argento employ opera in cinema and vice versa, and to what ends? How does his juxtaposition of heavy metal and bel canto opera support the conflation between opera and cinema? Finally, can we use Argento's film as a case study to examine the specific role music plays within these encounters? Mobilizing theories about the interaction between classical and popular registers as set forth in Michael Long's Beautiful Monsters as well as theories of horror film spectatorship, this paper will seek
to combine the methodologies of film studies and musicology. By problematizing rather than resolving the tension between opera and film, Argento raises the encounter to an art form in itself and thus insists that the relationship between the two should never be settled.
(1) See Will Wright, “Argento and the Giallo: Dario Argento, Mastro Auteur or Master Misogynist?” Offscreen 10, no. 4 (April 2006); Douglas Winter, “Opera of Violence: The films of Dario Argento,” Cut! Horror Writers on Horror Films, ed. Christopher Golden (New York: Berkley Books, 1992); Maitland McDonagh, Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento (London: Sun Tavern Fields, 1991); and L. Andrew Cooper,“The Indulgence of Critique: Relocating the Sadistic Voyeur in Dario Argento’s Opera,”Quarterly Review of Film and Video 22 (2005):63-72.
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Space Opera, About a Term and a Genre of New Hollywood
Stefan Schmidl
(Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria)
In their search for different aesthetics New Hollywood directors not only re-formulated older genres (like F. F. Coppola did with THE GODFATHER, 1972), but created new ones. Among these was the so called “space opera”, a term invented by author Wilson Tucker and generally applied to George Lucasʼ enormously successful STAR WARS (1977), suggesting a synthesis of the paradigms of music theatre and science fiction film. Thus it is the aim of my paper to
cross-read the filmʼs reception with the actual structure of STAR WARS. It should be examined whether it was first the archetypical dramaturgy that was considered “operatic” or rather the leitmotific score by John Williams with its retrospective references to composers like Wagner and Korngold (minus diegetic singing). Furthermore it is of interest why genuinely “filmic” techniques of STAR WARS like the cut (in the manner of 1930’s cinema) or Lucasʼ takeovers of celebrated shots by Riefenstahl and Eisenstein went almost unnoticed in favour of the mentioned elements assumed to have their origins in opera. Considering STAR WARS with its variously appreciated and ascribed components should be indicative for illuminating New Hollywood’s practice of synthesizing genres and the ways these hybrids are received.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
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November 9
12h15 –13h45
Chair: Pedro Rodrigues
(INET-MD –FCSH/UNL)
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Lucia di Lammermoor in Scorsese’s The Departed: Assimilations and Caesuras
Candida Mantica
(University of Southampton, UK)
26 years after his Raging Bull (1980), which included non-diegetic uses of music from Pietro Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana, Guglielmo Ratcliff and Silvano, Martin Scorsese returned to Italian operatic quotations in The Departed (2006). While in Raging Bull the recurrence of opera provided a structural frame connoting boxer Jake La Motta’s descending trajectory, Gaetano Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in The Departed performs an entirely different function. Associated to the multi-faceted Irish mobster Frank Costello, its verious occurrences include a diegetic performance, which precedes a cocaine orgy party, several non-diegetic presences accompanying Costello toward his epilogue, and a final irreverent appearance as the ringtone of Costello’s mobile phone, which strikes the tune of the opera’s famous ‘sextet’ as soon as he has been shot dead.
Scorsese’s use of Lucia in The Departed overtly references Howard Hawks’ pioneering gangster film Scarface (1932), in which Italian-American mobster Tony Camonte (Al Capone) used to whistle the tune of “Chi mi frena in tal momento” as a prelude to his murderous acts. I argue that on one hand, this reference in itself assimilates the Italian-American Mob in the first half of the twentieth century to the Irish Mob in present-day Boston (and ideally to any analogous context). On the other hand, Scorsese’s contextual use of Lucia in key sequences of The Departed, sets a caesura between these two worlds, and contributes to a more up-to-date depiction of Costello’s lifestyle made of sex, cocaine, technological devices, emancipated women and ‘rats’.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Horror of Opera, Beauty of Violence: Dario Argento's Terror at the Opera (1987)
Rebecca Geoffroy-Schwinden
(Duke University, USA)
In his horror film Terror at the Opera (1987), Italian filmmaker Dario Argento exploits the tensions between opera and cinema to critique the hypocrisy of film critics' denigration of horror film as a popular genre. In doing so, he simultaneously puts the elite status of opera into question. Through his revelation of the similarities between Italian opera and Italian
horror film, Argento plays on the unsettled relationship between opera and cinema, and as a result challenges the taste of the spectator, who is at times rendered incapable of distinguishing between the two art forms. L. Andrew Cooper, Will Wright, Maitland McDonagh and Douglas Winter have all described Opera as Argento’s answer to his critics (1), yet none have considered his juxtaposition of opera and cinema as integral to this argument.
Through the analysis of musical and filmic techniques found within particular scenes of Opera, this paper will explore Argento's complication of the relationship between Italian opera and Italian horror film. Questions to be asked include: how does Argento employ opera in cinema and vice versa, and to what ends? How does his juxtaposition of heavy metal and bel canto opera support the conflation between opera and cinema? Finally, can we use Argento's film as a case study to examine the specific role music plays within these encounters? Mobilizing theories about the interaction between classical and popular registers as set forth in Michael Long's Beautiful Monsters as well as theories of horror film spectatorship, this paper will seek
to combine the methodologies of film studies and musicology. By problematizing rather than resolving the tension between opera and film, Argento raises the encounter to an art form in itself and thus insists that the relationship between the two should never be settled.
(1) See Will Wright, “Argento and the Giallo: Dario Argento, Mastro Auteur or Master Misogynist?” Offscreen 10, no. 4 (April 2006); Douglas Winter, “Opera of Violence: The films of Dario Argento,” Cut! Horror Writers on Horror Films, ed. Christopher Golden (New York: Berkley Books, 1992); Maitland McDonagh, Broken Mirrors/Broken Minds: The Dark Dreams of Dario Argento (London: Sun Tavern Fields, 1991); and L. Andrew Cooper,“The Indulgence of Critique: Relocating the Sadistic Voyeur in Dario Argento’s Opera,”Quarterly Review of Film and Video 22 (2005):63-72.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Space Opera, About a Term and a Genre of New Hollywood
Stefan Schmidl
(Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austria)
In their search for different aesthetics New Hollywood directors not only re-formulated older genres (like F. F. Coppola did with THE GODFATHER, 1972), but created new ones. Among these was the so called “space opera”, a term invented by author Wilson Tucker and generally applied to George Lucasʼ enormously successful STAR WARS (1977), suggesting a synthesis of the paradigms of music theatre and science fiction film. Thus it is the aim of my paper to
cross-read the filmʼs reception with the actual structure of STAR WARS. It should be examined whether it was first the archetypical dramaturgy that was considered “operatic” or rather the leitmotific score by John Williams with its retrospective references to composers like Wagner and Korngold (minus diegetic singing). Furthermore it is of interest why genuinely “filmic” techniques of STAR WARS like the cut (in the manner of 1930’s cinema) or Lucasʼ takeovers of celebrated shots by Riefenstahl and Eisenstein went almost unnoticed in favour of the mentioned elements assumed to have their origins in opera. Considering STAR WARS with its variously appreciated and ascribed components should be indicative for illuminating New Hollywood’s practice of synthesizing genres and the ways these hybrids are received.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::