Panel 5
November 10
11h15–13h15
Chair: João Pedro Cachopo
(CESEM – FCSH/UNL)
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Film and Opera: the Idea of a Total Artwork
Teresa Pedro
(Technische Universität zu Berlin, Germany; IFL – FCSH/UNL, Portugal)
In order to grasp the status of the cinematic art, classical film theory has often referred to the hybrid nature of opera, comparing it to the hybrid nature of film. In this context, film theory recognizes close artistic affinities between the two art forms. In my talk, I will adress the question of the significance of this topos arguing that the aesthetic stake of this comparison is that the idea of a “total artwork” (Gesamtkunstwerk) is a category that is able to articulate the artistic status of both film and opera. In the first part of my talk, I will trace back the motiv of a “total artwork” in German Romanticism and I will analyse the texts of Richard Wagner that popularized this notion such as Die Kunst und die Revolution (Art and Revolution) and Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft (The artwork of the future). In the second part of my talk, I will analyse Wagner’s attempt to think of opera as a total artwork that combines drama, poetry, music, the plastic arts and dance. I will compare Wagner’s idea with the idea of film theory, according to
which film, as opera, attempts to make a synthesis of the arts. I will consider here, among others texts, Erwin Panofsky’s Style and medium in the motion pictures and Stanley Cavell’s Opera in (and As) Film. Finally, I will consider the extent to which the theoretical encounter of film and opera actually clarifies the role of artistic practices of opera and cinema.
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The Film Goyescas Based on Enrique Granados's Homonymous Opera:
Opera and Tonadilla, Both Symbols of Social (Dis)order in the Early Franco's Regime
Miriam Perandones
(Universidad de Oviedo, Spain)
The film Goyescas (Benito Perojo, 1942) is a folkloric movie (according to Juan de la Mata Moncho's classification), subgenre that was born during the Second Republic and continued during the early Franco regime. These films had to re-adapt their narrative to the Spanish ideals of the new political environment: religiousness, military heroism and the idea of Castile as a nation.
The opera Goyescas (1914) by Enrique Granados (1867-1916), though created during the
Restauration, already deals with some of these topics, partly due to the collaboration with Granado’s lyricist Fernando Periquet y Zuaznábar (1873-1940). Periquet, who will become affiliate to the Spanish Falangist Movement, was in favor of a Catholic Spain and a belligerent nationalism that emerges from the historical Spanish tradition. In music, since the first decades of the 20th century, he had already tried to recover the Spanish tonadilla of the 18th century. His relative, Rogelio Periquet, will be one of the impellers of this film, that was created with the approval of the highest Spanish authority.
In this paper I will analyze the reutilization and continuity of musical and literary symbols of the opera in the movie, as well as its resignification. I will present two different musical levels linked to both social classes, the aristocratic and the popular, portrayed in the film through two characters: the Condesa de Gualda and the tonadillera Petrilla. Perojo not only establishes the
social hierarchy using the musical material of the opera and the contemporary popular tonadilla written by the Maestro Quiroga (1899-1988), but also Perojo indicates an apparent confusion between social classes through the music, underlined by the use of only one actress, Imperio Argentina, for both main characters.
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Turning Wagner Japanese: Mishima Yukio's Patriotism (1966)
Brooke McCorkle
(University of Pennsylvania, USA)
Cinema scholars invariably invoke Wagner’s operas as precursors to film music. The recent monograph Wagner in Cinema devotes itself entirely to the composer’s influence on the celluloid medium. However, despite these claims for the composer’s influence on film music, present scholarship ignores the role Wagner’s music plays in non-Western cinema. This paper begins to remedy this lack with a hermeneutic reading of the Japanese silent film Patriotism (1966). Ostensibly nationalistic in tone, the film is based on the 1936 military coup in Japan. Mishima Yukio, who serves as writer, director, and lead actor, graphically depicts the ritual disembowelment of the soldier Takeyama and the subsequent suicide of his wife Reiko. Seemingly incongruous with the nationalist narrative, Mishima chose music from Tristan und Isolde to accompany his film. I argue that this decision transforms Patriotism from a mundane propaganda film into a Symbolist commentary on modern Japanese history and aesthetics.
This paper traces the multiple ways Tristan’s music contributes to the film’s narrative. First, I investigate Mishima’s reasons for using Tristan und Isolde, and specifically his appropriation of an excerpt from a 1930s recording by Leopold Stokowski. I then interpret the music’s meaning within the film. On a superficial level, Wagner’s music signifies two things: a pair of doomed lovers and the wartime alliance between Japan and fascist Germany. But a more careful
reading illuminates Mishima’s synthesis of Wagnerian and Japanese aesthetics in his film. By using Wagner’s music, Mishima appropriates the dichotomies encapsulated in Tristan into the modern Japanese aesthetic: the tension between ancient and modern, the sexual and the spiritual, and the linguistic and the ineffable. I focus on three scenes in the film: the lieutenant’s arrival, the final love-making, and the suicide. It is through his appropriation of Tristan und Isolde in these scenes that Mishima furthers his nationalist nostalgia.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Playing with the National History: Andrzej Żuławski’s Film Version of Boris Godunov
Ryszard Daniel Golianek
(Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland)
Boris Godunov (1989) directed by Andrzej Żuławski, one of the most successful and influencial Polish film directors of the 20th century, is his unique film based on an opera. The story depicted in the film closely follows the operatic narration although cutting some important episodes of Mussorgsky’s music resulted in the fragmentation of the plot (the film takes 115 minuts only, which is about 1/3 less than the music of the opera).
Żuławski’s original (and quite controversial) attitude of presenting the story makes his version quite exceptional. Postmodern mixture of various types of film narration, juxtaposing historical facts and sophisticated fantasy, as well as employing many clichés typical of popular culture enabled the director to create a particular vision that attracted not only opera fans but also numerous film spectators.
Amongst various levels of originality, Żuławski’s way of depicting and evaluating events borrowed from the early 17th century Russian and Polish history seems quite unexpected. The reception of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov in the 19th and 20th centuries, both in Russia and Poland, used to deal strongly with such categories as national proud, cultural identification and epic narration. Not accepting this canonic trace of interpretation (which could be found for instance in Vera Stroyeva’s film of 1954), the Polish director presents his particular attitude towards the national history. In Żuławski’s formulation, the Musorgssky’s masterpiece looses its heroic traces; thus the director provokes a deeper discussion regarding the role of history and propaganda in the contemporary societies. It seems that the evaluational shifting of this kind was the main reason that forced Mstislav Rostropovich (whose musical performance was used in the film) to disagree with the director’s version.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
November 10
11h15–13h15
Chair: João Pedro Cachopo
(CESEM – FCSH/UNL)
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Film and Opera: the Idea of a Total Artwork
Teresa Pedro
(Technische Universität zu Berlin, Germany; IFL – FCSH/UNL, Portugal)
In order to grasp the status of the cinematic art, classical film theory has often referred to the hybrid nature of opera, comparing it to the hybrid nature of film. In this context, film theory recognizes close artistic affinities between the two art forms. In my talk, I will adress the question of the significance of this topos arguing that the aesthetic stake of this comparison is that the idea of a “total artwork” (Gesamtkunstwerk) is a category that is able to articulate the artistic status of both film and opera. In the first part of my talk, I will trace back the motiv of a “total artwork” in German Romanticism and I will analyse the texts of Richard Wagner that popularized this notion such as Die Kunst und die Revolution (Art and Revolution) and Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft (The artwork of the future). In the second part of my talk, I will analyse Wagner’s attempt to think of opera as a total artwork that combines drama, poetry, music, the plastic arts and dance. I will compare Wagner’s idea with the idea of film theory, according to
which film, as opera, attempts to make a synthesis of the arts. I will consider here, among others texts, Erwin Panofsky’s Style and medium in the motion pictures and Stanley Cavell’s Opera in (and As) Film. Finally, I will consider the extent to which the theoretical encounter of film and opera actually clarifies the role of artistic practices of opera and cinema.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
The Film Goyescas Based on Enrique Granados's Homonymous Opera:
Opera and Tonadilla, Both Symbols of Social (Dis)order in the Early Franco's Regime
Miriam Perandones
(Universidad de Oviedo, Spain)
The film Goyescas (Benito Perojo, 1942) is a folkloric movie (according to Juan de la Mata Moncho's classification), subgenre that was born during the Second Republic and continued during the early Franco regime. These films had to re-adapt their narrative to the Spanish ideals of the new political environment: religiousness, military heroism and the idea of Castile as a nation.
The opera Goyescas (1914) by Enrique Granados (1867-1916), though created during the
Restauration, already deals with some of these topics, partly due to the collaboration with Granado’s lyricist Fernando Periquet y Zuaznábar (1873-1940). Periquet, who will become affiliate to the Spanish Falangist Movement, was in favor of a Catholic Spain and a belligerent nationalism that emerges from the historical Spanish tradition. In music, since the first decades of the 20th century, he had already tried to recover the Spanish tonadilla of the 18th century. His relative, Rogelio Periquet, will be one of the impellers of this film, that was created with the approval of the highest Spanish authority.
In this paper I will analyze the reutilization and continuity of musical and literary symbols of the opera in the movie, as well as its resignification. I will present two different musical levels linked to both social classes, the aristocratic and the popular, portrayed in the film through two characters: the Condesa de Gualda and the tonadillera Petrilla. Perojo not only establishes the
social hierarchy using the musical material of the opera and the contemporary popular tonadilla written by the Maestro Quiroga (1899-1988), but also Perojo indicates an apparent confusion between social classes through the music, underlined by the use of only one actress, Imperio Argentina, for both main characters.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Turning Wagner Japanese: Mishima Yukio's Patriotism (1966)
Brooke McCorkle
(University of Pennsylvania, USA)
Cinema scholars invariably invoke Wagner’s operas as precursors to film music. The recent monograph Wagner in Cinema devotes itself entirely to the composer’s influence on the celluloid medium. However, despite these claims for the composer’s influence on film music, present scholarship ignores the role Wagner’s music plays in non-Western cinema. This paper begins to remedy this lack with a hermeneutic reading of the Japanese silent film Patriotism (1966). Ostensibly nationalistic in tone, the film is based on the 1936 military coup in Japan. Mishima Yukio, who serves as writer, director, and lead actor, graphically depicts the ritual disembowelment of the soldier Takeyama and the subsequent suicide of his wife Reiko. Seemingly incongruous with the nationalist narrative, Mishima chose music from Tristan und Isolde to accompany his film. I argue that this decision transforms Patriotism from a mundane propaganda film into a Symbolist commentary on modern Japanese history and aesthetics.
This paper traces the multiple ways Tristan’s music contributes to the film’s narrative. First, I investigate Mishima’s reasons for using Tristan und Isolde, and specifically his appropriation of an excerpt from a 1930s recording by Leopold Stokowski. I then interpret the music’s meaning within the film. On a superficial level, Wagner’s music signifies two things: a pair of doomed lovers and the wartime alliance between Japan and fascist Germany. But a more careful
reading illuminates Mishima’s synthesis of Wagnerian and Japanese aesthetics in his film. By using Wagner’s music, Mishima appropriates the dichotomies encapsulated in Tristan into the modern Japanese aesthetic: the tension between ancient and modern, the sexual and the spiritual, and the linguistic and the ineffable. I focus on three scenes in the film: the lieutenant’s arrival, the final love-making, and the suicide. It is through his appropriation of Tristan und Isolde in these scenes that Mishima furthers his nationalist nostalgia.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Playing with the National History: Andrzej Żuławski’s Film Version of Boris Godunov
Ryszard Daniel Golianek
(Adam Mickiewicz University, Poland)
Boris Godunov (1989) directed by Andrzej Żuławski, one of the most successful and influencial Polish film directors of the 20th century, is his unique film based on an opera. The story depicted in the film closely follows the operatic narration although cutting some important episodes of Mussorgsky’s music resulted in the fragmentation of the plot (the film takes 115 minuts only, which is about 1/3 less than the music of the opera).
Żuławski’s original (and quite controversial) attitude of presenting the story makes his version quite exceptional. Postmodern mixture of various types of film narration, juxtaposing historical facts and sophisticated fantasy, as well as employing many clichés typical of popular culture enabled the director to create a particular vision that attracted not only opera fans but also numerous film spectators.
Amongst various levels of originality, Żuławski’s way of depicting and evaluating events borrowed from the early 17th century Russian and Polish history seems quite unexpected. The reception of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov in the 19th and 20th centuries, both in Russia and Poland, used to deal strongly with such categories as national proud, cultural identification and epic narration. Not accepting this canonic trace of interpretation (which could be found for instance in Vera Stroyeva’s film of 1954), the Polish director presents his particular attitude towards the national history. In Żuławski’s formulation, the Musorgssky’s masterpiece looses its heroic traces; thus the director provokes a deeper discussion regarding the role of history and propaganda in the contemporary societies. It seems that the evaluational shifting of this kind was the main reason that forced Mstislav Rostropovich (whose musical performance was used in the film) to disagree with the director’s version.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::