Dr Strangelove Question

MP · External Since: Feb 05, 2009 Posts: 16

Dr Strangelove ends with that big mushroom cloud montage, Vera Lynn
singing "We'll Meet Again".

Can anyone think of any pre-Strangelove films that used music as a
sort of comical, ironic counterpoint to the on-screen imagery?

gh · External Since: Oct 19, 2006 Posts: 24

On 2009-06-26 21:19:56 -0400, MP <mystic_prowler.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> said:

> Dr Strangelove ends with that big mushroom cloud montage, Vera Lynn
> singing "We'll Meet Again".
>
> Can anyone think of any pre-Strangelove films that used music as a
> sort of comical, ironic counterpoint to the on-screen imagery?

Yup. "Rose Hobart" made by Joseph Cornell in 1936.
There must be others even before this.

G

gh · External Since: Oct 19, 2006 Posts: 24

On 2009-06-27 01:43:56 -0400, gh said:

> On 2009-06-26 21:19:56 -0400, MP <mystic_prowler.DeleteThis@hotmail.com> said:
>
>> Dr Strangelove ends with that big mushroom cloud montage, Vera Lynn
>> singing "We'll Meet Again".
>>
>> Can anyone think of any pre-Strangelove films that used music as a
>> sort of comical, ironic counterpoint to the on-screen imagery?
>
> Yup. "Rose Hobart" made by Joseph Cornell in 1936.
> There must be others even before this.
>
> G

I forgot about "Un Chien Andalou" (1929) and "L'Age D'or" (1930) both
made by Bunuel. These two films, along with "Rose Hobart" make
innovative, sophisticated use of music and sound design very early on
in the sound era.

G

MP · External Since: Feb 05, 2009 Posts: 16

On Jun 27, 7:00 am, gh wrote:
> On 2009-06-27 01:43:56 -0400, gh said:
>
> > On 2009-06-26 21:19:56 -0400, MP <mystic_prow... DeleteThis @hotmail.com> said:
>
> >> Dr Strangelove ends with that big mushroom cloud montage, Vera Lynn
> >> singing "We'll Meet Again".
>
> >> Can anyone think of any pre-Strangelove films that used music as a
> >> sort of comical, ironic counterpoint to the on-screen imagery?
>
> > Yup. "Rose Hobart" made by Joseph Cornell in 1936.
> > There must be others even before this.
>
> > G
>
> I forgot about "Un Chien Andalou" (1929) and "L'Age D'or" (1930) both
> made by Bunuel. These two films, along with "Rose Hobart" make
> innovative, sophisticated use of music and sound design very early on
> in the sound era.
>
> G

Thanks alot. Found all those films online...

http://www.veoh.com/collection/indiechannel/watch/v14899855J9THgkZr#

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xp8ir_rose-hobart_creation

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7633509394552540790

....checking them out now. Is all the music orchestral?

MP · External Since: Feb 05, 2009 Posts: 16

On Jun 27, 10:30 am, MP <mystic_prow....RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 27, 7:00 am, gh wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 2009-06-27 01:43:56 -0400, gh said:
>
> > > On 2009-06-26 21:19:56 -0400, MP <mystic_prow....RemoveThis@hotmail.com> said:
>
> > >> Dr Strangelove ends with that big mushroom cloud montage, Vera Lynn
> > >> singing "We'll Meet Again".
>
> > >> Can anyone think of any pre-Strangelove films that used music as a
> > >> sort of comical, ironic counterpoint to the on-screen imagery?
>
> > > Yup. "Rose Hobart" made by Joseph Cornell in 1936.
> > > There must be others even before this.
>
> > > G
>
> > I forgot about "Un Chien Andalou" (1929) and "L'Age D'or" (1930) both
> > made by Bunuel. These two films, along with "Rose Hobart" make
> > innovative, sophisticated use of music and sound design very early on
> > in the sound era.
>
> > G
>
> Thanks alot. Found all those films online...
>
> http://www.veoh.com/collection/indiechannel/watch/v14899855J9THgkZr#
>
> http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xp8ir_rose-hobart_creation
>
> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7633509394552540790
>
> ...checking them out now. Is all the music orchestral?- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

"Rose Hobart" has a chirpy samba tune playing througout the picture,
but the others are all orchestral. The end of Dr Strangelove feels
very hip, very modern, in comparison. There must be other major films
in the 60s which contrasted song lyrics with images, but I can't think
of any.

Cosmic Gnome · External Since: May 12, 2009 Posts: 13

"MP" <mystic_prowler DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:f24280fc-0d0f-48fc-a9f1-c49c2247d657@z9g2000yqi.googlegroups.com...
On Jun 27, 10:30 am, MP <mystic_prow... DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 27, 7:00 am, gh wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 2009-06-27 01:43:56 -0400, gh said:
>
> > > On 2009-06-26 21:19:56 -0400, MP <mystic_prow... DeleteThis @hotmail.com> said:
>
> > >> Dr Strangelove ends with that big mushroom cloud montage, Vera Lynn
> > >> singing "We'll Meet Again".
>
> > >> Can anyone think of any pre-Strangelove films that used music as a
> > >> sort of comical, ironic counterpoint to the on-screen imagery?
>
> > > Yup. "Rose Hobart" made by Joseph Cornell in 1936.
> > > There must be others even before this.
>
> > > G
>
> > I forgot about "Un Chien Andalou" (1929) and "L'Age D'or" (1930) both
> > made by Bunuel. These two films, along with "Rose Hobart" make
> > innovative, sophisticated use of music and sound design very early on
> > in the sound era.
>
> > G
>
> Thanks alot. Found all those films online...
>
> http://www.veoh.com/collection/indiechannel/watch/v14899855J9THgkZr#
>
> http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xp8ir_rose-hobart_creation
>
> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7633509394552540790
>
> ...checking them out now. Is all the music orchestral?- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

""Rose Hobart" has a chirpy samba tune playing througout the picture,
but the others are all orchestral. The end of Dr Strangelove feels
very hip, very modern, in comparison. There must be other major films
in the 60s which contrasted song lyrics with images, but I can't think
of any."
-----

An interesting question. The previous examples, all from the Surrealist
movement, Bunuel, Dali etc (which was in turn influenced by Constructivism
eg Meyerhold's techniques from the 1920s, which later influenced Brechtian
distanciation), feature contrapuntal MONTAGE (Bunuel insisted on every image
being contradictory and intentionally irrational, as a simulation of the
unconscious), a contradictory, dissonant, and uneasy relation between or
within the visual montage, but none of them are audio-visually contrapuntal,
the soundtrack, either sonically or lyrically, does not deliberately
contradict the narrative imagery.

Offhand, I can't think of any similar parodic or ironic use of music against
the imagery (whether pop or classical)
in a film prior to Dr Strangelove (though it would likely have been used in
other media eg radio plays, dramas, or comedies), but I would imagine that
there might be a few, perhaps from some of the 'underground' avant-garde
film works from that time, not to mention those unironic films that
'accidentally' create audio-visual dissonance out of ideological blindness.

A worthwhile article on the subject is Andrew Grossman's "How to Murder John
Williams: Toward an Ideology of Contrapuntal Antirealism" in the Bright
Lights film journal [http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/46/music.htm]:

Excerpt: "Because we are not investigating the mere fact of a score's
dissonance or consonance, but whether the score's idiom, whatever it may be,
is itself dissonant or consonant with the visual text it accompanies, we
must also dismiss as inconsequential scores whose dissonances are
conventional and do not exist contrapuntally to the visual text. Use of
dissonant music can be consonant and conventional within a given context -
Kubrick's misterioso deployment of then-contemporary Ligeti in 2001: A Space
Odyssey (1968) is less "dissonant" than his use of Rossini and synthesized
Purcell in A Clockwork Orange (1971). As children, we are conditioned by
cartoon music to compartmentalize dissonances as isolated, violent,
eye-popping events, while every slasher flick composer's nth-rate,
glissandi-clogged imitation of the anxious parts of Bartok's Divertimento
for Strings multiplies two negatives - a dissonant-violent score and a
dissonant-violent text - to produce a positive consonance. "

kelpzoidzl · External Since: Jan 17, 2009 Posts: 75

On Jun 26, 6:19 pm, MP <mystic_prow....RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Dr Strangelove ends with that big mushroom cloud montage, Vera Lynn
> singing "We'll Meet Again".
>
> Can anyone think of any pre-Strangelove films that used music as a
> sort of comical, ironic counterpoint to the on-screen imagery?

Yes ..."The Victors" from 1963

I am guessing it was a direct influence on kubrick.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Victors_(film)

"The addition of surreal accompanying Christmas music and absence of
dialog make this scene an oft cited one. The juxtaposition of
saccharine music with a frightful scene was emulated the following
year by Kubrick in Dr. Strangelove, which was also shot in black and
white."--wikipedia

"....while the movie audience first hears Frank Sinatra singing 'Have
Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' and then a chorus of 'Hark the
herald angels sing,' after the fatal shots are fired. This scene is
remarkable for its stark, visually extreme imagery, and the non combat
stress and anguish instantly foisted on GI's during a lull in combat"

"Have yourself a Merry little Chistmas" --Sinatra

it was very much the same kind of sarcasm and irony.

Like Mickey Mouse Club Song in FMJ also.

I think The Victors was an incredible film.

dc

kelpzoidzl · External Since: Jan 17, 2009 Posts: 75

and here it is.....the final scene of the Victors (But for "copyright
reasons" another version of song was used in this video instead of
Frank

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1P9LUVcK0I

Sinatra's version sounds much more ironic. This is the one in "The
Victors"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpPdl0StUVs

dc

kelpzoidzl · External Since: Jan 17, 2009 Posts: 75

Funny you bring this up. When I saw Dr. Strangelove when it came
out, I thought he had borrowed the Ironic Music idea from "The
Victors"

Similarly "The Victors" I think, had some Paths of Glory influence.

dc

kelpzoidzl · External Since: Jan 17, 2009 Posts: 75

On Jun 28, 8:17 pm, kelpzoidzl <kelpzoi....RemoveThis@gmail.com> wrote:
> Funny you bring this up. When I saw Dr. Strangelove when it came
> out, I thought he had borrowed the Ironic Music idea from "The
> Victors"
>
> Similarly "The Victors" I think, had some Paths of Glory influence.
>
> dc

This is very interesting:

in an Article about the film "Meet Me in St. Louis"

"There is a curiously resonant coda to this. In 1960 Frank Sinatra
announced that he had hired the blacklisted writer Albert Maltz to
make a film of The Execution of Private Slovik, the true story of the
GI shot in the last year of World War II, the first American soldier
to be executed for desertion since the Civil War. The movie was
vociferously opposed by the militant Right, and Joseph Kennedy told
Sinatra to drop the project or get off his son's presidential
bandwagon. The film was abandoned. But three years later, the formerly
blacklisted Carl Foreman, made his directorial debut with The Victors,
the most memorable scene of which is the execution in the snowy
European winter of 1944-45 of an American GI. The grim journey by a
truckload of soldiers to witness the death by firing squad is
accompanied by Sinatra's version of 'Have Yourself a Merry Little
Christmas'."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/dec/02/christmas.film

dc

kelpzoidzl · External Since: Jan 17, 2009 Posts: 75

Ya know....I think we have to give some credit to O'Henry, Hitchcock
and of course Rod Serling for at least the modern day version of the
'surprise ending." Getting creative with an ending and breaking
rigidity of what was expected. People from the dominant generations
in the US in the late 1950's and early 60's of that generation- tend
to be remarkably stodgey. So when The Victors came out or Dr.
Strangelove that broke with convention they seemed so radical.

To demonstrate just how upight this particular generation was, watch
these old clips from the "Joe Pyne show" I saw the other day:

Interview of Helen Gurley Brown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwgJPZwK2t8&feature=related

Pyne attacking LSD and Hippies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq99gyzVKWk

"Pyne was rude and confrontational with guests, often attempting to
throw them off, but there are stories of the rare times when someone
got the better of him. One famous tale is that he lost a verbal duel
with Frank Zappa. Pyne insulted Zappa by saying, "So I guess your long
hair makes you a woman." Zappa allegedly replied, "So I guess your
wooden leg makes you a table."

Then this was showing in every home.

http://www.truveo.com/alfred-hitchcock-cannibals-in-suburbia/id/3973377333

"Mr. Beaumont's excellent tasting stew is further seasoned by an
element of mystery."

dc

MP · External Since: Feb 05, 2009 Posts: 16

Nice find with "The Victors", Kelp. That's the kind of example I was
looking for.

Cosmic Gnome · External Since: May 12, 2009 Posts: 13

> perhaps from some of the 'underground' avant-garde
> film works from that time,

Can't believe I forgot about Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising, the
'underground' film from 1963/1964 that inaugurated the use - ironic and
otherwise - of pop music on film soundtracks.

On Google Video [28 mins]:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4704748884284449320
Youtube excerpt [3.5 mins]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjBJ0AZ3Jc4

"Scorpio Rising uses a complex series of montage sequences which intensify
towards the culmination of the film - a motorbike race, which ends in a
seemingly random accident. The scenes are cut to an ironic soundtrack of
contemporary songs such as Elvis' 'Devil in Disguise', The Safari's 'Wipe
Out' and most notoriously 'Blue Velvet' ..."

Wiki: "Scorpio Rising was a groundbreaking avant-garde, experimental film by
Kenneth Anger, author of the Hollywood Babylon books, starring Bruce Byron
as the biker Scorpio. It features themes of leather-clad bikers, the occult,
Jesus and Nazis. Its camp appropriation of popular culture included an
innovative use of pop music, the erotic cult of James Dean, and Sunday
comics. The film was produced in 1964 and initially shown on the underground
film circuit. The film features no lines of dialogue, accompanied instead by
music from popular 1950s and 1960s artists including Ricky Nelson, The
Angels, The Crystals, Bobby Vinton, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles and Martha
Reeves & the Vandellas. It is considered to be one of the first post-modern
films and an influence to future directors such as Martin Scorsese and David
Lynch.

Tobasco · External Since: Jun 30, 2009 Posts: 1

On Jun 26, 8:19 pm, MP <mystic_prow....DeleteThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Dr Strangelove ends with that big mushroom cloud montage, Vera Lynn
> singing "We'll Meet Again".
>
> Can anyone think of any pre-Strangelove films that used music as a
> sort of comical, ironic counterpoint to the on-screen imagery?

I find Caroll Reed's use of Anton Karas' zither playing as score to
The Third Man an interesting choice.

kelpzoidzl · External Since: Jan 17, 2009 Posts: 75

On Jun 30, 12:57 pm, "Cosmic Gnome"
<hundredmillionlifeti... DeleteThis @fastmail.fm> wrote:
> > perhaps from some of the 'underground' avant-garde
> > film works from that time,
>
> Can't believe I forgot about Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising, the
> 'underground' film from 1963/1964 that inaugurated the use - ironic and
> otherwise - of pop music on film soundtracks.
>
> On Google Video [28 mins]:http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4704748884284449320
> Youtube excerpt [3.5 mins]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjBJ0AZ3Jc4
>
> "Scorpio Rising uses a complex series of montage sequences which intensify
> towards the culmination of the film - a motorbike race, which ends in a
> seemingly random accident. The scenes are cut to an ironic soundtrack of
> contemporary songs such as Elvis' 'Devil in Disguise', The Safari's 'Wipe
> Out' and most notoriously 'Blue Velvet' ..."
>
> Wiki: "Scorpio Rising was a groundbreaking avant-garde, experimental film by
> Kenneth Anger, author of the Hollywood Babylon books, starring Bruce Byron
> as the biker Scorpio. It features themes of leather-clad bikers, the occult,
> Jesus and Nazis. Its camp appropriation of popular culture included an
> innovative use of pop music, the erotic cult of James Dean, and Sunday
> comics. The film was produced in 1964 and initially shown on the underground
> film circuit. The film features no lines of dialogue, accompanied instead by
> music from popular 1950s and 1960s artists including Ricky Nelson, The
> Angels, The Crystals, Bobby Vinton, Elvis Presley, Ray Charles and Martha
> Reeves & the Vandellas. It is considered to be one of the first post-modern
> films and an influence to future directors such as Martin Scorsese and David
> Lynch.

I don't know how much irony one can find with Scorpio Rising. No
doubt influenced directors who saw it. The music fits the imagery
don't you think?

dc