Unsettled Scores: Politics, Hollywood, and the Film Music of Aaron Copland and Hanns Eisler

Unsettled Scores: Politics, Hollywood, and the Film Music of Aaron Copland and Hanns Eisler
ISBN-10
025205167X
ISBN-13
9780252051678
Category
Music
Pages
256
Language
English
Published
2019-12-20
Publisher
University of Illinois Press
Author
Sally Bick

Description

The Hollywood careers of Aaron Copland and Hanns Eisler brought the composers and their high art sensibility into direct conflict with the premier producer of America's potent mass culture. Drawn by Hollywood's potential to reach—and edify—the public, Copland and Eisler expertly wove sophisticated musical ideas into Hollywood and, each in their own distinctive way, left an indelible mark on movie history. Sally Bick's dual study of Copland and Eisler pairs interpretations of their writings on film composing with a close examination of their first Hollywood projects: Copland's music for Of Mice and Men and Eisler's score for Hangmen Also Die! Bick illuminates the different ways the composers treated a film score as means of expressing their political ideas on society, capitalism, and the human condition. She also delves into Copland's and Eisler's often conflicted attempts to adapt their music to fit Hollywood's commercial demands, an enterprise that took place even as they wrote hostile critiques of the film industry.

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