Movies and Music

The final movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony is referred to as the “Ode to Joy” (1824).  Beethoven was inspired by Friedrich Schiller's poem of that title dedicated to the joy of "universal brotherhood" (1785).  The poem was written prior to the upheaval of the French Revolution (1789-99), one of the first results of Europe's embrace of popular democracy.  Following the Renaissance, Europeans began to see divine authority within the individual rather than in elite institutions of royal hierarchy.  There was great hope in the prospect of the common person’s future versus the past of monarchy.  One can hear the theme of universal brotherhood in France’s national motto born in the Revolution:  “Equality.  Fraternity.  Liberty.”

Beethoven was empathetic to these ideals.  The French Revolution impacted Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony, the “Eroica” (1804, “eroica” = “heroic” in Italian).  It was originally dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte whom the composer saw as a heroic champion of democracy.  When Napoleon proclaimed himself emperor of France, Beethoven renounced him and tore off the title page of his symphony.  Like many of the intelligentsia of the day, Beethoven hoped for a democratic future minus the poverty, hypocrisy and militarism of a society governed by royalty.

Ludwig Van Beethoven

As the Revolution matured, Beethoven’s hope for society’s future did as well.  He looked for an opportunity to set Schiller’s poem to music.  The connection of his fourth movement to the “Ode to Joy” is a strong statement of Beethoven’s intention to see a future of "universal brotherhood" and peace.

Many consider the 9th Symphony to be Beethoven’s greatest piece of work, if not one of the greatest of all time.  For example, on Christmas Day in 1989, to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall, the unification of the Germanys and the end of the Soviet Union, Leonard Bernstein led an international orchestra in performing Beethoven’s 9th.  The moment was a celebration of "joy", "freedom" and "universal brotherhood" in the hope for peace.

Consider then that the trailer for the hit movie A Good Day to Die Hard (2013) shows a series of car explosions, murders and general mayhem set to the final movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.  Linking the “Ode to Joy” to images of violence and death…even Hollywood’s theatrical violence and death…is the height of irony, to say the least.

Scene from A Good Day to Die Hard

The musical settings of film can be powerful and inspiring.

Director Philip Haufman and music director Bill Conti set a fan dancer's burlesque to Claude Debussy's "Claire de Lune" ("Moonlight", 1893) in the movie The Right Stuff (1983) about the beginnings of the U.S. manned space program.  Conti would win the Academy Award for best musical score for the film.  A strip tease danced to such a classical masterpiece entitled "Moonlight" as the test pilots considered the privileges that the fates had brought them to be the first Mercury astronauts seems genius.

In the 1986 Academy Award winning Best Picture, Platoon director Oliver Stone and music director Georges Delerue chose the passionate crescendo of "Adagio for Strings" by Samuel Barber (1936) in the pivotal assignation scene as one U.S. Army Sergeant shoots another in the back, one of Stone's hints to America's betrayal of itself in the Vietnam War.

Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" (1880), a tribute to Russia's resistance against Napoleon's invasion and eventual defeat beginning at the battle of Borodino (1812), is now played at scores of July 4th fireworks displays for the noise of its cannonade finale, with little consideration of its historical context.  Movie makers have so overused this great piece of music that it has become clichéd.  Yet in V for Vendetta (2005), director James McTeigue and music director Dario Marianelli use the "1812" quite appropriately for their climactic conclusion scene as the British Parliament Building in London is blown up with spectacular special effects fulfilling the intention of the Guy Fawkes’ failed gunpowder plot (1605).  As the Russians in Tchaikovsky's time succeeded in fighting off their oppressor, celebrating with cannons and ringing church bells in salute, the film makers of V for Vendetta wanted to suggest that their fictional hero was successful in resisting the tyranny of anti-democratic government.

Final scene from V for Vendetta

Church folk know the spiritual impact when music speaks to transcendent themes.  Music is the heart and soul of what we call communal worship.  Sacred music connects us to something beyond ourselves and the ideals of hope, faith and love.  Music can evoke real emotion and inspire great ideas when theme and context are matched.  We know that in ballet, opera and the theater, rock concerts, street minstrels and church choirs.  That's even true in the movies. 

Which may be one reason it is so glaring when cinema artists purposely choose not to do so.  Director John Moore and music director Marco Beltrami's choice to use Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" in the trailer for A Good Day to Die Hard is insulting on so many levels.  Along with Beltrami's resume of scoring horror films, he was also nominated twice for Academy Awards (Hurt Locker and 3:10 to Yuma).  Certainly he knew what he was doing when he juxtaposed "Ode to Joy" to movie cartoon violence?

Does it matter?  Do we the moviegoers even care?  Have we become so accustomed to cartoon violence in film that the music behind it is irrelevant?  Does it take an amateur's appreciation of classical music and an entitled sense of self-importance to be thus offended?

Or does the misuse of one of the great European contributions of music, a tribute to human hope for a world of peace and joy, in A Good Day to Die Hard speak to the continual numbing of our culture to violence?  To date (03/12/13) this "shoot em up" film which cost $92 million to produce has grossed over $240 million globally.  Maybe the answer to that question is in the numbers.