The Journal of Musicology (2011) - Music for Spellbound (1945): A Contested Collaboration
Details
- article: Music for Spellbound (1945): A Contested Collaboration
- author(s): Nathan Platte
- journal: The Journal of Musicology (01/Oct/2011)
- issue: volume 28, issue 4, pages 418-463
- DOI: 10.1525/jm.2011.28.4.418
- journal ISSN: 0277-9269
- publisher: University of California Press
- keywords: Academy Awards, Alfred Hitchcock, Alfred Newman, American Film Institute, Barbara Keon, Bernard Herrmann, Composers, Criticism and interpretation, David Bordwell, David Cooper, David Neumeyer, David O. Selznick, Dimitri Tiomkin, Donald Spoto, Elisabeth Weis, Eva Rieger, Film & stage music, Franz Waxman, François Truffaut, Grand Central Station, New York City, New York, Gregory Peck, Hilary St. George Sanders, Hitchcock and Selznick: The Rich and Strange Collaboration of Alfred Hitchcock and David O. Selznick in Hollywood (1987) by Leonard J. Leff, Hitchcock on Hitchcock: Volume 1 (1995) edited by Sidney Gottlieb, Hugo Friedhofer, Ingrid Bergman, Jack Sullivan, James Wierzbicki, John Belton, Kyle S. Barnett, Leonard J. Leff, Louis Alexandre Raimon, Matthew Bernstein, Miklós Rózsa, Motion picture music, Motion pictures and music, Musicology, Nathan Platte, New York City, New York, North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960), Rebecca (1940), Robert L. Carringer, Roy Webb, Royal S. Brown, Salvador Dalí, Selznick International Pictures, Sidney Gottlieb, Spellbound (1945), Suspicion (1941), The Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock (1983) by Donald Spoto, The Paradine Case (1947), Thomas DeMary, Thomas M. Leitch, Torn Curtain (1966), Warner Bros., William Cameron Menzies, Works
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Abstract
Production files detailing the construction of the musical score for the film Spellbound reveal an intense and complicated collaboration involving music editor Audray Granville, director Alfred Hitchcock, composer Miklós Rózsa, and producer David O. Selznick. Tracing the formation of the score from initial outlines through composition and editing shows how these four individuals contributed to the score's development. Conflicting instructions from Hitchcock and Selznick as well as Granville's preview score influenced Rózsa's compositional decisions, and Granville's revisions of Rózsa's recorded music affected the content of the score. The music of Spellbound does not represent a single or even shared vision, but rather an intricate conglomeration of ideas, revisions, and interpolations. Illuminating these layers of discourse enriches musico-cinematic analysis by challenging conventional notions of authorship and artistic control in the Hollywood film score.