Classical Music and Intertext in Scoop

Part 1

In the film “Scoop” director Woody Allen made a sensational discovery. It appears that for creating in a film a well-known effect of suspense you can add to the most intensive moment of action … the “Dance of the little swan” by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in the soundtrack.

There is no wonder that the honor of this discovery belongs to that famous american director – his unordinary approach to the use of preexist music in the film was already well-known. One can remember a Sergei Prokofiev’s music written for “Alexander Nevsky” by Eisenstein in Allen’s eccentric and absurd comedy «Love and death» or arias from Verdi’s operas in the interiors of modern London in “Match Point”.

However, Allen’s surprising use of preexisting music in “Scoop” manage to fill the film with various associations coming from the concept of “classical music” and simultaneously added in a film a lot of comic episodes based on the contraposition between music and image.

What did the director wanted to show, including to the soundtrack of his film fragments from the well-known classical musical compositions? Two primary goals traditionally linked to the use of classical music is to underline the concrete historical period and also to bring to the spectator the multitude of the cultural associations connected with this or that musical composition. It can be both an allusion to the images and the events described in libretto and the associations with the biography of the composer.

Woody Allen in “Scoop” does not avoid the possibility to use the classical music in order to underline some national and cultural associations, presented in his movie. To understand in which context the classical preexisting music carries out this function in “Scoop”, it is important to learn the story told in the film.

Action begins with the story of the young student-journalist from America, performed by Scarlett Johansson, who comes to spend her vacation in a family of her girlfriend, belonging to the british aristocracy. Her name is Sondra Pransky and, while working in the student’s newspaper, she dreams to find a sensational story that will make her a real journalist. And the sensation itself finds her when one well-known journalist comes back «from a kingdom of death» to inform her about some facts that he got to know too late – the young successor of the richest aristocratic dynasty is actually a well-known serial murderer searched by the police. Sondra gets into this with enthusiasm and starts her own journalistic investigation in order to find out all the facts and undercover the murderer and, of course, to start her career. She founds also a helper, an old and neurotic magician Splendini, performed by director Woody Allen.

During the investigation these two heroes represent themselves as the big American magnate and his daughter-actress. This eccentric couple is accepted in the aristocrats’ society and the suspected serial maniac, charming and handsome man Peter Lyman performed by Hugh Jackman, falls in love with Sondra since first sight. But she continues her investigation which, however, brings only new proofs of Peter’s innocence. At last she forgets about her “scoop” and plunges into romantic relations. But Splendini does not leave the investigation and finds out proofs that Peter Lyman though he is not a maniac, but nevertheless a murderer. Finally, after the tentative of murderer, inspired by “The American tragedy”, triumphing Sondra getting a chance to publish her sensational article in a respected British newspaper.

This tragic-comical history with mystic elements is held in the capital of Britain, in a circle of aristocracy. Here is a reason proving the traditional use of classical music for a designation of national and cultural associations. Here is shown the point of view on the way of life in the old Europe of average Americans.

Using of compositions of Tchaikovsky, Strauss, and Grieg in a soundtrack of a film is a direct instruction on the social environment in which film action develops. But simultaneously, these compositions are very popular all over the world and among all social classes. They can be heard not only in opera theatre or a concert hall, they are used practically everywhere, even in advertising, so these are the compositions that are connected in consciousness of an average inhabitant with words ‘classical music’.

In the film Allen describes all ‘traditional’ habits of English aristocracy: bridge, receptions in country estates, collecting of rare pieces of art, unshakable calmness and politeness. And here finds it’s place diegetic classical music.

Classical music not once was used to strengthen comic or ironical aspect of the scene in a film. Among the adherence of this method we can mention Charles Chaplin, Marx brothers and a some of the directors of the French avant-guard. Charlie Chaplin was the author of the majority of soundtracks for his movies. But in his filmography we can find “The Great dictator” — the film in which the irony of the majority of episodes is shown by the classical scores which playing in contraposition with the action on the screen. For example, in a hilarious scene of shaving by the radio sounds “Hungarian Dance No. 5” by Johannes Brahms. Here the music sounds in diegetic space and supports the comic effect – the hairdresser synchronizes the movements with fast rhythmical music of the dance. It looks simultaneously dangerously and funny, but with the calmness of the face of Chaplin’s hero, it creates the necessary comic effect. Another well-known scene, when Adenoid Hinkel dances with a globe balloon is accompanied by the “Prelude to ‘Lohengrin’” by Richard Wagner, that gives to the episode some pseudo — melodramatical connotations.

For Marx brothers the music is one of the major means of expressiveness. Therefore in their films they use both original music and preexistent with the goal to achieve the comic effect. For example, in the film «A night at the opera» directed by Sam Wood, it was naturally impossible to do without opera arias. Here there are the fragments from “Il Trovatore” by Giuseppe Verdi: “Di quella pira”, “Miserere”,”Anvil Chorus” and “Stride la vampa”. However, performing of these melodies alternates with comic gags and dialogues that prevent to perceive a film as musical.