Page - 251 - in Der Filmkomponist Max Steiner - 1888 - 1971

3-5- Die Musik 251 In Casablanca, Max Steiner worked out the motif of the Marseillaise in numerous var- iations. He did this by changing the meter and the tonality from major to minor, by resolving it into minor or major thirds (deceptive cadenzas) or by melting it into a col- lage with the Deutschlandlied. In addition to these two motifs, which represent the date and the political and historical context, the song As Time Goes By is used to personalize the plot. Max Steiner was never convinced of the quality of that song, but it was this song that helped the audience to identify with the story and helped to make the movie a great success. Steiner used this motif more than 20 times throughout the movie. Steiner gives it many permutations and by just hearing these permutations, moviegoers recall the whole story. It is like "cinema in the mind". In film music there is a distinction between diegetic music, which is the music whose source can be seen, and non-diegetic music, which is the music that can be heard only by the audience but not by the characters. It is always interesting for the film maker to mix these two film music types. In Casablanca there is a montage with a flashback where Steiner switches several times from source music (diegetic) to underscoring (non-diegetic) and back. Steiner uses the underscoring to show the audience how the characters feel at a certain moment. This information is only for the viewers, not for the other characters. Source music, on the other hand, is very often the reason for a characters emotional reaction and therefore must be heard by the char- acter. The music for Casablanca has clear formulaic structures. These are the consistent use of leitmotifs, woven into an orchestral background, the use of source music and underscor- ing, the use of fragments of former works, the exact Synchronisation of action and mu- sic {mickey mousing), and the use of homophone and polyphone structures in the score. Even as his composition tools are formulaic, Max Steiners musical language is very spe- cific and personal. There are many opinions about Steiners music. Some critics dismiss it as simply descriptive, while others praise its dramatic quality. The actress Bette Davis once said: "Max understood more about drama than any of us". Steiner was a pioneer of sympho- nic film music and many of his contemporary colleagues consider his music as the model for modern film music. Today film composers freelance, whereas Steiner was a staff com- poser for most of his career. With the decline of the Studio System, Steiner was forced to freelance. But whether as a freelancer or staffer, Steiner approached his work the same way. As the style of movies changed in the 1950's and 1960's, Steiners workload declined. In the 1970s, composers such as John Williams or James Horner again began to com- pose in the tradition of Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold or Alfred Newman and, in so doing, have created a renaissance of the golden era of film music.