Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T23:06:46.284Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Competing Utopias? Musical Ideologies in the 1930s and Two Spanish Civil War Films

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2008

CAROL A. HESS
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although literature inspired by the Spanish Civil War has been widely studied, music so inspired has received far less scholarly attention, and film music even less so. Musical ideologies of the 1930s, including the utopian thinking of many artists and intellectuals, emerge in some surprising ways when we consider two films of the era. Both The Spanish Earth (1937), an independent documentary, and Blockade (1938), produced in Hollywood, were intended to awaken Loyalist sympathies. The music for the former, consisting of recorded excerpts chosen by Marc Blitzstein and Virgil Thomson and widely understood as folkloric, embodies leftist composers' idealization of folk music. Werner Janssen's score for Blockade relies on many stock Hollywood gestures, granting it the status of a commodity. This article explores both films in light of Michael Denning's reflections of the relationship between the “cultural front” and the “culture industry,” along with Fredric Jameson's advocacy of the Utopian principle as a hermeneutic tool. It argues that the music for The Spanish Earth unwittingly subverts the Loyalist cause, whereas the score of Blockade, with its manipulation of Hollywood codes, is far more persuasive than the political whitewashing of its plot would seem to suggest.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Society for American Music , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , August 2008 , pp. 319 - 354
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Music 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adorno, Theodor W. The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture, ed. Bernstein, J. M.. London: Routledge, 1991.Google Scholar
“Air Raid Siren Halts Showing of War Film.” New York Times, 25 April 1938.Google Scholar
Alexander, William. Film on the Left: American Documentary Film from 1931 to 1942. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Antheil, George. “On the Hollywood Front.” Modern Music 15/4 (May–June 1938): 251–54.Google Scholar
Bakan, Jonathon. “Café Society: A Locus for the Intersection of Jazz and Politics During the Popular Front Era.” Ph.D. diss., York University, 2004.Google Scholar
Baker, Nancy Kovaleff. “Abel Meeropol (a.k.a. Lewis Allen): Political Commentator and Social Conscience,” American Music 20/1 (Spring 2002): 25–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barsam, Richard M. Nonfiction Film: A Critical History. Rev. and exp. edn. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Bick, Sally. “Composers on the Cultural Front: Aaron Copland and Hanns Eisler in Hollywood.” Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 2001.Google Scholar
Bick, Sally. “Of Mice and Men: Copland, Hollywood, and American Musical Modernism,” American Music 23/4 (Winter 2005): 426–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, Gregory D. The Catholic Crusade Against the Movies, 1940–1975. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Bloch, Ernst. Das Prinzip Hoffnung. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1959.Google Scholar
Brandes, Stanley. “The Sardana: Catalan Dance and Catalan National Identity.” Journal of American Folklore 103/407 (January–March 1990): 24–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Britain Disputes Franco Blockade.” New York Times, 30 November 1937.Google Scholar
Brodsky, Seth. “Utopian Strain: Ambivalent Attitudes in European Music, 1968–2001.” Ph.D. diss., Eastman School of Music, 2007.Google Scholar
Campbell, Russell. Cinema Strikes Back: Radical Filmmaking in the United States, 1930–1942. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1982.Google Scholar
“Captain W. H. (‘Corn’) Roberts.” Life, 10 May 1937, 60–61.Google Scholar
Carr, Raymond. Spain: 1808–1975. 2nd edn. Oxford: Clarendon, 1982.Google Scholar
Certeau, Michel de. “The Practice of Everyday Life.” In The Consumption Reader, ed. Clarke, David B. et al. , 259–66. London: Routledge, 2003.Google Scholar
Chapin, Keith. “Lost in Quotation: The Nuances Behind E. T. A. Hoffman's Programmatic Statements.” 19th-Century Music 30/1 (Summer 2006): 44–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chion, Michel. Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen, ed. and trans Gorbman, Claudia. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Churchill, Douglas W. “Leave it to Hollywood.” New York Times, 10 April 1938.Google Scholar
Conley, Tom. “Blockade Sin Embargo.” In Vernon, The Spanish Civil War and the Visual Arts, 25–36.Google Scholar
Coughlin, Joseph F. “The Spanish Earth, Spanish Civil War Film.” Motion Picture Herald, 4 September 1937.Google Scholar
Crist, Elizabeth B. Music for the Common Man: Aaron Copland During the Depression and War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crivillé i Bargalló, Josep. El Folklore Musical. Vol. 7. Historia de la música española. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1983.Google Scholar
Crusells, Magí. La guerra civil española: cine y propaganda. Barcelona: Editorial Ariel, 2000.Google Scholar
Cunningham, Valentine. Spanish Front: Writers on the Civil War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Dagel, Gena. “A Nomad in New York: Paul Bowles 1933–1948.” American Music 7/3 (Autumn 1989): 278–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dahlhaus, Carl. Nineteenth-Century Music, trans. Robinson, J. Bradford. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Denning, Michael. The Cultural Front: The Laboring of American Culture in the Twentieth Century. London: Verso, 1997.Google Scholar
DíazViana, Luis. Canciones populares de la guerra civil. Madrid: Taurus, 1985.Google Scholar
Doane, Mary Ann. “Ideology and the Practice of Sound Editing and Mixing.” In Film Sound: Theory and Practice, ed. Weis, Elizabeth and Belton, John, 54–62. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Draper, Theodore. The Roots of American Communism. New York: Viking Press, 1957.Google Scholar
Dyer, Richard. “Entertainment and Utopia.” In Genre: The Musical, ed. Altman, Rick, 175–89. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981.Google Scholar
, E. A. “W. Va. Sees Film Spanish Earth.” Daily Worker, 5 July 1938.Google Scholar
Flinn, Caryl. Strains of Utopia: Gender, Nostalgia, and Hollywood Film Music. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“The Gag on the Movies,” unidentified newspaper. Margaret Herrick Library clippings file, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California.Google Scholar
Gann, Kyle. The Music of Conlon Nancarrow. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
García, Marta Rey. Stars for Spain: La guerra civil española en los Estados Unidos. A Coruña: Edicios do Castro, 1997.Google Scholar
Geoghegan, Vincent. Utopianism and Marxism. London: Methuen, 1987.Google Scholar
Gold, Mike. “Change the World.” Daily Worker, 2 January 1936.Google Scholar
Gómez Amat, Carlos. Siglo XIX. Vol. 5. La historia de la música española. Madrid: Alianza Música, 1988.Google Scholar
Gorbman, Claudia. Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.Google Scholar
Gordon, Eric A. Mark the Music: The Life and Work of Marc Blitzstein. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1989.Google Scholar
“Governor Earle Gives ‘Red’ Film his Blessing.” Motion Picture Herald, 16 October 1937.Google Scholar
Grugel, Jean, and Rees, Tim. Franco's Spain. London: Arnold, 1997.Google Scholar
Hess, Carol A. “Silvestre Revueltas in Republican Spain: Music as Political Utterance.” Latin American Music Review 18/2 (Autumn–Winter 1997): 278–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hess, Carol A. Manuel de Falla and Modernism in Spain, 1898–1936. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Heyman, Barbara B. Samuel Barber: The Composer and his Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Hollywood Reporter, 5 June 1937. Margaret Herrick Library clippings file, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California.Google Scholar
Ivens, Joris. The Camera and I. New York: International Publishers, 1969.Google Scholar
Jackson, Gabriel. The Spanish Republic and the Civil War. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Lewis. The Documentary Tradition. 2nd edn. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979.Google Scholar
Jameson, Fredric. Marxism and Form. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971.Google Scholar
Jameson, Fredric. “Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture.” Social Text 1/1 (Winter 1979): 130–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jameson, Fredric. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Jameson, Fredric. “Introduction/Prospectus: To Reconsider the Relationship of Marxism to Utopian Thought.” In The Jameson Reader, ed. Hardt, Michael and Weeks, Kathi, 361–67. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2000.Google Scholar
Janouch, Gustav. Conversations with Kafka, trans. Rees, Goronwy. 2nd edn. New York: New Directions, 1971.Google Scholar
, J. T. M. “The Spanish Earth, at the 55th St. Playhouse, Is a Plea for Democracy.” New York Times, 21 August 1937.Google Scholar
Kateb, George. Utopia and Its Enemies. London: Collier-Macmillan Ltd., 1963.Google Scholar
Kateb, George, ed. Utopia. New York: Atherton Press, 1971.Google Scholar
“Leftist Movie.” Michigan Catholic, 22 July 1937.Google Scholar
Lerner, Neil. “The Classical Documentary Score in American Films of Persuasion: Contexts and Case Studies, 1936–1945.” Ph.D. diss., Duke University, 1997.Google Scholar
Lerner, Neil. “Copland's Music of Open Spaces: Surveying the Pastoral Trope in Hollywood.” The Musical Quarterly 85/3 (Autumn 2001): 477–515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieberman, Robbie. “My Song Is My Weapon:” People's Songs, American Communism, and the Politics of Culture, 1930–1950. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Locke, Alain. The Negro and His Music. New York: Arno Press, [1936] 1969.Google Scholar
“Lure President into Backing Radical Film.” Inland Catholic (Spokane, Wash.), 22 July 1937.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, ed. Engels, Frederick. Rev. and amplified according to the 4th German edn. by Ernest Untermann. New York: Modern Library, 1906.Google Scholar
Miller, Leta, ed. Lou Harrison: Selected Keyboard and Chamber Music, 1937–1994. Vol. 8. Music of the United States of America. Madison: A-R Editions, 1998.Google Scholar
Miller, Leta. “Henry Cowell and Modern Dance: The Genesis of Elastic Form.” American Music 20/1 (Spring 2002): 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Leta. “Cultural Intersections: John Cage in Seattle (1938–1940).” In John Cage: Music, Philosophy, and Intention, 1933–1950, ed. Patterson, David W., 47–82. New York: Routledge, 2002.Google Scholar
“More Police Frowns for Spanish Earth.” Box Office, 1 January 1938.Google Scholar
Mosher, John. “The Current Cinema.” The New Yorker, 21 August 1937.Google Scholar
Mumford, Lewis. The Story of Utopias. New York: Peter Smith [1922] 1941.Google Scholar
Nelson, Cary. The Aura of the Cause. Waltham, Mass.: Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives, 1997.Google Scholar
Nelson, Cary, ed. Collected Poems: Edwin Rolfe, 1909–1954. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Noriega, Chon. “Citizen Chicano: The Trials and Titillations of Ethnicity in the American Cinema, 1935–1962.” In Latin Looks: Images of Latinos and Latinas in the U.S. Media, ed. Rodríguez, Clara E., 121–41. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1997.Google Scholar
Nugent, Frank S. “The Screen.” New York Times, 19 June 1937.Google Scholar
Oms, Marcel. La guerre d'Espagne au cinéma: mythes et réalités. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1986.Google Scholar
Pike, Frederick B. The United States and Latin America: Myths and Stereotypes of Civilization and Nature. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Pike, Frederick B., and Falcott, Mark, eds. The Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939: American Hemispheric Perspectives. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Preston, Paul. The Coming of the Spanish Civil War. 2nd edn. London: Routledge, 1994.Google Scholar
Ramirez Berg, Charles. “Stereotyping and Resistance: A Crash Course on Hollywood's Latino Imagery.” In The Future of Latino Independent Media: A NALIP Sourcebook, ed. Noriega, Chon A., 3–14. Los Angeles: UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, 2000.Google Scholar
Reuss, Richard A., with Reuss, JoAnne C.. American Folk Music and Left-Wing Politics, 1927–1957. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Reyes, Luis, and Rubie, Peter. Hispanics in Hollywood. Hollywood: Lone Eagle Publishing Company, 2000.Google Scholar
Roberts, John Storm. The Latin Tinge: The Impact of Latin American Music on the United States. 2nd edn. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roth, Mark. “Some Warners Musicals and the Spirit of the New Deal.” In Genre: The Musical, ed. Rick Altman, 41–56. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981.Google Scholar
Saavedra, Leonora. “The American Composer in the 1930s: The Social Thought of Seeger and Chávez.” In Understanding Charles Seeger: Pioneer in American Musicology, ed. Yung, Bell and Rees, Helen, 29–63. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Scully, Frank. “The Spanish Earth.” Variety, 21 July 1937.Google Scholar
Seeger, Charles. “Grass Roots for American Composers.” Modern Music 16/3 (March–April 1939): 143–49.Google Scholar
Seeger, Charles. “On Proletarian Music.” Modern Music 11/3 (March–April 1934): 121–27.Google Scholar
Shulman, Robert. The Power of Political Art: The 1930s Literary Left Reconsidered. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Smith, Greg M. “Blocking Blockade: Partisan Protest, Popular Debate, and Encapsulated Texts.” Cinema Journal 36/1 (Autumn 1996): 18–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
“Soviet Ends Plan to Blockade Spain.” New York Times, 6 February 1937.Google Scholar
“Spanish Earth for Trade Unions.” Daily Worker, 26 March 1938.Google Scholar
“The Spanish War Comes to the Screen With Shots that Look Like Newsreels.” Life, 13 June 1938, 60–61.Google Scholar
Sperber, Murray, ed. And I Remember Spain: A Spanish Civil War Anthology. New York: Collier Books, 1974.Google Scholar
Stewart, Donald Ogden, ed. Fighting Words. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1940.Google Scholar
Stokes, Martin, ed. Ethnicity, Identity, and Music: The Musical Construction of Place. Oxford: Berg, 1994.Google Scholar
Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. Rev. edn. New York: Modern Library, 2001.Google Scholar
Tierney, Dominic. “Franklin D. Roosevelt and Covert Aid to the Loyalists in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939.” Journal of Contemporary History 39/3 (July 2004): 299–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tinnell, Roger D. Federico García Lorca: catálogo-discografía de las “Canciones populares antiguas” y de música basada en textos lorquianos. Plymouth: University of New Hampshire, 1986.Google Scholar
Enrique, Ucelay-Da Cal. “Cataluña durante la Guerra.” In La guerra de España, 1936–1939, ed. Malefakis, Edward, 321–54. Madrid: Taurus, 1996.Google Scholar
Ullman, Joan Connelly. The Tragic Week: A Study of Anticlericalism in Spain, 1875–1912. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Valleau, Marjorie A. The Spanish Civil War in European and American Films. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Variety. 5 June 1937, 23 June 1937, and 7 August 1937. Margaret Herrick Library clippings file, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California.Google Scholar
Vernon, Kathleen, ed. The Spanish Civil War and the Visual Arts. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Center for International Studies, 1990.Google Scholar
Walsh, Frank. Sin and Censorship: The Catholic Church and the Motion Picture Industry. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Warshow, Robert. The Immediate Experience: Movies, Comics, Theatre and Other Aspects of Popular Culture. Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1964.Google Scholar
Waugh, Thomas. “Water, Blood, and War: Documentary Imagery of Spain from the North American Popular Front.” In Vernon, The Spanish Civil War and the Visual Arts, 14–24.Google Scholar
Webber, Christopher. The Zarzuela Companion. Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Weintraub, Stanley. The Last Great Cause: The Intellectuals and the Spanish Civil War. New York: Weybright and Talley, 1968.Google Scholar
Woll, Allen L. Latin Image in American Film. Rev. edn. Los Angeles: UCLA Latin American Center Publications, 1980.Google Scholar
Yri, Kirsten. “Noah Greenberg and the New York Pro Musica: Medievalism and the Cultural Front.” American Music 24/4 (Winter 2006): 421–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yung, Bell, and Rees, Helen, ed. Understanding Charles Seeger: Pioneer in American Musicology. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Zuck, Barbara A. A History of Musical Americanism. Ann Arbor, Mich.: UMI Research Press, 1980.Google Scholar