Sweet Fulfillment: Allusion and Teleological Genesis in John Williams’s Close Encounters of the...

Sweet Fulfillment: Allusion andTeleological Genesis in John Williams’sClose Encounters of the Third Kind

Tom Schneller

Musical analyses of film music tend to be concerned with the individualcomponents of a film score (the various themes or leitmotifs), rather thanwith the way these components map onto the overarching narrative trajec-tory to reinforce the form of the film as a whole. To the extent that ques-tions of form are addressed at all, they are usually relegated to the level ofthe individual cue. As Robin Stilwell pointed out in 2000, “Film music isperhaps the only predominantly instrumental musical genre which comeswith no formal expectations.”1 And yet it is precisely in the realm of formthat film music carries out one of its most important functions, which is tothrow into relief the dramatic structure by reinforcing parallel points andcreating a goal-oriented sense of gathering tension, climax, and resolutionacross the narrative arc of the film.

Film music, as Zofia Lissa noted in her 1965 study of film music aes-thetics, possesses a “double-layered,” “filmic-musical” form, the definingelement of which is the “functional interrelationship between the twolayers of the film”—that is, the musical and the visual/dramatic. Due tothe fluid, constantly evolving nature of cinematic narrative and the frag-mentation of film music into an archipelago of short, isolated cues, it gen-erally eschews conventional forms that rely on symmetry and recapitulationin favor of a flexible musical fabric based on the constant variation andevolution of short motives.2

Although this, for the most part, renders the vocabulary ofFormenlehre irrelevant to the analysis of film music, it does not follow thatthe large-scale structure of film music bears no relationship to historicalantecedents. On the contrary, the overall form of some of the mostfamous and effective film scores displays a kinship not only to opera, but

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the symphonic tradition as well. David Cooper points to this link when heasks in a 2003 article on Bernard Herrmann’s score for Vertigo, “If we doexperience a sense of integrity in a film that has a ‘symphonic’ score of sub-stantial relative proportions, can this be seen to relate to conventionalformal musical strategies, and particularly to strategies of symphonic formas it had developed by the end of the nineteenth century?”3

As Cooper’s question implies, it is the goal-oriented, processiveapproach to form of late Romanticism, rather than the balanced, symmet-rical formal patterns of classical music, that are of most relevance to filmmusic. Dahlhaus has described this opposition in terms of “logical” and“architectonic” form:

Architectonic form is based on two properties: a balance between phrases,periods, and sets of periods—that is, the principle that each metrical unitis counterbalanced by a second unit at every hierarchical level—and aclearly focused, unambiguous scheme of chord progressions and tonalities.Logical form, on the other hand, resides in motivic connections, whichhold a movement together from within, or, alternatively, in a thematicprocess, which gradually causes an at first inconspicuous turn of melody tobecome richer and richer in meaning as ever more conclusions are drawnfrom it.4

In the following article, I will investigate the use of “logical form” in themusic of John Williams, with a particular focus on Close Encounters of theThird Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977). The large-scale thematic process atwork in this score is best understood by analogy with the concept of “tel-eological genesis,” a structural principle first identified by James Hepokoskias a characteristic feature of much late nineteenth- and twentieth-centurymusic, in particular the works of Sibelius, Mahler, and Strauss. In discus-sing the motivic material of Close Encounters, I will also examineWilliams’s sophisticated use of motivic allusion as a strategy of triggeringsubconscious associations in the viewer.

Teleological Genesis

Teleological genesis involves the emergence over the course of a piece ofan extended melodic idea that develops gradually out of motivic frag-ments. These fragments evolve through a series of “rotations” into thedefinitive version, which serves as the culmination of the piece as a whole.As Hepokoski writes, “In its classic pattern a mere motivic gesture or hintis planted unobtrusively in an early rotation; it then grows in later rota-tions and is ultimately fully unfurled—as the telos—in the final one.”5 Forexample, in Strauss’s Death and Transfiguration, the theme associated with

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the transfiguration of the dying artist evolves from a motivic “seed” of twobars (mm. 163–64) through a succession of expanding versions in variouskeys into the monumental C-major apotheosis that concludes the piece(see ex. 1). This organic structural approach is the reverse of thematic pre-sentation in classical sonata form, in which the themes are presented intheir definitive form at the outset of the piece, and are subsequently sub-jected to fragmentation and development.

first statement (mm. 163–64) intermediate version (mm. 321–23)

intermediate version (mm. 355–59)

telos (mm. 430–end)

espr.

etc.

Example 1. Richard Strauss, Death and Transfiguration. Evolution of “Transfiguration”theme.

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Williams uses a similar procedure in a number of his scores, which hedescribes in an interview about his music for Saving Private Ryan (1998):

What I have tried to do, in many films that I’ve done, is to try to prettymuch work the ending out, so that I know where the musical material isgoing to “land” and develop and then decompose it and take it apart, so tospeak, so that individual strands of a more mature thing can be exposedsingly, and then collect together in the end of the film.6

Occasionally, he constructs the music for extended sequences consistingof several successive cues in the same manner:

Normally I work from front to back, but not always. Sometimes I’ll do thefinale segment first, so I’ll know where I’m heading and I can sort of de-compose if a melody or an aspect of musical development is completed insome scene. I can then take that completed thing and extract elementsfrom it and present them in a somewhat fragmented way, so as they cometogether in the end, there’s a sense of inevitability to it. . . . All of theadditive things that we can do in orchestration and in tempo play into it.7

A particularly clear case of this process of development toward a melodicarrival point is the famous “Flying Theme” from Spielberg’s E.T.: TheExtra-Terrestrial (1982). In its complete version, the theme, like manyWilliams tunes, is cast in ABA form, with an eight-bar A section, a modu-latory nine-bar bridge, and a restatement of A (ex. 2).

The complete version of the theme is introduced about an hour intothe film, as E.T.’s magical abilities cause Elliott’s bike to soar into the airduring a bike ride through the forest. In terms of the dramatic structure,this joyous scene marks the climax of the first half of the film, and immedi-ately precedes the midpoint “reversal of fortune” that is a feature of manyHollywood films; in terms of the music, it presents the culmination of aprocess of thematic evolution that can be traced back to a germinal ideaheard at the very beginning of the film (ex. 3). I call this the E.T. motive.

After the opening titles, the E.T. motive is intoned by a solo piccoloas the camera tilts across a star-studded night sky. It consists of an

Example 2. John Williams, E.T., Flying Theme (“The Magic of Halloween”).Transposed for comparison. Copyright # 1982 USI B Music Publishing. All rightscontrolled and administered by Songs of Universal, Inc. All rights reserved. Used bypermission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard Corporation.




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ascending fifth, followed by a decorated half-step descent. The Lydianinflection, with the tritone tension between A and D-sharp, endows themotive with an aura of the otherworldly: an intervallic encoding of E.T.’s“alien” nature.

As E.T. and Elliott get to know each other, Williams introduces awarm, lyrical melody based on a transformation of the E.T. motive (ex. 4).The ascending fifth is retained, but in place of the “alien” Lydian fourth,the melody now descends by whole step to a “familiar” diatonic fourth.This subtle shift reflects the viewer’s (and Elliott’s) changing perception ofE.T., from mysterious and vaguely sinister to benevolent. Williams observes:“The music evolves, and morphs itself, so to speak, into something that’sloving and familiar, and, finally, almost familial . . . it becomes . . . akind of love theme between the two of them.”8

E.T. reveals to Elliott and his siblings that he is a visitor from outerspace, and by way of illustration causes five balls to levitate in imitation ofhis solar system. This is the first demonstration of E.T.’s magic powers, andforeshadows the levitation of the bicycle. As the balls rise into the air,Williams states a second transformation of the original E.T. motive, whichwe recognize, in retrospect, as an adumbration of the “Flying Theme”(ex. 5).

Each metamorphosis of the original E.T. motive edges closer to thefirst full statement of the theme, so when it finally appears as Elliott andE.T. lift off during the bike ride, the emotional impact is particularlypowerful because we sense this as the apex of a gradual process of melodic

Example 4. Williams, E.T., E.T. motive, Transformation 1 (“The Beginning of aFriendship”). Transposed for Comparison.

Example 5. Williams, E.T., E.T. motive, Transformation 2 (“E.T.’s Powers”).Transposed for Comparison.

6

Example 3. Williams, E.T., E.T. motive (“Far from Home”).




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accretion. As Williams puts it, “We may have the first few notes of thisemotional theme suggested early on, then three or four more notes, thenfinally the whole theme. So that finally, when you hear it all, there’s some-thing vaguely familiar about it—you’ve been prepared for four reels toactually hear this melody. It isn’t presented to you immediately in its com-plete form.”9

In his music for Close Encounters, Williams used a similar, if morecomplex approach to generating extended themes through the gradualaccumulation and transformation of motivic fragments. One of theunusual features of the score is that it makes extensive allusion to twofamous melodies, one from the Christian liturgical tradition, the otherfrom American popular song. Before examining the use of teleologicalgenesis in the score, I will discuss the way Williams incorporates these dis-parate sources into the musical fabric.

Motivic Allusion in Close Encounters

Close Encounters begins with a blinding flash of light that emerges fromcomplete darkness. “One thing I told [cinematographer] Vilmos[Zsigmond] was that it was important that we create action with light,”director Steven Spielberg recalls, “Not movement, not running, notchasing, not shootouts, but light is the action of Close Encounters.”10 Theopposition of dark and light was fundamental to Spielberg’s concept of thefilm, not only in a literal but also in a metaphoric sense. From its incep-tion, the film was organized around images of childlike wonder anddemonic terror, as Joseph McBride relates:

Two seminal cinematic memories from childhood stood out in Spielberg’smind when he began work on Close Encounters in the 1970s. The first wasthe image of the mountain from the terrifying “Night on Bald Mountain”sequence in Fantasia. The second was a soothing memory from anotherDisney movie: the song “When You Wish Upon a Star,” performed inPinocchio by Cliff (Ukulele Ike) Edwards as Jiminy Cricket.11

The integration of these contradictory impulses into a cohesive narrativeis at the core of the film. Spielberg’s principal narrative strategy is to buildsuspense by maintaining the ambivalence of the viewer’s feelings towardthe alien visitors: Are they friendly or hostile? Will they open the doors toparadise or the gates of hell?

This duality is reflected in the harmonic design of the score, whichestablishes a polarity between cluster-based atonality in the mold of Ligetiand Penderecki on the one hand and tonality on the other. Atonality isassociated with the mysterious and initially threatening presence of the




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aliens, but ultimately gives way to a celebratory flourish of tonality oncethe visitors are revealed as benign. The opening of the film, which accom-panies the emergence of light from darkness, encapsulates this dynamic inminiature: a registrally and dynamically expanding chromatic cluster yieldsat the climax of the cue to a dazzling C-major triad.12

On the motivic level, Close Encounters is dominated by two motivesthat reinforce Spielberg’s “two-handed Wonder/Terror approach,” to useTodd Alcott’s phrase.13 Each is derived from a melody associated withopposite ends of the conceptual and emotional spectrum: the Dies Iraeand “When You Wish Upon a Star.”

Dies Irae

Following his first encounter with an UFO, an ominous four-note motiveis heard in pizzicato strings as Roy speeds through a tunnel. As Paul Hume,Randall Larson, and Neil Lerner have pointed out, this motive, which invarious orchestrational guises recurs throughout the film, is based on thefirst four notes of the medieval chant Dies Irae (ex. 6).14

Since Berlioz resurrected the Dies Irae in the last movement ofthe Symphonie fantastique, it has served as a musical symbol of themacabre and diabolical in the works of Liszt, Rachmaninov, Saint-Saens, Crumb, and others. In Hollywood, the Dies Irae has had a longtradition as a musical shorthand for sinister supernatural forces, death,punishment, and horror. Linda Schubert has observed that “in film[the Dies Irae] has become so well known that sometimes only theopening four notes are needed to refer to it.”15 Film composers whohave mined its rich cultural associations include Bernard Herrmann(Citizen Kane), Hugo Friedhofer (Desperate Voyage), Gerald Fried (TheReturn of Dracula), Jerry Goldsmith (The Mephisto Waltz, Poltergeist,Gremlins II), and more recently Elliott Goldenthal (Demolition Man),Danny Elfman (The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman), and HansZimmer (The Ring). The Dies Irae figures prominently not only in CloseEncounters but in a number of other Williams scores as well, includingSleepers, War of the Worlds, and Munich.

vn.

pizz.

va.

pizz.

Example 6. Williams, Close Encounters, “Dies Irae” motive (“Roy’s First Encounter”).Copyright # 1977 (Renewed) EMI Gold Horizon Music Corp. Exclusive print rightsadministered by Alfred Music. All rights reserved. Used by permission.




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So why does Williams allude to the Dies Irae in a movie aboutUFOs? Much has been made in critical analyses of the religious subtext ofClose Encounters. Roy Neary has been variously likened to Moses, a Christfigure, or Saint Paul on the road to Damascus. In Robert Torry’s 1991reading of the film, the climactic encounter with the mother ship onDevil’s Tower

alludes, quite specifically, to New Testament accounts of the Parousia, theculminating event in God’s narrative of salvation for the chosen. The landingof the godlike aliens ends the film in a revelation of final glory that includes,significantly, a symbolic “resurrection of the dead” in the aliens’ return ofthose whom they have previously abducted, and recalls in Neary’s “election”(his being chosen to be among those to depart on the alien mothership) andin his physical ascent in that immense, “heavenly” craft, St. Paul’s descriptionof the rising of the saved to “meet the Lord in the Air.”16

If one accepts this eschatological interpretation, use of the Dies Irae obvi-ously reinforces the millennarian implications of the film. As RobinGregory observes: “The most usual purpose [of quoting the Dies Irae]seems to be as a means of recalling the words of the sequence—the themebeing assumed to be familiar to the listener—and hence to induce themood of the scene on that day of wrath, when the ‘world shall dissolve inashes, and the trumpet, scattering a wondrous sound through the tombs ofall lands, shall drive all unto the Throne.’”17 But even from an analyticalperspective that does not privilege such an explicitly religious reading ofthe film, musical reference to a famous melody associated with the apoca-lypse is an apt choice for suggesting that the uncanny events experiencedby Roy and Jillian might be harbingers of impending global catastrophe.18

Williams uses the “Dies Irae” motive most conspicuously during thesequences in Wyoming as Roy and Jillian drive across the country in areckless, frantic search for Devil’s Tower. Plowing through fields andcrashing through roadblocks, they are in the throes of an ecstatic madness(see ex. 7). The music here is at once exuberant and foreboding, and its

Example 7. Williams, Close Encounters, “Dies Irae” motive (“Roy and Gillian on theRoad”).




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apocalyptic undertones resonate with particular intensity as we see thelonely car hurtling through an abandoned, desolate landscape litteredwith the bodies of (apparently) dead cattle.

Almost thirty years later, Williams and Spielberg collaborated onWar of the Worlds, a dark companion piece to Close Encounters. If in 1977the aliens are gentle, childlike beings who communicate through music,their counterparts in 2005 are merciless invaders whose object is toconvert human beings into fertilizer. Again, Williams wove the Dies Iraeinto the motivic fabric of the score, most memorably during the harrowingscene in which little Rachel witnesses a stream of corpses floating by in ariver. A chromatically compressed statement of the first six notes of thechant proliferates into a dissonant, quasi-canonic texture as we see firstone, then several, then dozens of bodies enter the frame (ex. 8).

The end title of War of the Worlds takes the Dies Irae as a point ofdeparture in a somber, serpentine orchestral meditation on the prospect ofa world dissolved, quite literally, into ash (ex. 9).19

Although the scores of both Close Encounters and War of the Worldsallude to the Dies Irae, there is a fundamental difference in the way thisallusion relates to the narrative. In War of the Worlds, the apocalypticimplications of the motive accurately reflect the impact the arrival of thealiens has on mankind. In Close Encounters, the Dies Irae functions as amusical red herring. By using a motive that is culturally encoded as aportent of impending doom, Williams prods the viewer into expecting theworst, which makes the revelation of the aliens’ benevolence all the moreeffective.

violins

violas

Example 8. Williams, War of the Worlds, “Dies Irae” motive (“Confrontation withOgilvy”). Copyright # 2006 Sony/ATV Melody. All rights administered by Sony/ATVMusic Publishing LLC, 8 Music Square West, Nashville, TN 37203. Internationalcopyright secured. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of Hal LeonardCorporation.




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A parallel can be drawn here to Williams’s score for Home Alone(1990). Near the beginning of the film, eight-year-old Kevin and his sib-lings spy on their neighbor, the sinister-looking Marley, rumored to be amurderer who mummifies his victims by storing them in garbage cansfilled with salt. On a cut to a close-up of Marley, the first four notes of theDies Irae ominously ring out in chimes and brass, instantly endowing himwith a satanic aura (ex. 10).

It turns out that Marley is not a murderer at all, but a gentle, lonelyman, as Kevin finds out when he overcomes his fear of Marley and chatswith him during a Christmas service. The music that accompanies theforging of their friendship is the Ukrainian Christmas song “Carol of theBells,” heard diegetically in an arrangement for children’s choir andorchestra by Williams (ex. 11).

Note that the opening of the Dies Irae and the “Carol of the Bells”are intervallically identical—which Williams exploits to make a musicalpun that elegantly sums up the shift in Kevin’s perception of Marley. As

Example 10. Williams, Home Alone, “Dies Irae” motive (“Introducing Marley”).Copyright # 1990 Fox Film Music Corporation. All rights reserved. Reprinted bypermission of Hal Leonard Corporation.

violins

violas

Example 9. Williams, War of the Worlds, “Dies Irae” motive (“Epilogue”).




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Craig Lysy points out, the metamorphosis of the ominous Dies Irae intothe benevolent “Carol of the Bells” “is an allegory for Marley’s transforma-tion from a feared neighbor to a kind old man.”20

“When You Wish Upon a Star”

In Close Encounters, the transformation of the way the alien visitors areperceived is similarly reflected by a shift of thematic reference point, inthis case from the Dies Irae to “When You Wish Upon a Star,” thefamous theme song Leigh Harline and Ned Washington wrote forDisney’s Pinocchio (1940). The song, which accompanies the openingcredits and follows the scene in which Pinocchio is transformed by theblue fairy from a marionette into a “real boy,” conveys the profoundlonging at the heart of Collodi’s story. In the first draft of his screenplay,Spielberg had intended to use the original Cliff Edwards recording toaccompany Roy’s ascension to the mother ship. “I pretty much hung mystory on the mood that song created, the way it affected me emotion-ally,” the director stated in an interview.21 “When You Wish Upon aStar” was presumably intended to emphasize that Roy is a kind ofPinocchio figure, who is granted release from the deadening confines ofa routine job and stultifying family life and awakens to cosmic con-sciousness. As Spielberg puts it, at the end of the film “he becomes areal person. He loses his strings, his wooden joints, and he goes on thatship knowing what he’s doing.”22

Spielberg decided to drop the original recording of the song fromthe final sequence after a preview audience in Dallas reacted negativelyto its use.23 Yet its imprint remains in the music of Williams, both inthe form of a direct quote and, more subtly, in the design of the motiveassociated with Roy’s obsessive quest to reach Devil’s Tower. As thecomposer commented:

“When You Wish Upon a Star” was in Close Encounters, disguised, for thesense of mystique. It is a beautiful song and it meant a lot to Steven, andthere are strong associations, fantastic associations with it. Most peopledon’t even notice it, and that’s all right, too. It may be just a kind of artisticconceit, I suppose, but it has some meaning to us. That should be enoughof a reason.24

Example 11. Mykola Leontovych, “Carol of the Bells.”




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The quote is introduced at a key juncture in the last act, during the scenein which Roy is “chosen” by the aliens as the only human worthy of enter-ing the mother ship. It emerges gradually, from a rich harmonic back-ground consisting of diatonic clusters, as a priest bestows a final blessingon Neary and the twelve astronauts of the Mayflower Project (“Grantthese pilgrims, we pray, a happy journey, and peaceful days, so that withyour holy angel as a guide, they may safely reach their destination”). Ascan be seen in example 12, the melodic outlines are initially veiledthrough fragmentation and augmentation.

Williams uses only a portion of the tune—the first seven notes,which constitute the opening phrase of the thirty-two-bar AABA form.These are stated four times in various transpositions as the astronauts filetoward the mother ship and Roy is surrounded by the aliens. The passageconcludes with a blazing cadence in E major, which punctuates a cut tothe final close-up of Roy, about to vanish into the luminous womb of themother ship, his face framed by a halo of blue light.

While this quote has been mentioned by almost everyone who haswritten about the music of Close Encounters, it is not the only element ofthe score that derives from “When You Wish Upon a Star.” I mentionedabove that the music is dominated by two motives with opposing connota-tions. The counterpart to the Dies Irae is an alluring pentatonic motive(see ex. 13) that Williams associated with the hypnotic pull exerted onRoy by the implanted vision of Devil’s Tower: “I used a four-note motivefor Neary, which in my mind had to do with his obsession with the

pizz.

“When You Wish Upon A Star”, notes 1–4

str.


vc.


Example 12. Williams, Close Encounters, “When You Wish Upon a Star” quote (“The Visitors”).




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mountain . . . I was trying to get inside Neary, really, to play musically hisobsession with this unseen thing.”25

The link of this motive to “When You Wish Upon a Star” becomesapparent when we compare its rhythmic profile and melodic outline to thebridge of the song, which begins with the words “Fate is kind” (ex. 14).

That this similarity was almost certainly intentional becomesevident when we examine the new end title Williams composed for theso-called Special Edition of Close Encounters, released in 1980. TheSpecial Edition was a revised version of the film that contained a numberof editorial changes and additions. Spielberg’s original plan of playing“When You Wish Upon a Star” during the final minutes of the film waspartially reinstated in the music for the end credits, in which the turbulentrecapitulation of the Dies Irae motive that had been the centerpiece of the1977 end title is replaced with a gentle orchestral adaptation of “WhenYou Wish Upon a Star.” Williams’s version of the tune starts with a strik-ing reharmonization of the bridge (ex. 15).

The harmonic structure of the first two bars is practically identical tothat of the motive, as shown in example 16.

In addition, Williams alters the rhythm of bar 4 of the bridge to adotted quarter and eighth pattern, so the rhythmic profile of the bridgematches that of the motive exactly (compare examples 13 and 15). The

Fate is kind, She brings to those who love

Example 14. Leigh Harline, “When You Wish Upon a Star,” bridge.

Example 13. Williams, Close Encounters, “Fate Is Kind” motive (“The Visitors”).




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way Williams adapts Harline’s tune in the end title of the Special Editionspotlights the link between the motive and its source—at the very end ofthe movie, the composer seems to tip his cards. Since Williams knew thesignificance Harline’s song had for Spielberg, it would have been a logicalchoice to derive the motive associated with Roy Neary’s obsessive longingfor contact with the aliens from “When You Wish Upon a Star”—notleast in view of Ned Washington’s lyrics, which sum up the emotionaldenouement of Close Encounters:

Fate is kindShe brings to those who loveThe sweet fulfillment ofTheir secret longing.

I will henceforth refer to the motive in example 13 as “Fate Is Kind,”a designation intended to emphasize not only its likely origin but also itsfunction as the “positive” counterpart of the Dies Irae.

“When You Wish Upon A Star”, bridge

Close Encounters, “Fate Is Kind” motive

Example 16. Comparison of “When You Wish Upon a Star” and “Fate Is Kind”motive.

hn., vc.

hp.

vn.

Example 15. Williams, Close Encounters, “When You Wish Upon a Star” quote (“EndTitles: The Special Edition”).




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Trick or Treat?

As I mentioned above, the psychological impact of Close Encounters isdetermined in large part by the sense of ambivalence felt by both the spec-tator and the characters toward the aliens, whose true nature is notrevealed until the very end. “It’s like Halloween for grown-ups,” Jillianremarks to Roy as they watch a mysterious aircraft approaching in thenight sky, to which Roy replies, uneasily, “Trick or treat?” Todd Alcottnotes that “throughout Close Encounters Spielberg promises terror, thendelivers wonder, then promises wonder and delivers terror instead,keeping you constantly on edge, not knowing what to expect.”26 Thisdynamic is echoed musically by the frequent juxtaposition and superimpo-sition of the Dies Irae and “Fate Is Kind.”

An example of the intricate interplay between the two motivesoccurs in the music Williams composed for the pivotal scene in which Royand Jillian see Devil’s Tower for the first time. The opening of the sceneconsists of two shots: a slow dolly in toward Roy and Jillian sitting in thecar, their eyes ecstatically fixed on Devil’s Tower, and a pan merging intoan ascending crane shot that follows them as they step out of the car andclimb a steep embankment toward a barbed-wire fence, behind which themountain looms into view. The first shot is accompanied by a somberstatement of the first three notes of “Fate Is Kind” in the low strings, liter-ally trembling with anticipation (ex. 17).

As Roy and Jillian begin their climb, the Dies Irae takes over in anagitated series of ascending sequential transpositions that mesh with theascending crane shot to create an extraordinary buildup of tension(ex. 18).

The two motives are contrapuntally combined in a radiant E-majorclimax as Devil’s Tower is revealed in all its sinister majesty. The superim-position of “Fate Is Kind” and the Dies Irae, which occurs at several other

str.

“Fate Is Kind”

hp.

Example 17. Williams, Close Encounters, “Fate Is Kind” motive (“The Mountain”).




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points as well, conveys the sense that the lure of the aliens is both beauti-ful and dangerous. It also suggests a complex and somewhat disturbingemotional state—akin perhaps to the giddy sense of excitement someevangelical Christians experience at the prospect of an impendingRapture (ex. 19).

Although the two motives are frequently used in tandem, there is a sig-nificant difference in the way they are treated. The structure of the Dies Iraeremains essentially static throughout the score: variation occurs mainlythrough orchestration and rhythmic accentuation. The basic building blocksof the motive, the four-note cell me–re–me–do and its continuation re–do–re–ti, are not subjected to development beyond repetition or transposi-tion. I would speculate that this lack of development has to do with themotive being, as mentioned above, a red herring: its apocalyptic implicationsdo not come to fruition, so it does not have a goal to develop toward.

By contrast, “Fate Is Kind,” which foreshadows the actual denoue-ment of the story, undergoes a gradual and systematic process of expansion

w.w.,glock.

“Dies Irae”

vn.

vc.

va.

d.b.

brass

vc.

Example 18. Williams, Close Encounters, “Dies Irae” motive (“The Mountain”).




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and transformation, from a three-note cell to a sixteen-bar melody. This,of course, brings us back to our point of departure. As we will see, teleolog-ical genesis is the basic organizing principle not only of “Fate Is Kind,” butalso of the third main musical idea of the score, the famous five-note“Communication” motive.

Teleological Genesis in Close Encounters

Screenwriter Todd Alcott has proposed that the dramatic structure ofClose Encounters divides into four acts, rather than the typical three-actlayout of most Hollywood narratives. Act 1 introduces the dramaticpremise (UFOs descend to Earth) and the main characters (Lacombe,Neary, Jillian), and concludes with Roy’s first encounter. Alcott summa-rizes this as “Roy gets the message.” In act 2, Roy struggles to understandthe meaning of the strange visions that haunt him (“Roy interprets themessage”); in act 3, Roy “acts on the message” by driving to Wyoming insearch of Devil’s Tower; and in act 4, “Roy meets the messenger” onDevil’s Tower.27

The progress of Roy’s quest resembles a puzzle that is graduallypieced together over the course of the film. He moves from vague premo-nitions to progressively more concrete manifestations of his goal. In act 2,his fascination with mountainous shapes evolves into the urge to createever more detailed and specific physical manifestations of these shapes

w.w.,glock.

“Fate Is Kind” (embellished)“Dies Irae” “Dies Irae”

str.,brass

“Fate Is Kind”

Example 19. Williams, Close Encounters, Superimposition of “Fate Is Kind” and “Dies Irae” motives(“The Mountain”).




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(from a pile of mashed potatoes to a precisely sculpted earth mound). Inact 3, Roy moves away from attempts to merely replicate Devil’s Tower inminiature to seek out, and ultimately scale, the actual mountain on whosesummit the fateful encounter will take place in act 4. The culminatingpoint of Close Encounters is the moment of contact: the eerie, wordless“conversation” between Lacombe and the alien by means of hand ges-tures. As film scholar Robert Kolker notes, this scene is followed by “aseries of low-angle tracks moving away from the wondering humans,releasing tension, preparing the viewer not only for the departure of thespacecraft, but for his or her own separation from the narrative.”28

This moment of release is marked by the first statement of the telostoward which “Fate Is Kind” has been evolving for the duration of thefilm: a sixteen-bar melody that has the AAB phrase structure of a typicalsentence, in the Schoenbergian sense. The basic unit from which themelody is constructed is the four-bar “Fate Is Kind” motive, which dividesinto two distinct segments (labeled a1 and a2 in ex. 20). In the context ofthe complete theme, the motive serves as the A phrase, which is firstrestated and then completed by an eight-bar continuation in which eachsubphrase ascends by step to a higher melodic peak. The melody modu-lates from B major to D major and is sonorously orchestrated for horns,celli, and woodwinds, accompanied by swirling strings.

This point of arrival is assembled, mosaic-like, through the progres-sive accumulation of motivic segments—an evolution that mirrors Roy’sprogress from the first stirrings of his “secret longing” to its “sweet fulfill-ment.” Williams summarizes this process as follows:

It builds up: you hear fragments of it when [Roy] sees the mountain on tel-evision; you hear more of it when he’s driving the car; you’ve heard littlebits of it when he sees the shaving-cream mountain and the mud

mp

a1

STATEMENT

a2 a1

RESTATEMENT

a2

a3

CONTINUATION

a4

a5

Example 20. Williams, Close Encounters, telos of “Fate Is Kind” (“The Visitors”).




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mountain. It finally comes together as a musical phrase on Devil’s Tower.In my mind, that is the payoff of his obsession.29

I will briefly trace the principal stages of this development (see Appendixfor a chart of all statements of “Fate Is Kind”). During the openingsequence of act 1, set in the Sonora Desert, Lacombe interrogates an oldMexican man who, having apparently lost his mind, mumbles over andover again that “the sun came out last night” and “sang” to him. Thisstrange testimony gives us the first inkling of the overwhelming impact theUFOs have on those who encounter them, and foreshadows the obsessionthat will consume Roy. Williams uses two fragments of the motive: first,an incipient version of [a2] in celli and basses at the beginning of thescene, as one of the Mayflower scientists asks the old man what happened(see top system of ex. 21).

Following the testimony of the old man, which is endowed with amysterious musical halo of violins, celesta, glockenspiel, and vibraphone,Lacombe’s translator nervously backs away as ominous low brass intonesan incipient version of [a1] (top system of ex. 22).

The intervallic pattern here is descending minor second/ascendingperfect fourth, instead of the definitive form, which is ascending major

a2 [incipient version]

a2 [definitive version]

Example 21. Williams, Close Encounters, “Fate Is Kind” motive in act 1 (“LostSquadron”).


a1 [definitive version]

Example 22. Williams, Close Encounters, “Fate Is Kind” motive in act 1 (“LostSquadron”).




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second/ascending perfect fourth. Retrospectively, we understandthat the B-flat is “wrong” (it should be a G). The first half of themotive is still embryonic—its intervallic structure has not yet beenlocked into place.

In act 2, Roy and Jillian join a crowd expecting the impending arrivalof the aliens on a hilltop (a foreshadowing of the later, climactic encounteron Devil’s Tower). As mysterious lights approach in the night sky, we hearthe incipient version of [a1], again in low brass (ex. 23).

On a cut to an old couple whose joyously expectant faces are bathedin the radiant light of the approaching aircraft, the mood changes brieflyfrom fear to wonder as the violins hint at the definitive version of [a1],subtly intertwined with the Dies Irae (ex. 24).

Later in act 2, the incipient version of [a1] appears one last time aswe see Roy working on a clay model of the mountain. Frustrated that hecannot reproduce the exact shape that haunts him, he claws at the clayuntil, in defeat, he collapses in front of the model and drifts off to sleep.For the first time, [a2] is presented in conjunction with [a1] to form alarger melodic unit made up of two phrases. Like [a1], it has not yet


Example 23. Williams, Close Encounters, “Fate Is Kind” motive in act 2 (“FalseAlarm”).

accel.“Fate Is Kind”

“Dies Irae” “Dies Irae”“Dies Irae”

“Dies Irae”

Example 24. Williams, Close Encounters, “Fate Is Kind” motive in act 2 (“FalseAlarm”).




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attained its final shape. The first note is out of place, and the last threenotes only approximate the eventual intervallic and gestural outline(ex. 25).30

A kind of rough draft of the complete motive has emerged. Theoverall shape is there, but various details are still incomplete, just asRoy’s clay sculpture is only a tentative approximation of Devil’s Tower.In this context, it is tempting to draw a connection to Williams’s obser-vation that “writing a tune is like sculpting. You get four or five notes,you take one out and move one around, and you do a bit more andeventually, as the sculptor says, ‘In that rock there is a statue, we haveto go find it.’”31

If we extend this metaphor to Close Encounters, the “statue” doesnot begin to emerge until Roy and Jillian actually set eyes on Devil’sTower in act 3. Only now do things fall into place in terms of rhythmicand intervallic structure. Williams presents three statements of the motivein its definitive form, each one more complete than the next. First, wehear segment [a1], now with the pattern of ascending major second/ascending perfect fourth, as we see Roy and Jillian looking at Devil’sTower (ex. 26).

The second statement of the motive presents [a1], followed by anincomplete statement of [a2], as Devil’s Tower is revealed in the ascend-ing crane shot that was mentioned above (ex. 27).

Finally, as Roy and Jillian drive closer to the mountain, the com-plete, definitive form of both motivic segments of “Fate Is Kind” is

pp

a1 [incipient version] a2 [incipient version]

Example 25. Williams, Close Encounters, “Fate Is Kind” motive in act 2 (“Forming theMountain”).

Statement 1

pp

a1

p

Example 26. Williams, Close Encounters, “Fate Is Kind” motive in act 3 (“TheMountain”).




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presented for the first time, followed by segment [a4]. The latter foreshad-ows the concluding phrase of the telos (ex. 28).

Both segments of the motive feature prominently during Roy andJillian’s escape from the army base and their climb to the summit ofDevil’s Tower. Their tender farewell is underscored with a development of“Fate Is Kind” that evokes Mahler in its bittersweet lyricism and ever-expanding melodic arches (ex. 29).

As the mother ship descends upon the landing strip, the melodicstructure of the telos begins to take shape: a statement of the motive fol-lowed by an immediate restatement sets up the expectation of a phrasethat will continue and complete the musical thought. Resolution,however, is pointedly withheld as the second half of the restatement trailsoff inconclusively, sustaining the tension (ex. 30).

This is the last statement of “Fate Is Kind” before the motive is trans-formed into a full-fledged melody just prior to the departure of the mothership (see ex. 20). As little Barry whispers “Good-bye!” to his alien friends,

Statement 3

p

a1 a2 a4


mf

a1

free development of a

Example 29. Williams, Close Encounters, “Fate Is Kind” motive in act 3(“Barnstorming”).

f

Statement 2a1

a2 (incomplete)

p





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the third phrase of the telos cadences to a sustained D-major chord:finally, harmonic resolution has been achieved.

Although this resolution represents the culminating point of “Fate IsKind,” it serves as a mere preparation for the main climactic peroration ofthe score, which accompanies the ensuing end title with its spectacularimages of the mother ship ascending toward the stars. In retrospect, weunderstand that the sustained D-major chord functions as dominant to Gmajor, the initial key of the end title. The end title begins with an apoth-eosis of the third principal motivic strand of the score: the five-notemotive that is the primary means of communication between aliens andhumans (ex. 31).

According to Williams, Spielberg conceived of the communicationmotive as a concise signal, rather than a melody: “It should be more likesomebody pushes a doorbell, like Avon Calling—you know, ‘dingdong.’”32 Its intervallic structure suggests the need for continuation: themotive “ends on the fifth degree. . . . Ending on the fifth in music is, asyou know, like ending a sentence with the word ‘and.’ It’s unfinished: youcan either repeat it ad infinitum or go on to something else. That was onething in its favor—it didn’t resolve.”33

The communication motive is distinct from the other motivic ideasof the score in that it is relegated, until the very end of the film, to the

mf f

a1

STATEMENT

a2

a1

RESTATEMENT

a2 [incomplete]

Example 30. Williams, Close Encounters, “Fate Is Kind” motive in act 4 (“The Arrivalof the Mothership”).

Example 31. Williams, Close Encounters, communication motive.




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diegetic realm.34 We hear it for the first time sung by a crowd of villagersin India; later, Barry picks out the tune on a glockenspiel prior to hisabduction. In act 4, the motive is tossed back and forth between a key-board player and the mother ship in a kind of intergalactic jam session. AsRoy enters the mother ship, the motive crosses over from the realm of thediegetic to that of the nondiegetic. Like Roy, who leaves behind hisformer life and quite literally ascends to a higher state of consciousness,the communication motive leaves the “real” musical space of the film’sworld and enters the “metaphysical” level of orchestral commentary—arichly symbolic moment of transcendence.35

This shift in the function of the communication motive marks thedenouement of the film, the point at which the main narrative strandsconverge and resolve (Roy enters the spaceship; Lacombe communicateswith the alien). But it is not until the mothership lifts off, and the begin-ning of the end title, that the communication motive undergoes its finalapotheosis. As in the case of “Fate Is Kind” and the “Flying Theme” fromE.T., this apotheosis involves a transformation from “unfinished” motivicfragment to extended melodic statement (again in AAB form). For thefirst time, we hear the motive harmonized and scored for the full brasssection in its most brilliant register (ex. 32).

The fact that the main musical climax of the score is based on thecommunication motive provides a kind of musical summary of the centralidea of the film:

Because communication through music is at the very core of the movie—the Kodaly hand-signals that we see, the five-note tone-sequence that wehear—Steven and I saw this as a wonderful opportunity to evolve a score,to plant those five notes—the thematic seeds, if you like—in the minds ofthe audience and watch, or rather hear, them grow to this great orchestralapotheosis in the final reel. And when you finally arrive at it, there’s thisstrong sense of recognition—it may be subliminal to most of the audience,but it’s there, and we hoped, in some unconscious spiritual way, it wouldprove fulfilling.36

Williams’s horticultural metaphor recalls Goethe’s Metamorphosis ofPlants: “Closely observe how the plant, by little and little progressing,step by step guided on, changeth to blossom and fruit! First from theseed it unravels itself . . . so at length it attaineth the noble anddestined perfection.” This image sums up the motivic design of CloseEncounters, and links Williams’s aesthetic approach to the Romanticideal of organicism—the same ideal that manifests itself in the gradualcoalescence of motivic fragments into the rousing “Swan Hymn” of




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Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony, or the apotheosis of Death and Transfiguration.In this sense, the structural process of the score bears a close kinshipto certain “strategies of symphonic form as it had developed by the

A (motive)

A' (restatement of motive)

B (motive + continuation)

Example 32. Williams, Close Encounters, telos of the communication motive (“EndTitles”).




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end of the nineteenth century”—to return to David Cooper’s originalquestion.

Of course, the opportunity to use sophisticated formal strategieslike teleological genesis in film music is entirely dependent on thestructure of the narrative. Williams has remarked that “[Spielberg’s] sub-jects and way of directing are very compatible with a sense of musicaldevelopment”37—no doubt one important reason for the close professio-nal bond between the two artists, who have collaborated on twenty-fivefilms. But it takes a composer of particular musico-dramatic sensitivity andskill to recognize the potential for employing such a structural approach.Gail Kubik (who, like Williams, was active in both film and concertmusic) describes the peculiar formal challenge of film composing in a1945 essay on music in documentaries:

Most film music problems . . . pose this question: Can the composer dis-cover the architectural form which the film itself takes and, assuming thathe has the instinctive dramatic talent which enables him to perceive thisform, can he then translate his reactions to the film’s structure into soundswhich are musically satisfactory and convincing, yet which also supple-ment the dramatic impact of the film itself?38

Few composers have been as consistently adept as Williams at negotiatingthis delicate balance between musical and filmic form.

Appendix

Evolution of “Fate Is Kind”*

Act 1: “Roy receives the message”

Time Location Action “The Last Squadron”

00:06:32* SonoraDesert

Scientist asksMexicanwhathappened

00:07:18 LaughlintranslatesMexican’stestimony

*The timings refer to the original 1977 version of the film.




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Act 2: “Roy interprets the message”

Time Location Action “False Alarm”

00:38:17 Crescendo Summit Tracking shot towardyoung woman

Old couple gazes atapproaching aircraft

“Forming the Mountain”01:03:44 Roy’s house Roy falls asleep in

front of claymountain

“TV Reveals”1:15:08 As above Roy sees Devil’s

Tower on TV

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Act 3: “Roy acts on the message”

Time Location Action “The Mountain”

01:20:27 Near Devil’s Tower Roy and Jillian look atmountain

01:21:04 As above As above

01:22:00 Road They drive towardmountain

“The Escape”01:31:28 Army camp Lacombe watches Roy,

Jillian, Larry flee

01:31:49 As above As above

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01:31:56 Devil’s Tower Fugitives start climbingmountain

“Outstretched Hands”01:38:25 As above Jillian pulls Roy to the

top of mountain

01:38:49 Roy and Jillian seelanding site for firsttime

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Act 4: “Roy meets the messenger”

Time Location Action “Barnstorming”

01:49:12 As above Roy and Jillian part

“The Arrival of the Mother Ship”01:54:16 Landing site Mother ship lands

“The Visitors” [TELOS]02:09:56 As above Mother ship prepares

for departure

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“End Titles” [restatement of telos with varied ending]02:12:01 Outer space End credits

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Notes

Tom Schneller is a composer and film music scholar. His research focuses on Hollywoodmusic, in particular the work of Bernard Herrmann. He has published articles and bookreviews on film music in The Journal of Film Music, Popular Music History, and Cuadernosde Musica, Artes Visuales y Artes Escenicas. Schneller received his doctorate in composi-tion from Cornell University in 2008, and has taught music theory and music history atCornell and Ithaca College. E-mail: [email protected]

1. Robin Stilwell, “Sense & Sensibility: Form, Genre, and Function in the Film Score,”Acta Musicologica 72 (2000): 222.

2. “The fragmentary character of musical episodes in film . . . influences the type ofmusical construction. The principle of periodicity, which requires time for its unfolding,is not suited to film music, because each cut could destroy the overall structure. . . . Forthis reason, film music primarily makes use of the evolution of motives, which can at anymoment be truncated or—if necessary—be developed more expansively.” Zofia Lissa,Asthetik der Filmmusik (Berlin: Henschel, 1965), 268; translation mine. Lissa’s emphasison motivic variation echoes Kurt London’s observation that “there had been in the tradi-tional theory of forms neither norm nor precedent for [the structure of film music], unlessthe old form of composition with a ‘theme and variations’ were transferred to the needs ofthe film.” London, Film Music (London: Faber & Faber, 1936), 65. Adorno and Eislermake a similar point when they describe the “specific musical logic” of film music as theresult of a “highly evolved variation technique.” Theodor Adorno and Hans Eisler,Composing for the Films (London: Athlone Press, 1994), 93.

3. David Cooper, “Film Form and Musical Form in Bernard Herrmann’s Score toVertigo,” Journal of Film Music 1, nos. 2–3 (2003): 240.

4. Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music (Berkeley: University of California Press,1989), 255.

5. James Hepokoski, Sibelius: Symphony No. 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1993), 26.

6. Laurent Bouzereau, “Music and Sound,” Saving Private Ryan, DVD, directed bySteven Spielberg (1998; Universal City: DreamWorks Home Entertainment, 2004).

7. Jeff Bond, “God Almighty! FSM Finally Talks to John Williams,” Film Score Monthly8, no. 1 (January 2003): 11.

8. Laurent Bouzereau, “A Conversation with John Williams,” E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, DVD, directed by Steven Spielberg (1982; Universal Studios: AmblinEntertainment, 2002).

9. Bouzereau, “A Conversation with John Williams.”

10. Thomas Durwood, ed., Close Encounters of the Third Kind: A Document of the Film(Kansas City: Ariel Books, 1977), 36.

11. Joseph McBride, Steven Spielberg: A Biography (New York: Da Capo Press, 1999), 262.

12. The use of a C-major triad as a surprising “punch line” at the end of a cluster-basedcomposition recalls Krzyzstof Penderecki’s Polymorphia for string orchestra (1962).




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13. Todd Alcott, Spielberg: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, http://www.toddalcott.com/spielberg-close-encounters-of-the-third-kind-part-one.html (accessed 6 April 2014).

14. See Paul Hume, “Williams’ Close Parallels . . . of the First Kind,” Los Angeles Times,30 December 1977. See also Neil Lerner, “Nostalgia, Masculinist Discourse, andAuthoritarianism in John Williams’ Scores for Star Wars and Close Encounters of the ThirdKind,” in Off the Planet: Music, Sound and Science Fiction Cinema, ed. Philip Hayward(London: John Libbey, 2004), 104; and Randall Larson, Musique Fantastique: A Survey ofFilm Music in the Fantastic Cinema (Metuchen and London: Scarecrow Press, 1985), 298.

15. Linda Schubert, “Plainchant in Motion Pictures: The ‘Dies Irae’ in Film Scores,”Florilegium 15 (July 1998): 208.

16. Robert Torry, “Politics and Parousia in Close Encounters of the Third Kind,”Literature/Film Quarterly 19, no. 3 (1991): 190.

17. Robin Gregory, “Dies Irae,” Music & Letters 34, no. 2 (1953): 135.

18. I agree with Lester Friedland when he cautions that “such readings do a substantialdisservice to Spielberg’s broader and more inclusive artistic impulses. To shoehorn hisfilms into neat parables that fit preexisting modes of Western religious expressions robsthem of their particular power.” Friedland, Citizen Spielberg (Urbana and Chicago:University of Illinois, 2006), 42.

19. The stark, chromatic string scoring of the end title is reminiscent of the first move-ment of Shostakovich’s Fourteenth Symphony, which, incidentally, starts with a quota-tion of the Dies Irae.

20. Craig Lysy, “Home Alone—John Williams,” Movie Music UK, http://moviemusicuk.us/2011/01/11/home-alone-john-williams/ (accessed 6 April 2014).

21. Ray Morton, Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Making of Steven Spielberg’sClassic Film (New York: Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 2007), 87.

22. Durwood, Close Encounters of the Third Kind: A Document of the Film, 118.

23. Morton, Close Encounters of the Third Kind: The Making of Steven Spielberg’s ClassicFilm, 269.

24. Durwood, Close Encounters of the Third Kind: A Document of the Film, 40. This wasnot the first time Williams adapted “When You Wish Upon a Star.” In 1964, he arrangedand conducted the tune on a recording of jazz standards that featured Andre Previn aspiano soloist. Andre Previn, Andre Previn—Soundstage!, Columbia CS 8958, 1964, LP.

25. Durwood, Close Encounters of the Third Kind: A Document of the Film, 35. By “four-note motive,” Williams is evidently referring to the pitch content (G-sharp–A-sharp–D-sharp–C-sharp), not the total number of notes.

26. Alcott, Spielberg: Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

27. Alcott, Spielberg: Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

28. Robert Phillip Kolker, A Cinema of Loneliness (Oxford and New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1988), 278.

29. Durwood, Close Encounters of the Third Kind: A Document of the Film, 35.




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http://www.toddalcott.com/spielberg-close-encounters-of-the-third-kind-part-one.html



http://moviemusicuk.us/2011/01/11/home-alone-john-williams/




30. Note that the definitive form of [a1] is embedded, in retrograde, within the lastthree notes of [a2].

31. David Thomas, “Point Blank: John Williams,” Total Film Magazine 8 (September1997): 74.

32. Laurent Bouzereau, “An Interview with John Williams,” liner notes to CloseEncounters: The Collector’s Edition Soundtrack, Arista Records, 07822-19004-2, 1998, CD.

33. Derek Elley, “John Williams,” Films and Filming (July 1978): 23.

34. Since it plays a key role in the plot, the motive belongs to the same category of die-getic music as the theme from Peer Gynt that Peter Lorre whistles in M (1931), or ArthurBenjamin’s Storm Cloud Cantata in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956).

35. Kevin Donnelly comments on the inherently metaphysical or “spectral” characterof nondiegetic music in film: “The fact that film music is habitually non-diegetic, thus‘not-real’ in relation to the diegesis, gives it something of a supernatural character, whereit is closer to ‘the voice of God’, the transcendent or the supernatural.” See Donnelly,The Spectre of Sound (London: British Film Institute, 2005), 13.

36. Edward Seckerson, “He Knows the Score,” London Independent, 25 May 1996.

37. Bouzereau, “A Conversation with John Williams.”

38. Gail Kubick, “Music in Documentary Films,” Music Publishers’ Journal 3, no. 5(September–October 1945): 13, repr. in The Hollywood Film Music Reader, ed. MervynCooke (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 150.




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