Tentative Thesis Chapters

Dramma per musica and the Electric Guitar Cowboy
Musical Traditions in Maestro Morricone’s ‘Man with No Name’ Trilogy
By Emily Kausalik

RESEARCH TOPICS/PROBLEMS:
1. Wagner is great and all, but does all film music really rely on his leitmotifs?
- Morricone’s music stems from the Italian operatic tradition, rather than the Wagnerian/Germanic.
2. Can analytical tools of other musics shed light on important film music idioms?
- Caplin’s Classical Form; sentences, periods, hybrids, small forms
- Nattiez’s paradigmatic analysis/aesthetic discourse
- Darcy’s rotational form

CHAPTERS/TOPICS (TENTATIVE)
Introduction:
- development of the Spaghetti Western
- Sergio Leone’s vision/Morricone’s music
Chapter 1a: Film theory
- brief academic history
- literature review
Chapter 1b: Music theory
- overview of analytical models to be used
- literature review of said theories (Caplin, Nattiez, Tagg)
Chapter 2: Film synopses
- A Fistful of Dollars (1964)
- For a Few Dollars More (1965)
- The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966)
Chapter 3: Morricone and the Italian Operatic Tradition
- difference between Wagnerian and Italian operatic traditions/idioms
- examples of thematic/melodic repetition in the three films
Chapter 4: Formula di titoli
- phrase structures of title sequences via Caplinian analysis
Chapter 5: The Showdowns
- dramatic reinforcement through ostinatos, listener’s inner musical dialogue
- Darcy’s rotational form, as opposed to rondo or sonata
- Nattiez aesthetic interpretations
Closing Remarks

Yale decided to cancel the class in Vienna this summer, so now I'm stuck with tickets to Vienna.
But I'm working out some research plans, and perhaps a trip to Prague and/or Venice.