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