Search

Copyright of Art of Words / Umjetnost Riječi is the property of Umjetnost Rijeci and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The composer, conductor, writer, painter and designer, Ivo Tijardović (1895-1976), wrote film scores on several occasions during his lifetime. In the book Music from the Screen, I listed his film scores, counting eight scores for feature films, four scores for documentaries and one for animated film. Korallenprinzessin and In Banner Kaiser Diokletians were among the eight feature films. I listed them, but without any data -- since I found only the names of the films in an old book written by Krešimir Kovačević, the only author who ever mentioned them. Daniel Rafaelić's and Leon Rizmaul's recent research in Berlin finished with re-discovery of these two films, both made in 1937 by the crew sent by German Tobis Studio (In Banner Kaiser Diokletians was the working title for Lied der Adria). Since the first short sound film in Croatia appeared in 1937, these two films, which were both made in Yugoslavia -- with strong support from the Yugoslavian government in the hope that they will also serve as tourism propaganda -- changed the historical perspective of Croatian film music. It seems that Tijardović, besides Eduard Gloz, who wrote music for the Croatian first short sound film, Šešir [The Hat], was the first Croatian composer who wrote music for sound films. However, both films were produced by a German film studio -- in fact, it was a kind of German-Yugoslavian co-production -- but they gave Tijardović an opportunity to start an art form which, at that time in Croatia, did not exist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alfi Kabiljo is best known as the author of the first Croatian musicals, but he has also written music for films. While his work for Croatian films is more or less known, his scores for foreign films are not so familiar in Croatia. Namely, during the 1980s and 1990s, Kabiljo wrote music for eight foreign films. The essay analyses two films from that part of his rich opus: Sky Bandits (entitled Gunbus for American distribution), which was made in 1986 by director Zoran Perišić (who is known as the creator of the visual effects for the film Superman), and Scissors (that is: The Final Instinct for American viewers), made in 1991 by Frank de Felitta. As an amateurish work, Gunbus's story wasn't very inspiring, but Kabiljo, nevertheless, created a Hollywood-sounding score that evoked the feeling of the Wild West. This was a rare example of music that obviously surpassed the film it was written for in quality, creativity and artistic value. Scissors presented the composer with a heavy psychological and somewhat chaotic story. He decided to place at the centre of his score a waltz for dolls, hurdy-gurdy music of sorts, in which he used bitonality. The bitonality was the point that could have led both in the direction of tonality and in the direction of atonality. Kabiljo decided to use both to emphasize the psychological but also the horror-like side of the unusual story. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two types of the music in the film Pustolov pred vratima (The Adventurer in Front of the Door, directed by Šime Šimatovi&#x0107, 1961). The »classical« music was composed by the famous Croatian composer Boris Papandopulo and the »popular« music was composed by Vili Čaklec and Stjepan Mihaljinec. The use and the function of the two musical genres is unusual: Papandopulo uses his »contemporary« music composed mostly in expanded tonality (the only exception is one theme that additionally makes more complex the relationship between the music and the content) to mark the »normal«, »everyday« scenes (although these scenes are already a part of fantasy or realized wishes, so that the question is whether they are really »normal«). On the other hand, a foxtrot, composed by Vili Čaklec, is often used as diegetic music denoting »the door«, that is, »the passage« from the real world (the woman is dying in a sanatorium at the beginning of the film) to the unreal (her wish to live her life again, but with the husband and lover, that is granted by Death). This is completely different from the usual usage of diegetic music as synonymous for film reality, and the nondiegetic music as synonymous for the film non-reality. The »change« of the functions of the musical genres came directly from the story (the screenplay was inspired by a drama written by Milan Begović) where the notions of »real« and »unreal« also changed places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are two types of the music in the film Pustolov pred vratima (The Adventurer in Front of the Door, directed by Šime Šimatović, 1961). The »classical« music was composed by the famous Croatian composer Boris Papandopulo and the »popular« music was composed by Vili Čaklec and Stjepan Mihaljinec. The use and the function of the two musical genres is unusual: Papandopulo uses his »contemporary« music composed mostly in expanded tonality (the only exception is one theme that additionally makes more complex the relationship between the music and the content) to mark the »normal«, »everyday« scenes (although these scenes are already a part of fantasy or realized wishes, so that the question is whether they are really »normal«). On the other hand, a foxtrot, composed by Vili Čaklec, is often used as diegetic music denoting »the door«, that is, »the passage« from the real world (the woman is dying in a sanatorium at the beginning of the film) to the unreal (her wish to live her life again, but with the husband and lover, that is granted by Death). This is completely different from the usual usage of diegetic music as synonymous for film reality, and the nondiegetic music as synonymous for the film non-reality. The »change« of the functions of the musical genres came directly from the story (the screenplay was inspired by a drama written by Milan Begović) where the notions of »real« and »unreal« also changed places. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]