about Nino Rota's film music spring from his lack of based on 'Mack the Knife' from The

Threepenny
originality. And that he is unoriginal in several Opera, with just one note - brilliantly - changed.
ways. First, he endlessly recycled himself. The God- This is endlessly inventive but derivative. So
fatherPart11 (I974), for which he did get an Oscar, flexible is Rota, so responsive to genre and director,
contains far more of the music from The Godfather he is at times a chameleon, producing effective
than the latter does from Fortunella, plus new scores that could have been written by many others.
themes (for young Vito and Kay) taken from earlier The music for Waterloo (1970), for instance, was
stage and television works. The main theme from good enough to have Kubrick approach him to do
the Italian melodrama The Mountain Woman (I943) the music for BarryLyndon (1975), but you'd be hard
was reworked for the British middlebrow hit The put to recognise it instantly as 'Rota'.
Glass Mountain (I 949) as well as serving as the first He was especially adept at scoring for comedy, a
movement of Rota's Symphony on a Love Song (I947), gift probably best known outside Italy from the
whose second and third movements provided the music for the sequence in The Godfather Part II
music for Visconti's The Leopard(I963); this in turn where Clemenza takes the young Vito along to steal
contains a waltz already used by Rota in the neo- a carpet. Yet Rota composed for 40 comedies, the
realist An American on Holiday (I945) and the cos- biggest single category in his oeuvre, working for
tume drama Appassionatemente(I954). Rota's whole such beloved post-war comics as Toto and Alberto
Nino Rota isthe most popular output is crossed by these chains of recyclings, Sordi. There seems to be a special affinity between
though when one considers the scale of that output Rota and Turinese comic Macario, a childlike,
composer of film music among (more than 150 film scores) it is surprising there are moonfaced figure reminiscent of Harry Langdon;
his peers. Richard Dyer assesses not more, that he in fact produced a continuous here the sweetness of the music is in tune with
stream of fresh melodies. Macario's guileless, good-natured, sentimental
the enduring charm of amaster Rota was also widely considered to be unoriginal character. His LEEroe della strada(I948) also displays
in his basic musical style. Born in I9II, he could the rich potential of Rota's unoriginality. Macario's
melodist and recycler of themes musically speaking have been born 40 years earlier. character, demobbed and unemployed, takes on
In 1972 the Academy of Motion Picture Awards His work is untouched by concert music's move whatever jobs turn up, each new direction wittily
refused the nomination of Nino Rota for Best towards atonality or seldom even displays the lush echoed by lightly parodied music. At one point'he
Original Music Oscar for The Godfather he had late romanticism of Rozsa or Korngold which gets a job painting wall slogans for a political party;
incorporated music from an earlier film and there- served Hollywood so well. His music was unfash- different people pass by and Macario nervously
fore the score was not deemed original. To us now ionably direct, melodic, ironic and unassuming. alters the slogan to fit what he takes to be their
the decision seems astonishing - The Godfather Then too, his music is full of references to other affiliation, each alteration accompanied by a
score is widely recognised as one of the great sound- music - quotations, echoes, parodies, pastiches. The squawky, perky version of, among others, the 'Inter-
tracks. Besides, the recycled music was just a single neorealist melodrama Without Pity (1948), about nationale', 'Deutschland fiber Alles', a Sousa march
melody, the love theme that occurs two thirds Italian women and African-American GIs, incorpo- or an operetta tune. No one does such quick, glanc-
of the way through, musically transformed from rates Negro spirituals into the soundtrack; the ing comic commentary better.
its appearance in Fortunella (I957), which in any storm sequences for Ren6 Cl6ment's Barrage sur le It is just this flexibility, this ability to draw on a
case had been a huge flop in Italy and virtually Paciflque (I957) draw on Stravinsky's The Rite of huge range of musical styles, that makes Rota such
unseen outside it; and moreover it was Rota's Spring; a folk song invented by Rota for the Mas- a great film composer. He also worked exception-
own music. Nonetheless, the Academy had a tech- cagni biopic Immortal Melodies (1953) becomes the ally hard: in addition to the film.scores, he wrote 74
nical point: the love theme was not strictly speak- motif of longing for home rnnning through Rocco concert works and 28 works for theatre, opera, bal-
ing original to the film. and His Brothers (I960); one of the main themes of let and television, ahd had a full-time post as direc-
You could say that the most original things La dolce vita (1960) is shamelessly and appropriately tor of the Bari Conservatory of Music. He did his R"

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top, had a way of eliding
the music only the audience
hears and the music the
characters hear, as in
'The Godfather', where the
main theme becomes music
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A ifim work in a hurry, often on the train, usually
without seeing the film or reading the script.
This means the music often has an unusually
disengaged quality. Unlike the work of Max Steiner
and others within the Hollywood studio system,
Rota's music does not underline every detail, move-
ment and gesture, but neither does it impose itself,
seeming to lead the images, as with Prokofiev's
music for AlexanderNeusky or Morricone's for Once
upon a Time in the West Rota's music carries on
alongside the story and characters, to often fascinat-
ing effect. In the lovely, sad comedy A Dog's L(fe
(1950) a young couple, Franca and Carlo, go to visit
the flat they are to live in when they marry; he chat-
ters on eagerly about his work as a garage mechanic,
but she looks round at the dirty, drab apartment,
seeing her dull future. The scene is accompanied by
an exquisite little waltz, all delicately spiralling
strings, that seems anachronistic in relation to the
setting and characters and is not specifically syn-
chronised with their movements and exchanges. It
appears to express something like the gap between
Franca's aspirations and the dreary reality of her
life, but it is not 'what Franca is thinking' nor is it
there to get you to identify with her. Rather it recog-
nises her feelings and sympathises, yet sees how
flimsy and outdated are her aspirations.
The same disengagement works differently in
Rene C1kment'sPleinsoleil(ig6o),the first film adap-
tation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Rip-
ley. The film opens in Rome and then moves to the
southem seaside village of Mongibello. For each
location Rota wrote a cod-regional theme - a bit
dolce vita-ish for Rome, all mandolins and swooping
cadences for Mongibello - and these carry on cheer-
fully beside the cynical, deceitful and finally mur-
derous goings-on, catching the amoral, amused
tone of Highsmith's work so fascinating.
Such disengagement allows Rota to play fast and
loose withwhere the music is comingfrom-thatis,
whether from inside the world of the film or outside
it; from what the characters can hear or from what
Musical chairs: the score
for 'B3Y,riglit is aset of
variations on circus music; ' -
the love theme from 'Thel
Godfather' was recycled
from an earlier Rota score
for 'Fortunelala, opposite top
44 9 SIGHi&SOUN0
y:; I ; 1 rrI I. rlr
only we, the audience, hear. The Godfather opens
with a trumpet blowsily playing a nostalgic waltz;
this is the main theme of the film and it's in the
background on and off throughout the trilogy. It
also crops up in the music the characters hear,
notably music they dance to. In The Godfatherit is
the waltz Don Corleone and his daughter Connie
dance to at her wedding, with mandolins to the fore
ensuring it retains its Sicilian feeling, reinforcing
the film's concern with cultural continuity. It is also
danced to at the party for young Anthony's First
Communion at the start of The Godfather Part IL.
Here Michael and Kay are dancing to another tune
while Kay gently reproaches him with still being
mixed up in criminal activity despite his promises
to the contrary; "I'm trying," he assures her, and as
the camera tracks away the dance band gives way to
the Godfatherwaltz, initially with the characteristic
brushed cymbals and solo clarinet of end-of-the-
evening arrangements, then with mandolins and
strings seeping in.
The first two Godfather films are both in part
about becoming American: how the old Mafia val-
ues can be reconciled with the new American way
and how it is the latter that becomes corrupted by
the former. The waltz expresses something of this;
in the first film still the solid old world, in the sec-
ond insidiously infiltrating mainstream American
values. And it's such a lovely tune, its lilt lulling or
entrancing, just like the sentimental appeal of
Mafia notions of family and honour. The ability to
create such complex and ironic effects and at the
same time be emotionally touching, so we under-
stand the feelings that draw people into terrible
actions, is at the core of Coppola's best work. It is
surely this which made him hold out for Rota for
The Godfather against Rota's indifference and Para-
mount's preference for Henry Mancini.
Something technically similar happens near the
beginning of Fellini's Amarcord (I 973).Abarber and
his friends are discussing the bonfire celebrations to
be held later that evening, with a bubbling, bustling
.,..., ,....
woodwind tune accompanying them on the sound-
track "What are you going to play tonight?" asks
one of the friends. "Anew tune I've composed," says
the barber, who then takes out a clarinet and in per-
fect time with the soundtrack he can't hear starts to
play Rota's jolly tune. Amarcord, a film that might
seem just a series of warm, nostalgic vignettes, is
full of such complexities, throwing into doubt any
notion that we should treat it straightforwardly as
someone's memories (despite the title, 'I remem-
ber'). And the way Rota's score crosses back and
forth between on-screen and background music,
often to the point where we're not sure which it is,
is part of the film's dreamy complexity. A boy
sneaks up on Gradisca, the local woman of his
dreams, as she gazes oblivious at Gary Cooper on
the screen of a deserted cinema; the music is themes
we've already heard in the film yet played as if they
are coming from the screen. Where is this music
coming from? From Rota and Fellini, as composer
and director? From Fellini as the film-maker
'remembering' this? From inside the boy's mind?
From the cinema screen itself? As in all classic art
movies, the paradoxes are never resolved, but sel-
dom are they so enchanting or easygoing.
The Fellini-Rota partnership is, of course, one
of film history's benchmark director-composer col-
laborations. Yet on paper they ought not to have
been so well suited. Rota came from a well-to-do
family in the northem capital of Milan and then
lived in Rome from the age of 14; Fellini's father was
a comfortably-off commercial representative in the
provincial seaside town of Rimini. Rota had an artis-
tically well-connected background and a classic
high-cultural education; Fellini's cultural forma-
tion was the circus, cartoons and revue. Rota was
apparently asexual and if anything discretely gay;
Fellini was very publicly married (to Giulietta
Masina), a notorious womaniser and, if the films
are anything to go by, fascinated by homosexuality.
Above all, Rota was steeped in and lived for
music whereas Fellini had little developed interest
 Rota, not taken, seriously in the classical.music I' ''I
world, came to popular music and movies from the
outside. Fellini was formed by popular culture, yet DIRECTORS instruments, which are
_ 4_:ffiw W ' \ \ the kind of fame he had as a film-maker put him at Woody Allen captivating."
a distance from it; Rota, playing Mozart at four and 'Juliet of the Spirits'
conducting his own oratorio at I2, nonetheless (Federico Fellini, 1965) Handsome Family
found in popular music the tunefulness, humour "It fits perfectly with 'Amarcord' (Federico
and sentiment that had become out of bounds in the text." Fellini, 1973)
_sa > , classical music. Both film-maker and composer "The main theme
responded to popular culture, recognising and feel- Sidney Lumet is such a beautiful
ing its appeal, and yet were not quite inside it, not 'The Godfather' and evocation of the central
unselfconsciously producing and consuming it. 'The Godfather Part II' theme of the film -
This creates extraordinary effects in their work. (Francis Ford Coppola, the floating, ethereal
- -2 _ _InLa strada(I954) the heroine Gelsomina (Masina) 1972,1974) nature of existence (as
in it he went to concerts only out of friendship to runs away from the brutish man to whom she has "The score tells of represented by the fluff
hear Nino's premieres. been sold; she sits by the road, not knowing what to a heartfelt loss of that floats through the
Yet theirs was a famously productive relation- do, when suddenly four clown-musicians appear, innocence, a yearning air of the town). The
ship over the course of I5 features and two shorts, tootling the bustling, circusy music so identifiable for a simpler yet more curvature of the melody
ending only with Rota's death in 1979. Fellini as'Rota-Fellini'. She follows them into a small town desperate time. It keeps is comprised of gently
pushed Rota. The score for 8', (I963) is an astonish- where a religious procession is taking place to the the family's unspoken leaping Luftpausen
ing set of variations on what might seem the unpro- sound of a brass band with leaden orchestration, wish for itself alive." and contrasting falling
pitious ground of circus music. For Satyricon(I969) then there is a tightrope walker accompanied by a chromatic lines -like
Fellini had Rota invent a music out of electronics, tinkling tune on a music-box. The melody for the Jonathan Lynn a feather bobbing in
African, Asian and distorted European instruments, clowns, the procession and the high-wire act is in 'The Godfather' (Francis a gentle spring wind."
and modes from Ancient Rome to produce a sound fact the same, but in different arrangements. Ford Coppola, 1972)
both dimly recognisable yet strange and opaque, Having the same theme for clowns, religion and "It is evocative, Marl JIsham
just like the film itself. For Casanova(I976) Rota, at acrobatics suggests an affinity between them. On instantly recognisable Rota's work for all
Fellini's request, took a movement from his pre- the one hand, religion is recognised to have some- and it romanticises the Federico Fellini's movies
ludes for piano and transformed it into a manic leit- thing of the absurd and of showbiz about it, as is movie, reinforcing the "Rarely does a film-
motif that sounds at once utterly <8th and utterly clear from Fellini's Le notti di Cabiria(1957), La dolce audience's empathy maker create such
20th century, as well as composing an extraordi- vita and Roma (1972), for the last of which Rota with the central a unique emotional
nary and sinister homosexual mini-opera. wrote a particularly naughty comic tune for the characters, all of whom environment and rarely
In return Rota gave Fellini's vision a delicate ecclesiastical fashion show. Yet Rota also composed are gangsters." does a composer match
warmth and irony. Fellini's first film Lights ofVariety much devout Catholic music (not least for the sen- it so exactly."
(I95I, co-directed with Alberto Lattuada and with timental religious drama about a boy, a donkey and Pawel
music by Felice Lattuada) is raucous and cruel St Francis Never Take Nofor an Answer, IgsI). And Pawlik(owsli Borut l(rzisnik :
beside the treatment of similar material in A Dog's neither Fellini nor Rota would ever have considered 'Amarcord' (Federico 'Prova d'orchestra'
Life, and it is tempting to put much of the unpleas- anything to be absurd and therefore trivial or to be Fellini, 1973) and '8Y2' (Federico Fellini, 1978)
ant taste of The City ofWomen (ig80) down to Fellini 'merely' showbiz. The sudden appearance of the (Federico Fellini, 1963) "I like this soundtrack
goading Luis Bacalov into writing a Rota-like score clowns 'saves' the lost Gelsomina, and the tightrope "Films with personality as stand-alone music,
that has everything of Nino except the wry heart. walker, who wears angels' wings, will turn out to be tend to feature music but what makes the
Nino often softens Federico. The other main musi- the person who gives her self-esteem. If religion is with personality, film special is the close
cal theme of La dolce vita (the one not based on showbiz, then showbiz in its turn is revelatory, spir- like Rota's circular, interaction between
'Mack the Knife'), for instance, is sparkling and itual, magic in the most serious sense of the word. obsessively mutating the visuals and the
threatening behind the credits. It goes through sev- That is why all can share the same tune. melodies." score. The whole film
eral variations including one much slower, with a Rota's work came out of his specific circum- takes place during the
telling shift in the stress of the melody and with stances as ahighbrowcomposerworkinginapopu- MUSICIANS orchestra rehearsal
clarinet and piano to the fore. The first time this lar medium, out of gay discretion and, by all Lisa Gerrard and music is at the
occurs is when Marcello Mastroianni and his occa- accounts, an other-worldly disposition. But it 'Satvricon' (Federico core of the action."
sionallover,rich girlAnoukAim6e, chatwith some touches us far beyond these particularities. It Fellini, 1969)
prostitutes in the Piazza del Popolo; there is no rea- expresses the sense that we are all outsiders, and "It's pure innovation Zbigniew Preisner
son in the dialogue or action for what has been a thatthis is no big deal.Whenwe speakwe use alan- because no one knows 'The Godfather' (Francis
blowsy, jazzy tune to give way unobtrusively to this guage that is not our own; all self-expression is what music sounded Ford Coppola, 1972)
version of the theme, but it lends the sequence a caught in the contradiction that the only means of like at that time. I also "Brilliant music."
wry sadness. The artistic temptations of La dolce vita expression available are shared with others and are love the invented
are heartless cynicism and portentousness; here not of our own making. Rota's music, with its musical Joseoh Vitarelli
Rota alters the tone, offering amelancholy that does echoes and repetitions and the
not take itself too seriously. way it is emotionally within
For all their (productive) differences, Rota and and without the scene it
Fellini had two things in common. One was an accompanies, embodies a cen-
interest in magic: Rota and his friend Vinci tral paradox of being human:
Verginelli amassed a huge collection of esoteric that we are only ever ourselves
writings; Fellini came always to consult magicians and yet are never original. This I
before embarking on a project (famously abandon- is one of the shock-horror dis-
ing one as a result); the elements of magic in his and coveries of poststructuralist 1/E
Rota's work were seriously meant by both. They thought, yet here it is in the (Jl
also shared a particular kind of outsider position. music of Nino Rota, with nei- i '
Fellini had nothing of the privileged or politically ther shock nor horror, but wry, m
committed background of such peers as Rossellini, melancholy, funny and charm- ,':
Visconti and Antonioni, but nor did he work ing - really rather original in
straightforwardly in popular genre and star cinema. its unoriginality.
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

TITLE: The Talented Mr Rota

SOURCE: Sight Sound ns14 no9 S 2004
WN: 0425200691008

The magazine publisher is the copyright holder of this article and it

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