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The Film Score to King Kong is a 1933 work composed for the Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) film King Kong. Max Steiner, then head of the music department at RKO, composed the score. Originally, Steiner had been asked to find already existing music to use in the film, but he concluded that he found nothing satisfactory. The director, Merian C Cooper, then offered to pay for the price on orchestra, $50,000, in order to record an original score composed by Steiner1. Since its composition, the film score has come to be recognized as the turning point in film music history, and the beginning of the film score as art2.

History
After the completion of King Kong, the producers were worried that the ape looked too fake to be taken seriously by the audience. The producers were so worried that they believed music needed to be used throughout the film to add suspense and to make the ape seem more impressive. This was a change from film music procedure up to that point, in which film scores were required to show, on screen, what the source of the music was3. Steiner’s score ended up as a combination of diegetic and nondiegetic film music. Diegetic film music has its roots on screen there is always an obvious source for the music. Nondiegetic film music has a source off screen, and rather than being a part of the film’s world, it serves to advance mood and plot. A good example of Steiner’s use of both techniques, sometimes at the same time, is the use of tribal drums for the scenes set on Skull Island. The drums are not seen at first, but only heard, indicating a nondiegetic or imagined source. However, once the characters begin to mention and acknowledge the drums, they make the transition to diegetic film music because they now exist in the world of the film. The music underneath the drums continues to function as nondiegetic, however, and serves to further the mood rather than the plot4.

Use of leitmotifs
Steiner’s score is composed utilizing leitmotifs or identifying themes for certain main characters or ideas as a form of nondiegetic film music. In this case, a leitmotif for almost every character or group of characters was composed. For example, a thunderous three note descending chromatic figure, which instantly conjures images of the rampaging monster, represents King Kong himself. This motif is also simple enough as to be included within melodic lines, so that when King Kong is mentioned or seen the leitmotif is present in the viewer’s mind. In fact, the theme for the film’s heroin, Ann Darrow as played by Fay Wray, includes two statements of Kong’s motif once augmented to whole steps, further on it appears in a combination of whole and half steps, in order to indicate their connection through the story. Similarly, the “fear” motif begins with the notes of the Kong motif transposed up a minor third and an octave before transitioning into material based on Ann Darrow’s theme. The interconnectedness of themes is one of the most obvious aspects of the score, and point unabashedly to a Wagnerian influence on Steiner’s score.

The use of leitmotifs allowed Steiner the opportunity to write a score, which fits the film like a glove. Through the use of indentifying themes Steiner is able to use these motifs to force the audience to consider off screen ideas when they are mentioned or alluded to by on screen dialogue or action. The audience has heard King Kong’s motif enough times while he is on screen so that when it is heard at the mere mention of his name, the audience can make the connection between the two ideas. Furthermore, each action on screen is “hit” in one way or another. This form of scoring is called Mickey-Mousing so named because it is so common in film scores for cartoons. Composers such as Scott Bradley and Carl Stalling would make the term and style infamous in their scores for Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes, respectively. King Kong is a perfect example of “Mickey-Mousing.” For example, in the scene where the group of heroes first meets the chief of the aboriginal people of Skull Island the music makes a specific point to match the chief’s footsteps as he walks forward5. Similarly, as the story of King Kong and Ann Darrow become more and more intertwined, their two themes become more and more connected, a clear musical example of the feelings the monster was not capable of showing with the technology of the time. In the final scene, wildly trilling bassoons and basses represent the sound of the airplane engines as they assault King Kong on the Empire State Building after being chained and brought to New York for entertainment. The use of leitmofis and Mickey-Mousing would continue to be commonplace in all of Steiner’s film scores; in fact he would later say, “Every character should have a theme6.”

For a suite of music from the film score to King Kong follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gXWf44Xd1A&feature=related (Link to suite of music from King Kong).

Leitmotif analysis
King Kong’s motif Constructed using descending minor seconds, this motif represents the raw primal power of the monster and is frequently heard when the monster is seen or mentioned.

Ann Darrow’s theme This motif is a lyrical flowing motif representing the heroin of the film. This theme utilizes statements of the King Kong motif to represent their connectedness in the plot.

Fear and danger motif Combining elements of the monster’s motif and Ann Darrow’s theme, this motif can be heard when situations get tense or dangerous.

Courage motif Heard when one of the characters does something heroic. Often times heard with a D substituted for the E to make the final interval a minor sixth rather than a minor seventh.

Sacrificial dance Heard as a form of both diegetic and nondiegetic music in that it has no on screen source at the beginning, but is used as music for King Kong’s stage show in New York later on. This primitive dance is used to represent the aboriginal people of Skull Island. The theme is usually heard through at least two sequences.

Use in other film scores
Steiner’s score has had a lasting impression on film music since its composition in 1933. Immediate influences included the use of music from the film in other films from RKO including The Last Days of Pompeii, The Last of the Mohicans, and Back to Bataan7. This was common practice in those days, if Steiner’s original directions to do the same thing for King Kong are any indication8.

Steiner’s previous scores
It is interesting to note that while King Kong is considered the beginning of modern film music, it was not Steiner’s first film score, or in fact the first original score for a film. Steiner himself had composed scores for such films as Cimarron (1930) and Symphony of Six Million (1932)9, and Roy Webb, one of his fellow musicians at RKO had done limited scoring as well10. What separates King Kong and in fact makes it such a turning point in the history of film music, is the sheer scope and magnitude of the score: unlike anything previously heard in film. In the past, film music consisted almost exclusively of music written to accompany the main title and end title sequences with no underscore during the film itself. King Kong almost singlehandedly challenged that tradition.

Film score vs. concert work
As a film score, King Kong was wildly adventurous. The score utilized dissonant harmonies found frequently in the scores of Debussy11, and some harmonies, which functioned in a similar manner to those, found in a Wagner opera or a Strauss tone poem12. Similarly, the raw power of the orchestral forces present served to separate King Kong from the film scores that preceded it, and in fact, immediately followed. One can also find links to the Broadway sound, particularly in the music associated with Ann Darrow, which has an unmistakable American flare. This is no doubt due to Steiner’s fifteen years of working as an orchestrator and conductor on Broadway13. As a piece of orchestral music, however, King Kong can be seen as a surprisingly traditional, although boisterous, score. The reasons for this are numerous. Looking at 1933 through the lens of current musical knowledge offers a strong disconnect between the concert music of the time and the fledgling art of film music. At that time composers such as Schoenberg and Bartók were still very new. However, their music was aimed primarily at other composers and other musicians. Their music had failed to yet find a wider audience, in fact Bartók himself lived until 1945 while his influence on film music would not begin until much later. However, in 1933 the music of Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Wagner, Mahler, Brahms, and Berlioz was not so far distant as it is today. The tone poems of Strauss had all been written in the 1880s and 1890s, only thirty or forty years previously, and the works of Tchaikovsky were only then approaching thirty or forty. The wider audience of film was expected to more closely identify with the stirring sounds of Romanticism and not the jarring sounds of the then modern compositional movement such as Bartók’s String Quartet No. 4 of 192814.

This “doctrine” of film music is clearly an influence on other composers of the Golden Age of Film as well. Composers such as Franz Waxman and his score for The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Miklos Rosza and his score for Spellbound (1945) continued the tradition of Romanticism in music15. In fact, it was not until Bernard Herrmann that film music began to move away from this strict blend of romanticism and American Broadway style, and even longer until composers such as Christopher Young would embrace the use of music identifying with the music of Penderecki and Ligeti.

Conclusion
Despite the dated sound that King Kong now carries, the score still serves as an important example of how film scoring should work, even in the modern time. Even eighty years after it’s composition it still stands as the shining example of film music, and the unquestioned turning point of the film score as art.