Michel Legrand, Marilyn and Alan Bergmans: One Team of Authors, Several Approaches to Film Song
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| Year of publication | 2013 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | Michel Legrand, a French composer, pianist and arranger, together with the American lyricists Marilyn and Alan Bergmans are the authors of more than 30 film songs written during the period of 1960 and 1990. Their long-term continual collaboration resulted in refined concept of film song as an elaborated musical-textual form. This concept will be clarified with analysis of four selected film songs: The Windmills of Your Mind (The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968), What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life (The Happy Ending, 1969), How Do You Keep the Music Playing (The Best Friends, 1982) and Where Is It Written (Yentl, 1983). The aim of the analysis, based on both musical and textual components of the songs, is to define the common features of the songs reflecting the typical style of the authors. At the same time, the difference of individual songs will be emphasized in relation to demands of direction, genre, or setting of the particular film. The subject of the music analysis will be the melodic, harmonic and form structure, as well as the function of each song in the frame of the whole film score, with special regard to typical features of Legrand´s composing style. The lyrics will be analysed from the point of structure and content. The analysis of the content will be based on the categories established by Fred Karlin and Rayburn Wright (On the Track, 2004). |