A. Komarova

Quotation of the Hungarian dance № 5 by J. Brahms as a mean of creating art synthesis in the genre of comedy film

This article attempts to trace the interaction between a particular musical quote and a synthetic space of films using single cinematic genre of comedy as an example. Hungarian dance № 5 fismoll by the German romantic composer Johannes Brahms was chosen as a musical quote. The article presents analytical findings about six comedies, which for the most part date back to the first half of the 20th century and filmed by American directors. As is known, a musical quote is an element of another, alien text, and intruding into the space of film text, it creates a conflict with the video sequence, audio-visual counterpoint, violating the linear development of the action. The article shows that in the cinema there are examples not only of juxtaposition of musical quotes and images, but also of harmoniс unity, synthesis of the quoted material with the video sequence. Analysis of six movies that feature Brahms’s Hungarian dance reveals the functions of the musical quote in each of the examples. It also shows the synthesis of quotation material and video sequence, and explains the meanings that arise from the interaction of quotes and images. The synthesis between the image and the quote is achieved in several ways: through the intraframe sound of music, by using the dance, plastic and facial movements of characters to the dance music, by the performance of dance music on various musical instruments by the movie characters, by the sound of quote in the climax of the film, through the creation of musical portraits of movie characters by quotes.

Key words

Brahms, cinema, comedy, Hungarian dance, musical quote.

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