Hilan Warshaw, ‘Music Made Visible’: Sergei Eisenstein’s ‘Die Walküre’ and the Birth of Vertical Montage

March 2018, Volume 12, Number 1, 40–66.

When Richard Wagner’s posthumous impact on cinema is discussed, it is the Wagnerian influence on film scoring that is most often cited. This is, of course, understandable; almost from the dawn of the silent era, such Wagnerian techniques as leitmotifs and unendliche Melodie were hailed as the primary model for constructing effective musical accompaniments for film. With the advent of sound technology, the pioneering composers of Hollywood scores – largely German-speaking refugees including Erich Korngold, Max Steiner and Miklós Rósza – all openly acknowledged Wagner’s influence. If anecdote is to be believed, Sam Goldwyn’s advice to composers at his studio (only the first part of which was generally obeyed) was: ‘Write music like Wagner, only louder.’

But in fact, Wagner’s influence on the film medium extends far beyond this musical legacy.