KING KONG NOTES

Music: Overture

All motion pictures have had music associated with them. So called silent films were never silent but had musical accompaniment. This would often be a piano, organ or even an orchestra. Some of the films had actual scores written for them.

First run films sometimes had “atmospheric prologues” which set the scene or mood for the film itself. With the arrival of synchronized sound films “background” or non diegetic music came to replace musicians in the theater.

“Important” films would often run an “overture” or “prelude” before the actual film started. Then the titles would also have background music behind them.

Studios often have stock film which was cheap to use. Kong was made during the depression and the director felt the film deserved its own score. The studio objected but ultimately gave in and Max Steiner wrote the score. The form is done with leitmotifs or signature tune pr theme song. The three/six note Kong theme opens the title sequence but other melodies appear in the overture. The idea of a melody associated with a person place or event comes from the Romantic period – especially German Romanticism where they are known as “leit motifs” and is found in the works of composers like Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss (consider the Ride of the Valkyrie for example). In their operas and concert music frequently specific melodies are associated with specific people, places or events so it is possible to tell the audience to “think of” something not happening on the stage, by having the audience hear the melody in the orchestra.

Consider the monolith in 2001 A Space Odyssey as a kind of visual leit motif which reoccurs with specific meaning. Sometimes called a “trope” although this word is generally used in language when words are used without their literal meaning.

These are commonly involved win what is called rhetoric. They include but are not limited to:

A contrast between what one sees and what one hears or knows?

The film is remarkably lacking in background music until the arrival at the island. Once the film arrives at the island the dialog falls off and the film slips into an action mode with the music taking over. The first music, other than that the title sequence, occurs when the ship appears in the fog near the island. It merges with the drums on the island. The diegetic music of the film (what the natives play) merges with the nin diegetic music played orchestrally. There is a certain amount of Mickey Mousing (when the chief walks) and some sort of mimetic music with the train and the planes.

Title Card
The title card opens the film with the idea that the film is a fable/myth and should not be quite taken only as an action film, but something a bit more.

STRUCTURE

Film separates in several sections (see Eleanor Rigby paper). These are:

In a sense the trip is outside of time and place. People don’t know (literally) where they are (destination is a mystery

The natives on the island are technologically less complex both in terms of technology and social organization.

The “prehistoric” side of the wall has prehistoric animals but no humans. Kong in a sense is a kind of primitive human.

Structurally the three worlds (NY/ Native side of island/prehistoric side of island allow for several three part interpretations. The first is evolutionary: highly evolved NY, less evolved Natives/ not at all evolved. Sociological/anthropological theories of the time represented a tripartite system in evolution going from savagery to barbarism to civilized. (The number three is nig in the West – Three bears, three charms or wished, a trinity and so on) This three part structure appears again in another evolutionary film – 2001 A Space Odyssey.

Psychologically there is a three part system with the id/ego/super ego.

Since there is clearly a gender issue in the film from the very beginning (the proverb relating Beauty and the Beast) through Driscoll’s rejection of women to his falling in love with Ann and the final line “It was beauty who killed the beast” it becomes clear that this is something which the film is dealing with. . This resonates through the film in a number of ways. Kong is captured and dies as a result of his infatuation with Ann and Driscoll, who can save Ann on the island, becomes impotent in NY when their wedding plans are announced. A similar point can be found in One Million B.C. with Victor Mature and Carol Landis.

Clearly gender is here tied to sexuality. Repressed sexuality is evident in the film from Driscoll’s fear of Ann (I am afraid for you and a little of you). Horror films are often marked by the “eruption of the repressed”. They have this as a kind of subtext and deal with what happens – uncontrolled violence – when repressed sexuality erupts. Structurally there is a kind of parallel structuring between Driscoll and Kong making them somewhat equivalent. They are both involved with the same woman and both lose strength through this. Driscoll’s repressed sexuality is in effect Kong – hence Kong’s crashing through the doors can be seen as the eruption of Driscoll’s repressed sexuality

There are examples of sexual imagery throughout even to the rather phallic Empire State Building.

So the film seems to say sub textually that the feminine is a civilizing force but with civilization comes a loss of some masculine – largely the ability to operate forcefully and physically.

Additionally the film can be seen as having strong ethnic or racial overtones. NY appears virtually White, an Asian cook, and then finally the natives are dark skinned. This could imply something about the perception of racial groups at the time of the film with Caucasians on the top, Asians in the middle and dark skinned people at the bottom. Some have argued that Kong represents an image of African American males as interested in White women and being brought to the US in chains. It is unclear how Kong’s rampage at the end and his ultimate death works into this interpretation. The text is also clear that this is an island and not Africa and the location which is given is clearly in the Indian Ocean. None the less one can make case for it.

One question that raises itself here is whether or not the information is simply something cultural which is in the film because that is the way the culture is, or whether this is a “message” from the writer. This is a kind of question that you can ponder. It is the difference between reading something out of a film or reading something into it. Much depends on how much a case one can make using the films structure to arrive at an analysis.

But we are still not done. The film is also about film making and therefore is reflexive. Denham is struggling against public opinion. He can’t make his kind of film because it doesn’t gross enough because it lacks love interest. The question of what Denham wants to make and what he is in effect “forced” to make raise questions about the nature of art and whether the artists create what they want to, or whether what the audience wants conditions their “product”. This a standard kind of question in a film that has reflexive elements, although not the only question that is possible