Denver Comic Con 2017 Panel Spotlight - The Colorado Symphony Presents: Wonder Women - Symphonic Music’s Pop Culture Heroines

Written by Tim Girard

The Colorado Symphony Presents: Wonder Women - Symphonic Music’s Pop Culture Heroines
Saturday 10:30AM - 11:20AM Gotham City Room - Mile High Ballroom DCCP5
Catherine Beeson, Shari Myers, Matt Krupa, Danielle Guideri, Carolyn Kunicki, Tristan Rennie.
 
Join members of the Colorado Symphony as they explore and discuss how strong female characters in film are represented in both story and music.

Catherine Beeson, who led the panel, wanted to show the progression of musical themes written for strong female characters, and how they evolved into the current Wonder Woman theme in the DC Cinematic Universe. It began with Wagner’s Ring (not Tolkien’s Ring, Precious), and his character Brunhilde, a Valkyrie (not to be confused with the Marvel character...then again, it’s all the same basic mythology) from his opera cycle ‘The Ring of the Nibelung.’ Probably the most familiar music associated with her is the ‘Ride of the Valkyrie’ (which was used in the film Apocalypse Now), which Tristan performed on bassoon for us. Another musical signature for Brunhilde is her battle cry ‘Ho-yo-to-ho!,’ which, though it sounds very different, connects to another strong female character: Xena, the Warrior Princess. Xena’s battle cry (demonstrated by audience members who were familiar with it, for those of us who weren’t), is meant to strike fear in the hearts of her enemies.
 
One of the biggest contributions of Wagner (seen here, holding a dragon), is the use of a theme or motive called a leitmotif, which usually references a specific character, item, idea, place, etc. and helps to musically guide us through the story. This was originally used in opera, but is also very common in film scores. Probably the best-known film composer to use leitmotifs is John Williams. An example, performed on cello by Danielle Guideri, is Leia’s Theme, which has a ‘searching’ quality, that doesn’t really find a resolution. Rey’s Theme, performed beautifully by Catherine on viola, has a very different ‘musical grammar’ which captures the qualities of her character. She is alone almost all of the time and she is not heroic, but we have empathy for her. She isn’t searching the way Leia is; instead, Rey is surer of herself and accepting of what her situation is. It starts off jaunty, but becomes very expansive, just like her journey. One of the advantages of using leitmotifs is that the composer can layer the different melodies associated with a specific character on top of each other in counterpoint, so that different aspects of their personality can be expressed simultaneously. This was demonstrated when Catherine, Danielle, and Tristan performed a later part of Rey’s Theme on viola, cello, and bassoon.
 
It was pointed out that one big distinction with the music for Marvel’s movies is that the studio allows the scores to be genre driven, meaning, Captain America: The First Avenger is a World War II film, so it is scored similarly to other WWII films, Thor is a space/alien/Norse/fantasy (?) so it is scored like other films in that genre, etc. This is opposed to the DC Cinematic Universe where all of the music seems to match and be very much part of the same world. Jessica Jones is a private detective, so her show is scored in a typical Film Noir Jazz style, but as we learn more about her dry humor, wit, and hard edge, the music moves to heavy rock with the addition of guitar.
 
Moving to another strong, female lead, we next discussed the main theme of Game of Thrones with its driving 3-beat rhythm (Dee Daa Dada, Dee Daa Dada, ...). The composer, Ramin Djawadi ‘quotes himself’ by taking material to make other themes (even the melody is based on the opening rhythmic figure). The music often used for Daenerys (or as Matt reminded us: ‘Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons’) is based on the opening theme music, but it is slower and broader, and builds over time to seem unstoppable. Combined with a slow version of the melody over it, it creates a sense of, as it was said during the panel, ‘She’s comin’ for ya’.
 
Finally, we arrived at the core of the panel: the music for Gal Gadot’s Wonder Woman. We first hear her new theme in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, during the battle with Doomsday. Hans Zimmer wanted a more feminine theme for Wonder Woman, but one that was also a warrior’s battle cry. Zimmer worked with electric cellist Tina Guo to come up with a theme that sounded like a ‘banshee wail.’ Catherine drew the connection from Brunhilde’s ‘Ho-yo-to-ho!’, and Xena’s battle cry, to Wonder Woman’s electric cello theme. This melody is accompanied by drums that are reminiscent of a 7-beat rhythm that you might hear in Balkan folk music. The drums are playing on all seven beats, but accenting beats 1, 3, 5, and 7 (1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 etc., which Catherine had us clap so that we could really experience the rhythm). While Hans Zimmer composed that memorable theme for Wonder Woman, it was actually Rupert Gregson-Williams who composed the score for Wonder Woman’s solo film. Since the film told her origin story, and how she became the warrior we know, he composed another theme that expressed the hope, peace, and kindness of her character at the beginning of the film. This theme ‘reaches upward’ to show Diana’s optimism about the world and how good it could be. He does eventually use the theme from BvS, once Wonder Woman is in full ass-kicking mode, but then quickly drops the electric cello, continues with the drums, and adds the rest of the orchestra to arrive at a more full, ‘cinematic action’ treatment.
 
Oh, and the presentation ended with a picture of Bugs Bunny Brunhilde.
 
Next: Colorado Film School.

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