Foreign Correspondent

Last year Jeff Smith published an essay on David Bordwell's website Observations on Film Art: here is a link to "Spies face the music: Jeff Smith on FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT."

According to Smith, "if you want to get a handle on the basic features of the classical paradigm, Foreign Correspondent’s typicality makes it [very] useful as an exemplar.  Newman’s music neatly illustrates several of the traits commonly associated with the classical Hollywood score’s dramatic functions." The essay is in fact a detailed enumeration and interpretation of leitmotifs. Despite being somewhat understated in many places, Newman's score is densely constructed with musical themes, and Smith does an excellent job of unraveling the complicated web of themes and their uses.

Note: The leitmotif is initially discussed in Chapter 5 of Hearing the Movies, under "Characteristic Music Practices in the Later Silent Era," pp. 121 ff.

Musical Themes from Glory

In Ch. 3 of HtM, we discuss a scene from Glory (1989) in detail. In the graphic below, I have transcribed three important melodies, two of which appear in that scene or immediately thereafter. The Bugle Call (a) was heard early in the film and is played again at the end. Melodies (b) and (c) are the principal themes in James Horner's orchestral underscore, which is developed almost entirely out of them (they even form the basis of the end credits music). Theme (c) often follows immediately after (b), as if it's an ending phrase (or coda), but it is used independently as well.

Theme (a) appears in its entirety during the second segment of the party scene, a conversation between Shaw and Governor Andrew, at the mention of Antietam (DVD timing 00:11:40). Theme (b) appears in the third segment, under conversation (00:13:00) as Shaw and his friend Forbes talk about forming the regiment, then more plainly in the foreground @ 00:13:44. Details for the first part of the scene are given in HtM. Here is a link to a page that gives details of the second and third parts: Boston Party Scene, 2-3.