FSM # 1: The Rhetorics of the TV Theme

Kicking off a series of re-posted FSM topics I’ve done over the years (a curated selection of the 1200 topics), here’s one from December 15, 2000 — 25 years ago(!). From now on, there will be a marking at the beginning of the post, signalling when it’s from and a link to the original FSM thread. I cross my fingers that some of them are discussion-worthy still! 🙂 (funnily, the very first thread I made on the [at the time] revamped FSM messageboard, on October 3, 2000, was a notification that Celluloid Tunes had moved to celluloidtunes.com! Yes, this site is old.)

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FSM # 1: December 15, 2000

“There is much to be said about soap operas, but one thing is certain: only the news as genre can match it in terms of paradigmatic complexity (the different codes at play).Ferdinand de Saussure, the famous semiologist, separated between LANGUE and PAROLE. Simply put, langue referred to the overarching linguistic system that we use every day subconsciously – the system of distinctive features that form the difference between, say, “cat” and “hat”. Parole is the lexical, direct statement that we use in colloquial speech, the physical expression. Is it possible to say something about the langue by only studying the parole? I think it is, particularly if the langue of the text is built up by strict, well-organized rules (as is the case with soap operas, of course).

That’s why I think it is possible to say something about, in my case, the famous DYNASTY soap as a whole by studying the intricately detailed and polysemic title sequence. I’ll leave the discussion of the visuals and organization of visuals in the title sequence for now (of which there is much to be said), and move on to one of most important aspects of the TV title rhetorics – the music.

Bill Conti’s indelible DYNASTY theme was not just a classy tune that opened the weekly show. It was an incredible example of effective rhetorics in film music. The title sequence was actually made to fit the music. Let’s look at it in more detail:

It is a very simple and highly conventional tune structured in three parts: first a main melody or theme, then a contrasting middle section and finally a repeat of the main theme. Conti’s piece is thus formed not so much as an overture to a (soap) opera, but rather as a sonata (home-away-home again). This is a very narrative approach.

The simplicity of the tune is very conscious in order to make this narrative “understandable” to western audiences: The main theme, particulalrly the first two bars, is constructed on quart-, quint- and octave intervals characteristic of military fanfares and royal rituals. This carries connotations to glorified power, both royal and military. The brass tone of a trumpet carries similar connotations.

The key is also relevant: It is in C major, which is “among the brightest and most extrovert of the major keys” (Bjørkvold 1988:66). This emphasizes yet again that the show is about the glorification and celebration of power and wealth. The contrasting middle part consists of rapid sequences by a solo cornet, which clearly imitates baroque style. It contains some chords in minor key, adding melancholy to the lot and making this section stand out as more “mundane” than the rest. The main theme is also safely molded in the late romantic style of Hollywood films, connoting DYNASTY as a sort of “epic”, involving characters and events loaded with symbolic, cultural significance.

Now, how does the music “work” in relation to the visuals? The visuals are fit to the music within a split second (the upward swirl is accompanied by a tilt up the Carrington skyscraper etc.) and is thus the narrator of the sequence. The upward swirl connotes a sort of “climbing up the social ladder”. Its fanfaric tone tells us that Blake Carrington and Krystle are among the main characters. The second, “mundane” part emphasizes the lesser importance of those characters while the final repeat of the fanfare pops up when Alexis is shown. The piece ends on a superhigh, clear C accompanied by an extreme bird’s eye view of the Carrington mansion.

To sum up then, “[the music provided] formal coherence, a degree of semantic clarification, and narrative progress and closure to the quite disparate, poetic visual “montage”, attempting to set or guide the overall mood of the viewing experience” (Gripsrud 1995).

Well, there it is. I think I’ll agree with Jeff Bond in that this type of narrative TV theme is a dying breed (the preposterous STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION title sequence belongs to the exceptions, of course), and that this was a thing of the past. That is unfortunate. These days, it seems that the TV theme works as nothing more than a brief, 15 second musical appetizer of the show that has no relation to the contents whatsoever. Answering to visually hardened and more impatient audiences, it seems like it goes the way of the film overture…Anyway, do you know of any other TV themes – past or present – that work like the above? If so, which, why and how?

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Source: Jostein Gripsrud: “The Dynasty Years” (1995)