The music used sets a tone that makes the film seem more of a period piece. Woody had originally wanted to use Stravinsky, but found it too happy and made scenes seem unfunny. Other pieces of music in the film are pieces from Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty , The Love of Three Oranges, and Alexander Nevsky. The commercial possibilities were immediately apparent to me. Sight gags and slapstick sequences about despair and emptiness.
Dialogue jokes about anguish and dread.
Finality, mortality, human suffering, anxiety. In short the standard ploys of the professional funnyman. So much for hyping the film.