The air is then thickened as fate and chance murkily combine to trap you. This device of hyper-modulation is in effect a semiotic variation of Schoenberg's serialism. Whereas Schoenberg splays the diatonic system into a modernist palette of variable relationships which one must incessantly invert, Herrmann retains harmonic and intervallic meaning purely in order to subvert it. Whilst such a dialectic strategy is hard to imagine working in music alone, its effect in a film score is one of powerful psychological resonance. From the afore mentioned floating intervals to the chugging and pressing title theme, extremely simplistic shards of melody are looped and repeated like fossilised fragments from dinosaurian symphonies.
Atonality is the musical key to the architecture of that maze.
By subjecting us to its moulding, Herrmann grants us more than the sensation of being threatened by a monstrous Other. His score notes that in the abject void of modern psychosis, both psychological motivation and harmonic meaning must be absolutely discarded. As such, Herrmann goes against the wooden grain honed by nearly every other film composer in the history of the cinema. If you have come here via the Secret History of Film Music list, close this window to return to that list. Referencing must credit this web site.