The Maestro Complex
Now both kids are playing conductor. They get a stool out, because you can't conduct unless you are standing on a podium. They lay out some music and pick up a baton chosen from among the tinker toys. They wave the baton around and sing to provide the orchestral sound effects. At the end they bow in several directions. (For my daughter, the two year old maharincess, bowing is performed with extra flair.) After exposure to Tom & Jerry's and Buggs Bunny's take on orchestra conducting, they understand what it is perfectly. It's the conductor shtick. The director as High Priest. The Maestro Complex.
As I mentioned before, Leopold Stokowski taught the masses how it was supposed to be done in Fantasia. Not the conducting technique -- his gestures are from the elbows on down, without prep breath -- a nightmare to follow. No, were talking the shadowy silhouette, the pose, the solemnity. What I called the Count Dracula school of directing. As Leonard Bernstein's biographer tells us, Serge Koussevitzky consciously participated in the shtick with his cape and dramatic pauses before beginning a concert. (In his footsteps, Bernstein tried the cape later in life himself, but couldn't pull it off. He was flamboyant and American -- not a real conductor, you know.)
By creating this priesthood and enforcing its rituals, conductors of our grandparent's generation gave us an archetype so compelling that even my little daughter can fall in love with it after seeing it only in parodied form. But it proved to be the kind of two-edged sword that boomerangs on you and bites you in the tails. For every one it attracts, there are several it repels. I think there are people, especially in our informal age, that can't relate to the mysterious maestro on his podium and so never give the music a chance. And that sucks.
Umie the Umlaut says, "ask your doctor about the Fredösphere!"
1 Comments:
All three [Bugs, Porky, Daffy] made their reappearance in Robert Clampett's A Corny Concerto, first released on September 18, 1943. The short was scripted by Frank Tashlin. In parody of Walt Disney's Fantasia the short features two segments with different characters who act according to the sounds of Johann Strauss II's waltzes. Elmer Fudd introduces both segments acting as an orchestra conductor of Corny-Gie Hall, in parody of Fantasia's Leopold Stokowski and Carnegie Hall. The first segment is "A Tale of the Vienna Woods" (Geshicthen aus dem Wienerwald - 1868). It features Porky Pig hunting Bugs for the first time in five years, this time with the help of his hound. During the confrontation Porky's shotgun accidentally fires while facing all three of them. All of them believe themselves to have been shot. After several melodramatic dying scenes, the segment ends with their relief at realising they are alive. The second segment is "The Blue Danube" (An der sch?, blauen Donau - 1867). It features a duckling version of Daffy Duck in a story based on Hans Christian Andersen's The Ugly Duckling - 1843. The duckling is a lonely orphan trying to be adopted in a family of swans but they look down at him. But when a vulture appears and abducts the young swans as his prey, Daffy attacks him, defeats him, rescues them and is accepted into their family. The short marks the first time Bugs, Duffy, Porky and Elmer, who were the most popular Looney Tunes characters at the time, appear together in one short. The two stories are simple enough but effectively presented. The short is considered among the highlights of its time both in animation and choreography. This one actually lapsed into the dreaded "public domain" so anybody can sell it.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000F2MX/
allthingsyankovi/104-0420299-4603133
See also Long-Hafired Hare (1949)
Bugs's music playing is bothering nearby opera singer Giovanni Jones, who keeps showing up to destroy our hero's instruments. Bugs retaliates by showing up at the singer's recital, using a "pen," liquid alum, and a Leopold Stokowski costume to disrupt the performance.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000AYJXS/allthingsyankovi
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