As one of the most valuable film franchises in history (grossing over $7.5 billion), Star Wars has an almost indescribable essence that extends from film to film and elegantly ties long, stretched themes together. For decades, die-hard fans and common viewers alike have been entranced in the seemingly magical and timeless qualities of Star Wars. The strong emotion viewers have can be explained largely by an understanding of John Williams’ brilliant score. Williams’ dedication to character-based leitmotifs, a recurrent theme found in musical compositions, that evolve alongside the narrative is powerful, and at the time revolutionary, for the score guides the audience to feel a certain way at precise moments. Williams’ leitmotifs in Star Wars construct memorable ties across the various movies and are an indispensable part of the franchise, responsible for connecting viewers to the diegesis in a manner that can forever be auditorily recalled. Ultimately, the emotional depth and the audience’s allure in the viewing experience of Star Wars is derived from the ways in which Williams transforms characters into icons, and accompanies the visual spectacle with an awe-inspiring, unforgettable score.
John Williams not only transformed the world’s perception of film music, but also revolutionized what it meant to write a sci-fi genre film score. Rather than alienate the audience with futuristic sounds in an attempt to match the setting, Williams decided to compose in a symphonic, classical style with a heavy focus on leitmotifs. This style comforts the audience and emotionally beckons each viewer to relate to the story and its characters “in a galaxy far, far away”. John Williams uses the leitmotif to foreshadow destruction, reveal growing love, amplify the gravity of silent moments and fierce combat, and so much more. In her work “Narratological Perspectives on Film Music,” Claudia Gorbman deconstructs the various usages for music in film, placing an emphasis on the leitmotif. “Like lighting,” Gorbman begins, “music sets moods and tonalities in a film; it guides the spectator’s vision both literally and figuratively” (11). Gorbman goes on to express that the varying levels of effectiveness music has in a film depends largely on “the narrative context” in which the music interacts with the “rest of the film’s system” (12).
That being said, Gorbman complicates her stance by articulating her theory that film music, while complex and useful, will always be less important than the film’s visual and the narrative. In support of her argument, Gorbman testifies that “hearing is...more selective and lazier than vision” and music is only a consideration after the visuals of a film, because it is inherently “nonrepresentational and nonnarrative and does not inhabit the perceptual foreground of the narrative film” (12). Gorbman presents an interesting theory and her opinion as it relates to Williams’ score in the Star Wars franchise will be explored further in this piece. When people “watch” a movie, their primary focus seems to be on the visual sense, yet that does not render music as nonnarrative, nor as a filmic element that can be ignored or underestimated—especially when considering a score such as that of John Williams.
Since the first addition of sound to the motion picture, there has been a debate regarding the influence that sound, rather than pure image, has on an audience. Film scholars agree that music has an impact, but there is vast disagreement on the extent of that impact. For example, Dr. Matthew Bribitzer-Stull argues that leitmotifs are the heart of any film with a “relevance to the audience [that] can hardly be denied,” for “leitmotivic emotional associations contribute in large part to the sense of drama in...film” (Bribitzer-Stull 6). The goal of this essay in analyzing the score of the Star Wars films is to highlight how Williams’ ability to intertwine narrative with leitmotif, and visual with music, not only transforms the viewing experience, but also asserts the score as the audience’s own personal guide throughout a franchise.
To begin the analysis of some of Williams’ most prevalent and effective musical motifs in the franchise, it makes sense to start with the familiar beginning of each film in the franchise. Just as the quote, “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….” fades from the screen, the audience is immersed in the sounds of a powerful orchestra playing the heroic introductory theme accompanying the large yellow “STAR WARS” letters. The theme continues on throughout the signature minute long text reel, and as the end of the text slowly fades out of view, on cue the lively score smoothly ends in a simple, mysterious, high pitched musical phrase that signals the viewer’s entrance into the Star Wars diegesis. Williams understood the importance of catering to “the audience’s desire for escapism and...being transported into another kind of atmosphere,” so he begins each Star Wars film by guiding the audience into the story world in a familiar manner (Audissino 72). To strip this renowned introductory scene of Williams’ accompanying score renders it unimpressive and awkwardly long. In this way, Williams’ score also functions as a cloak that conceals the raw technical elements of the film, thus allowing for the magic of the viewer’s immersion into the film diegesis to take place.
Williams’ approach to the Star Wars score is widely credited for launching what has been referred to as a “Film Music Renaissance” for both its character-based musicality and demonstration of the capabilities of a score written for a symphony orchestra (Audissino 82). Each of Williams’ leitmotifs are carefully crafted and nuanced for each specific appearance. These repeated strings of notes, each tied to the presence of specific characters, vary in timbre (a term referencing an instrument’s qualities and intensity), orchestration, and volume depending on the narrative circumstances. Bribitzer-Stull praises the leitmotif for its ability to go far beyond simply functioning as a labeling device of people and things; the leitmotif is a system of “musical memory” that can completely recontextualize and deepen one’s interpretation of the circumstances on screen (Bribitzer-Stull 8). Williams’ highly memorable motifs establish patterns that allow viewers to draw connections amongst all the Star Wars films as well as add brilliant subtleties and undertones to the narrative. For example, perhaps the most recognized leitmotif of all in Star Wars is Darth Vader’s menacing eighteen note “Imperial March” theme, but even before the transformation of the character Anakin Skywalker into the villainous Darth Vader, Williams weaves the threatening theme into earlier films as a foreshadowing tactic. This strategy forms “accumulative associations” in which each appearance of the theme collects a compound of all its growing meanings and narrative associations (Bribitzer-Stull 4). The result, as articulated by Gorbman, is that the individual themes begin to “carry representational meaning as well,” for each leitmotif appearance “picks up narrative associations, which, in turn, infuse themselves into each new thematic statement” (17, 27). The effects of this are hard to understate. Gorbman admits that without “background music” the film risks “confronting the audience with an image they might fail to interpret,” and although Williams’ score is hardly what Gorbman titles “background music,” her point holds true in the following analysis of the “Imperial March” theme (18).
Williams’ score is an indispensable audience aid in dictating how the viewer should feel and make sense of a narrative’s spread across decades of a film franchise. Much of the brilliance of Williams’ leitmotif-rooted structure of his score can be understood by his ability to not only draw strong thematic character connections within each Star Wars film, but also in his skill to extend such associations across all the films in the franchise. The score, quite literally, is a second narrative system within the films—the first being the visual component. Even when Anakin is a young boy in the prequels, the Jedi Master Yoda sensed a dark fate for the soon to become Darth Vader. The audience knows that Anakin Skywalker—depicted as a boy in the later released prequel trilogy—will inevitably become the infamous and all powerful Darth Vader. Williams emphasizes this future by intertwining moments of Yoda’s suspicion about the boy with short and subtle appearances of the “Imperial March” theme. In Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), Yoda expresses his fears about Anakin’s dark side to another Jedi, stating, “Grave danger I fear in his training,” as a solo horn, the signature instrument of the leitmotif, softly plays just the first nine notes of Darth Vader’s leitmotif. The musical addition is delicate, yet undeniably dark. Even the slightest changes “wrought on [a] theme,” such as changes in rhythm, as well as articulation...have corresponding effects on the way we receive the diegetic information” (Gorbman 17). Williams truncates and changes the Darth Vader leitmotif by stripping the theme of its forceful volume and slowing the tempo, in order to advise the audience to view the scene with dark associations of Darth Vader. A similar instance occurs in the following film, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002), as again a single horn plays Darth Vader’s theme, as Yoda struggles with the feeling that something is terribly wrong with Anakin. However, this occurrence of the theme differs from before, because although the tempo, volume, and assisting orchestral instruments remain hindered, all the notes of the full leitmotif are now complete. All eighteen notes of the theme—one entire play through—is heard alongside Yoda’s voice, suggesting that the rise of who the theme knowingly represents, the dreaded Darth Vader, is getting increasingly closer.
The audience already knows what is to come for Anakin, and to hear the “Imperial March” theme laced with his young, seemingly innocent character, is Williams’ way of using the score to actively direct the viewer to be skeptical of Anakin’s nature and anticipate his fate. The score itself is constructed for the purpose of “developing those recognizable tunes” in a manner that also forefronts the complexities and changes in characters over time (Weinman). The numerous character leitmotifs intentionally “grow and change over the time of the film, helping the developing subtext, and giving [the viewer] helpful information as to the changing relationships in the film” (Weinman). To complete the full evolution of the Darth Vader leitmotif example, it’s fitting to turn to the scene of his demise: Darth Vader’s death. Near the grand finale of Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983), Darth Vader finally vanquishes his association with the dark side in order to rescue Luke Skywalker, his son and heroic leader of The Resistance, from an execution. In the process of his treasonous action in order to save Luke, Darth Vader has been gravely injured, but in his final moments, the previously hateful antagonist admits his wrongs and his leitmotif adjusts accordingly. Instead of the thunderous, all powerful theme that routinely accompanies Darth Vader’s presence throughout movies IV, V, and VI, the final playing of his theme is calm, soft, and somber. The last appearance of the leitmotif occurs three separate, juxtaposing times; the first playing of the theme is with high pitch violins - an instrument that throughout the score is largely reserved for the heroic, rather than evil, musical themes. The second repeat of the leitmotif, occurring as Luke removes Darth Vader’s black mask to reveal his father’s human face for the first time since becoming Darth Vader, is slowly performed by a solo flute, another instrument that is never associated with any dark aspects of the score. Lastly, as Darth Vader closes his eyes and lets himself be taken by death, a harp mournfully plucks each individual note of the theme in its high pitch range, suggesting the redeeming, even heroic, qualities the evil Darth Vader was able to exhibit. Musical themes not only play a part in the evolution of the narrative throughout Star Wars, but also each leitmotif undergoes various changes based on the “dramatic influence it has been subjected to” as a part of the “film’s dynamic evolution” (Bribitzer-Stull 15; Gorbman 27).
In writing the score, Williams sought to create “a sense of good versus evil made palpable”, and does so even before the visual presence of such on screen, which further exemplifies the capability of the score as a narrative element of its own (Audissino 73). The score is a crucial part of the audience’s ability to absorb the crosscutting storylines, locations, and characters in Star Wars. In fact, the role of the score is so important in the first film of the franchise, Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (1977), that 88 out of its 125 minutes contain score (Audissino 74). Throughout the franchise there are no lyrical musical numbers, which not only credits John Williams’ effectiveness with a symphonic score, but also adds to the feeling that Star Wars is supernatural—something beyond this world. Williams has created a reliable and trustworthy musical syntax in the franchise that influences each thought and emotion the audience has. The score, in particular the leitmotivic system, is its own narrative practice that thrives on inflicting repeated subtleties in the viewer’s memory, thus transforming the entire relationship the viewer has with the film and franchise as a whole.
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