In his new book, «The music of villains», the author analyzes the continuous juxtaposition between opera, classical symphonies and evil characters in films and TV series. Inviting us to overcome prejudices and return to rediscover the enchantment of certain sublime notes.
“Harpsichord? The word is enough to evoke horror and cobwebs! Wagner no, because it smacks of Nazism; Shostakovich not even because we didn’t understand that Fantozzi wanted to condemn conformism rather than make it a flag.” It’s sharp Carlo Fiore in recounting his latest book (in a long series). It’s called The music of the bad guyshas just been released by Neri Pozza, starts from photographing a preconception, to disprove it. To dismantle the idea that classical music is the soundtrack to evilat least in pop culture.
A big misunderstanding
There is no film or TV series in which a murderer, terrorist, serial killer, mad scientist, maniac, megalomaniac, mafioso, monster of every kind doesn’t love that genre, doesn’t willingly go to the opera, when he doesn’t play an instrument himself. «More: if we hear a piece of classical music in the background, we can bet that something bad is about to happen on the sceneor that the character in question harbors a certain degree of malice. The gimmick dates back to the dawn of cinema but, despite the changing characters and settings, it has ended up becoming a cliché: a big misunderstanding which has insinuated, at the very least, a form of suspicion towards this art in the public most accustomed to the stereotypes of visual media” we read in the synopsis of the volume.
Fiore, musicologist and art director, teacher of music history at the Palermo Conservatory, cites figures known to the general public such as Dracula, Sherlock Holmes or Wednesday Addamsnot forgetting the virtuous cases.
A negative imprinting
«In the book I tried to explain why so many people are skeptical about classical music if not downright terrified by itfrom the instruments and places that symbolize it” explains the author a Panorama.itbefore adding: «Nowadays, when everything is ancient and one revival leads to another, the clear distinction between the public of opera houses and concert halls and those who attend other shows has disappeared, and yet a prejudice still remains; but instead of studying it for the umpteenth time from a stage or an audience, I analyzed it from the point of view of those who stay at home and turns on the TV. A film today, a series tomorrow, the most usual cinema and TV have exploited classical music as a sound icon of evil, of villainof bad omen and tragedy, with the side effect of create a negative imprint on the public: classical music? Let everyone save themselves! The most beautiful music that thus ends up retreating from the subconscious fear that it could do harm like the characters that surround it (from serious killers to mafiosi, from super-villains to evil “deviants” of all kinds, especially the educated)».
Fortunately, there is room for cautious optimism: «What if the real bad guys were precisely those who deprive themselves of art music without knowing it?» concludes Fiore, who anticipates: «In the finale I’m betting precisely on this and on a possibility, largely female, of salvation».
