The life story of the Trapp family, later known as The Trapp Family Singers, first inspired a German film “Die Trapp Familie“ (1956) which subsequently prompted the production of a musical. Due to the huge audiences for the German film, the director Robert Wise decided to do a remake of the film for the American market. The Hollywood film “The Sound of Music” premiered in New York in 1965 and developed into one of the most successful films in film history. This film provides the base for the Re:Sound of Music project.
The film “The Sound of Music” is an integral part of American popular culture
and has decisively influenced Salzburg’s and Austria’s image abroad. The Alpine paradise set in its imaginary geography served as a welcome screen
on which to project individual desires and wishes in order to address collective feelings. The film’s enormous success can most likely be explained by its combination of globally valid cultural entities, which are blended to form a “reality” that corresponds with neither the cultural reality of the Alps nor historical facts.
The original film is one of the most well-known and successful international productions (5 Oscars) yet it remains largely unknown in German speaking countries, particularly in Austria. The film is paradigmatic for tourism’s relationship of fiction and reality and is a classical example of a self-contained Hollywood film that tells a straightforward story without posing any major questions for the audience. The film demands a “dissection analysis” that evokes questions and creates breaks.
“In Benjamin’s era of endless mechanical reproduction, the authors of a moving story can no longer control who photocopies or remixes their symbols, or where, or in which way.” (Alexander G. Keul )
The film, The Sound of Music, serves as a matrix for a confrontation with concepts of homeland as an identity-forming construction and, also, issues dealing with the authenticity of cultures. The study of the distortion between alienation caused by cultural production and mechanisms of appropriation within it is one of my main concerns and is to be discussed within the project.
The film-methodological approach of Re:Sound of Music is based on the principle of a well-known children’s game. This technique was used also by the surrealists and is known as “Cadavre exquis” or “Exquisite corps”. The film and its plot are cut up into smaller sections to then be distributed to various artists (filmmakers, musicians, visual artists,…) and theorists. Every interpreter re-tells their section in their own way. Both pictorial and musical levels are subjected to critical analysis. The new film is recompiled on the basis of these reflections, remixes, interpretations, and translations—whether they are in the form of animation, puppet show, road movie, or lecture.
Finding an adequate “answer” and making relevant statements is, only possible with the help of a collective practice, which at the same time admits a high level of heterogeneity.
Through the process of deconstruction and subsequent reconstruction, the story of the film should nonetheless remain as a whole, to whatever extent possible, and as such, remain perceptible and legible — although sent through a variety of diverse filters and reformulated from various perspectives.
The gaze “coming from the outside” meets with a new interpretation and, in this sense, diverts and positions itself as a contribution to the discussion of identity constructions and how they are used in a global culture industry.
The trailer is meant to offer a first look into the The Re:Sound of Music project and also summarize the research work and serve as an instrument for communication. Two to five short passages from the original film have been taken as significant examples. They are analyzed with artistic means and subjected to a new interpretation.
The film poster is a collage work to transport the idea of the methodological approach. Following the distribution and marketing strategies of big Hollywood productions the poster is to be placed in public to attract the local visitors for the upcoming movie.
Support: JVE