FILM: GONE WITH THE WIND Edit/Sound Sample (II)

Music Cues for the Crane Shot in
Gone with the Wind

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To fully  appreciate a music score one must be attentive both to original themes and adapted music cues and their cultural associations. Certainly without being able to identify music cues, even in this short sequence, is to miss much of the art of movies.
    Each of the four music cues composer Max Steiner uses had (and continue to have) deep cultural associations, which would resonate with an informed viewer:
    (1) "Dixie" is the song most identified with the American South (in fact, "Dixie," or "Dixie Land," is often used as a synonym for the American South);
    (2) The state song, "O Maryland" (sometimes heard as the holiday song, "O Christmas Tree") suggests Southern patriotism (Steiner uses "Taps" in ironic counterpoint here, as well as giving "Taps" its own cue later);
    (3) "Old Folks at Home" (also known as "Way Down Upon the Swanee River") sentimentally evokes the nostalgia of the Old South, now defeated; and
    (4) "Taps," first heard in ironic counterpoint to the patriotic song, "O Maryland," now blares out the tragic futility of war, as the crane shot passes the Confederate flag flapping above hundreds of war dead and wounded.
    If "a picture is worth a thousand words," a moving picture, with music cues, is worth a million words.

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