Sonja: The White Swan: Music as narrative device

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 283-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shmavon Azatyan
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Musical Score ◽  
States Of Mind ◽  
Narrative Strategy ◽  
Narrative Device ◽  
Figure Skater

Anne Sewitsky’s biopic Sonja (Sonja: The White Swan) (2018) is an example of authorial intervention that prioritizes a character-centred narrative rather than historical context. The article focuses on the musical score and the contemporary pop songs that contribute to building the psychological–emotional portrait of Norwegian-born Sonja Henie, champion figure skater and Hollywood star. In Sewitsky’s narrative strategy, non-diegetic music, sometimes deployed anachronistically, is used both to comment on the protagonist’s motivations and behaviour and to express her inner states of mind. By foregrounding Henie’s psyche through music, the film balances her negative and positive sides and presents her as complex and sometimes contradictory individual.

Shakuntala and Somanatha

2017 ◽  
pp. 281-326
Author(s):  
Ramin Jahanbegloo ◽  
Romila Thapar ◽  
Neeladri Bhattacharya
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Historical Event ◽  
Central Character ◽  
Narrative Strategy ◽  
The Past ◽  
Over Time

In this section there is a discussion on two books written by Thapar, Shakuntala and Somanatha. She explains what made her choose these two subjects which, in a sense, suggest both a similar and yet a somewhat dissimilar narrative strategy. The story of Shakuntala is fictional yet it is a story that is frequently rewritten in history but incorporating some small changes. Thapar relates the changes in the drama to their historical context. She also shows how the projection of the central character in the story alters over time and is perceived differently both across time and by recourse to different cultural attributes. Her book on Somanatha takes the central historical event and examines how it is viewed in a variety of sources from variant perspectives. Some describe it in different ways whereas others do not refer to it despite writing about other events at Somanatha. The methods encapsulated in both these books are suggestive of new ways of looking at the past. This can also be seen in Thapar’s substantial work on how people in the past looked at their own past and how this illumines our understanding of that past.

scholarly journals Music Becomes Emotions: The Musical Score in Two Productions of A Streetcar Named Desire

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-68
Author(s):  
Tomaž Onič
Keyword(s):  
Literary Tradition ◽  
Deep South ◽  
Musical Score ◽  
States Of Mind ◽  
National Theatre ◽  
Psychoanalytic Study ◽  
Streetcar Named Desire ◽  
Dramatic Action ◽  
A Streetcar Named Desire

From today’s perspective, Alex North’s score for the 1951 film A Streetcar Named Desire, which was considered remarkable even at the time, can claim legendary status. The titles of the 16-track score suggest that the music focuses on the characters, the setting, main motifs, crucial events and states of mind. The film soundtrack could thus be denoted as integral to and harmonized with the dramatic action. This is not the case in the 2008 staging at the Slovene National Theatre in Maribor, where the music composed and selected by Hrvoje Crnić Boxer seems to focus on the protagonist only. The performance revolves around Blanche and could be interpreted as a psychoanalytic study of the play through her subconscious. Analysing the musical layers of these two considerably different productions of Williams’ play opens new interpretative aspects of this complex theatre and film classic from the Deep South literary tradition.

Psychology as a Profession and a Science

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 111-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ype H. Poortinga ◽  
Ingrid Lunt
Keyword(s):  
European Association ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Professional Psychologists

The European Association of Psychologists’ Associations (EFPA) was created in 1981 as the European Association of Professional Psychologists’ Associations (EFPPA). We show that Shakespeare’s dictum “What’s in a name?” does not apply here and that the loss of the “first P” (the adjectival “professional”) was resisted for almost two decades and experienced by many as a serious loss. We recount some of the deliberations preceding the change and place these in a broader historical context by drawing parallels with similar developments elsewhere. Much of the argument will refer to an underlying controversy between psychology as a science and the practice of psychology, a controversy that is stronger than in most other sciences, but nevertheless needs to be resolved.

Historical Context for Psychology, Moral Context for Historians

1997 ◽  
Vol 42 (11) ◽  
pp. 990-991
Author(s):  
Isaac Prilleltensky
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Moral Context
Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document