Unsettled Scores: Politics, Hollywood, and the Film Music of Aaron Copland and Hanns Eisler, Sally Bick

The Hollywood careers of Aaron Copland and Hanns Eisler brought the composers and their high art sensibility into direct conflict with the premier producer of Americas potent mass culture. Drawn by Hollywoods potential to reach—and edify—the public, Copland and Eisler expertly wove sophisticated musical ideas into Hollywood and, each in their own distinctive way, left an indelible mark on movie history. Sally Bicks dual study of Copland and Eisler pairs interpretations of their writings on film composing with a close examination of their first Hollywood projects: Coplands music for Of Mice and Men and Eislers score for Hangmen Also Die! Bick illuminates the different ways the composers treated a film score as means of expressing their political ideas on society, capitalism, and the human condition. She also delves into Coplands and Eislers often conflicted attempts to adapt their music to fit Hollywoods commercial demands, an enterprise that took place even as they wrote hostile critiques of the film industry.