What other movies feature classical music-loving villains?

January 2, 2009 4:23 PM

Anyone else as bugged as I am that, in the movies, a fondness for classical music has become a cheap giveaway that the character's probably a villain?

Ever have something get under your skin and stay there unrecognized until you're finally exposed to it one time too many?

Well, it happened to me watching Superman Returns the other day. Halfway through the thing, Lois Lane sneaks on board Lex Luthor's huge but seemingly deserted yacht, a spooky situation enhanced by the music from the yacht's sound system echoing all around her.

And what, apparently, does the arch-supervillain of all Comicdom listen to in his leisure? Heavy metal? Aryan Nations Thrash Goth-Rock? Yma Sumac? Nah. Vivaldi's Four Seasons, of course.

"Not again!" I say to myself, and that's when the light goes on over my head. Of course he listens to classical music -- he's a villain! It's practically shorthand for evil these days!

In a few minutes time, I drag up half a dozen or so titles from memory featuring Bach-loving baddies, and I'm sure there are plenty more -- can you help supply examples?

Partial list:

• Hannibal Lector eats a flutist who screws up the Scherzo to Mendlelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream in Red Dragon.
• Hideous hitman listens to the Queen of the Night's aria from Mozart's The Magic Flute when he receives his orders to kill in The Rocketeer.
• Homicidal maniac pops in a cassette of something baroque just before slaughtering a throng of thrill-seekers in Rollercoaster.
• The big Lebowski has Mozart's Requiem thundering through the house as he draws The Dude into his fraudulent scheme. (Of course, I can't hold that or anything else against this movie!)
• More baroque music-to-plot-by as Ted Crawford devises his fiendishness in Fracture.

In modern movies' defense, this goes back quite a ways -- in fact, the earliest example I can think of is Beethoven's Eroica on Norman Bates's kiddie record player in 1960's Psycho.

But what does it say about our society that the pinnacles of Western musical creation have come to seem so alien and threatening that their primary use in popular culture is to suggest some horror lurking about?

posted by Olden_Bittermann to Society & Culture (11 answers total)

It's a device to make the bad guys more believable and human. It's understood that if they can appreciate Mozart, then there must be something going on in their head other than "kill the good guys." And to simple-minded people (i.e. almost everyone) that's disturbing. It means that you actually have to see the bad guy as evil and also a real human being at the same time.

Some other examples:

Alex likes some Beethoven with his ultraviolence in A Clockwork Orange.

Max Von Sydow's gentle assasin in Three Days Of The Condor enjoys listening to classical while contemplating his next job.

Also, Michael Corleone and Al Capoone both like their opera.
posted by bingo at 4:34 PM on January 2, 2009

I'd like to add that, responding to the other part of your question, this technique doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I like it.
posted by bingo at 4:41 PM on January 2, 2009

I also think it functions as a shorthand to signify that the killer is intelligent/sophisticated, which implies that his/her violent acts are planned, have some sort of internal logic, etc. (as opposed, I guess, to being random acts perpetrated by someone stupid or brain-damaged). I agree, it's a long-standing lazy device. But then, movies are full of those.
posted by scody at 4:43 PM on January 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

You're new here, so I'll explain:

Chatfilter.
GYOB.
posted by eritain at 4:43 PM on January 2, 2009

I don't think it's a device to make the bad guys more believable and human, actually. Listening to Toby Keith or the Beatles would do that just as well. Well, better actually.

The fact is that, for many people, classical music is perceived as snobby and elitist. At the same time, it's considered "high culture" and intellectual. So I think it's really a device that works on a couple of levels - it makes villains seem asocial (because it's elitist snob music, see), and at the same time it adds an interesting socio-cultural twist - the villain is at once highly educated (since classical music is seen as a marker of education by many folks) but incredibly misguided: his villainous behavior more twisted because he is, ostensibly, intelligent enough to do things the "right way." This usage appeals to people who like to see snobs get their comeuppance, I suppose.

But what does it say about our society that the pinnacles of Western musical creation have come to seem so alien and threatening that their primary use in popular culture is to suggest some horror lurking about?

This is a nation that TWICE elected George Bush (or something close to it) - in large part due to an "anti-elitist" stance against his opponents . . . I'd say it's kind of the same sensibility at work with classical music here. It makes the villains seem *less* human, more esoteric, strange and harder to identify with.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 4:46 PM on January 2, 2009

I don't see this as Chatfilter any more than a question asking about why a literary device is used in a particular way or what someone's partner "means" because of a certain bewildering action or statement - and we get those kind of questions all the time. It's a common motif, what are its origins? Sounds worthy to me. A lot of reasonable AskMeFi questions don't have solid, factual answers.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 4:49 PM on January 2, 2009

But what does it say about our society that the pinnacles of Western musical creation have come to seem so alien and threatening that their primary use in popular culture is to suggest some horror lurking about?

You've spotted an interesting trend, but I don't agree at all with your reasoning behind it. Classical music seems elitist to many people, which is a big part of it. Most people associate classical music with intelligence and refined taste. When you contrast this with violence, you get the suggestion of an intelligent - and thus frightening - villain. A smart killer is much scarier and a better adversary than a dumb one. And classical music is beautiful and somewhat peaceful. Juxtaposing it with violence creates a sense of wrongness.

In a Clockwork Orange, Alex's love of classical music is ruined by the brainwashing, just as his human soul is comprised by the process. His love of classical music is one of his redeeming features and suggests hope that he might change. One of the book's themes is the perversion of old culture by modernity and youth. In the book, this translates to a mangling of the English language. In the movie, it manifests as a perversion of classical music into electronic beepings. Classical music isn't the menace at all, it's a way in which Burgess and Kubrick deliver a message and help build up their character.

I think it's similar to how so many American movies have villains with British accents. It's not some hatred of British people carried over from the colonial days, it's just appropriating cultural stereotypes to make a worthy and menacing villain.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 4:54 PM on January 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

In 8mm, the bad guys listened to Feindflug, if my memory suits me right.

Of course, 8mm was a crappy movie- but at least Nicholas Cage wasn't wearing a bear suit.
posted by dunkadunc at 4:54 PM on January 2, 2009

Oh, and I meant to add: I don't actually think it says anything about "our society," certainly not that there's some sort of generally held view that classical music = evil outside the realm of movies.

This is a nation that TWICE elected George Bush (or something close to it) - in large part due to an "anti-elitist" stance against his opponents

Sure. But what does this have to do with the culpability of the notorious liberals in Hollywood? Seriously, does anyone really believe the Coen Brothers were using classical music to push some right-wing neocon agenda in The Big Lebowski?

Also, a much earlier use of the device (predating Psycho by 30 years, and made in Germany to boot) was Fritz Lang's M, in which the killer whistles Grieg's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Peer Gynt. (Fritz Lang, in case it needs to be noted, wasn't exactly an anti-intellectual right-winger.)
posted by scody at 4:56 PM on January 2, 2009

missed on preview: I think it's similar to how so many American movies have villains with British accents. It's not some hatred of British people carried over from the colonial days, it's just appropriating cultural stereotypes to make a worthy and menacing villain.

Bingo.
posted by scody at 4:57 PM on January 2, 2009

But what does it say about our society that the pinnacles of Western musical creation have come to seem so alien and threatening that their primary use in popular culture is to suggest some horror lurking about?

I don't know what it does say, but what it might point to is anti-intellectualism, for the lowest common denominator to be on the side of good. Therefore, you get lunkhead protagonists and bad to be associated with the opposite of the everyman: the snob. For some reason I don't think this will be news to you.
posted by rhizome at 5:05 PM on January 2, 2009