Film and Recent Popular Culture
Cambridge University Press eBooks – November 19, 2020
Source: OpenAlex
Summary
Gustav Mahler, a 19th-century composer, surprisingly re-emerged as a counter-culture icon in the 1960s, fueled by his birth centenary and long-playing records. This cultural phenomenon saw youthful "avant-garde" bridge "high" and "low" art, often inspired by experiences like "magic mushrooms." Mahler's dramatic music found new life in Jonathan Williams' poetry, Ken Russell's biopic, a dramatization of his relationship, and even the 2004 Athens Olympics opening ceremony. His inherent conflicts, once a marketing challenge, now allowed his powerful music to resonate universally, enriching diverse musicological studies.
Abstract
Mahler, who had mobilized the youth of his day against slovenly Tradition, reerupted into a newly youthful popular culture in the 1960s thanks to both the centenary of his birth and the advent of the long-playing record. Not only musicians were touched by the wave of new recordings; modern pop culture and youthful “avant-garde” now blithely bridged the once-opposed realms of “high” and “low” culture, opting for a more experimental and visionary one drawing on experiences of Zen, magic mushrooms, and LSD. Important examples of this trend are surveyed here, including the poetry of Jonathan Williams, the biopic by Ken Russell, the opening ceremony of the 2004 Athens Olympics, the recent dramatization of the Gustav/Alma relationship by Percy and Felix Adlon, and modern American television programming. The conflicts and contradictions that made Mahler’s works a marketing challenge in their own time enabled him to speak to us all, regardless of racial or cultural identity.