Leitmotif

What is a leitmotif?

A leitmotif (German for "leading motive") is a recurring musical idea with a fixed meaning. It can be a full melody, a two-note figure, a chord progression or even a particular instrument, but it always points to one thing: a person, a place, an object, an emotion or an abstract force. Once the audience has heard it next to its subject a few times, the music alone can call that subject to mind.

The term was popularized in nineteenth-century writing about Richard Wagner's music dramas, above all Der Ring des Nibelungen, where dozens of short themes stand for gods, objects and ideas and are woven together across four operas. Earlier composers had used recurring themes too; Hector Berlioz built his Symphonie fantastique (1830) around an idée fixe that stands for the beloved. Hollywood composers of the 1930s and '40s carried the method into the film score, and it has been a core scoring tool ever since.

What separates a leitmotif from a simple main title theme is consistency of reference. A theme that plays whenever one character is on screen, or in their thoughts, is a leitmotif.

How does a leitmotif work on the viewer?

A leitmotif runs a simple learning loop, and the power comes from breaking and bending it.

1. Statement. The theme is heard clearly with its subject on screen, often more than once, so the association sticks.
2. Recall. Later the theme plays when the subject is absent: someone mentions them, a keepsake is shown, a place they belong to fills the frame. The audience feels the character in the room.
3. Anticipation. The theme arrives before the subject does. Jaws (1975) is the textbook case: John Williams's two-note ostinato tells the audience the shark is near long before it is seen, so an empty stretch of water becomes a threat.
4. Transformation. The theme changes as the subject does. A heroic melody slowed into a minor key on a solo instrument can mourn a defeat; a menacing theme played softly on strings can signal that a villain has turned.

Variation is the craft. Composers change tempo, key and mode, instrumentation, register and harmony, break a theme into fragments, or combine two themes at once when their characters meet. A theme can also cross into the story world when a character hums or plays it, turning score into diegetic sound.

Withholding a theme the audience expects creates doubt; a well-timed return carries the weight of every earlier appearance.

Leitmotif examples in film scores

• ***Star Wars* series, John Williams.** The clearest modern use of Wagner's method: separate themes for the Force, for Luke, for Leia and, from The Empire Strikes Back (1980), the Imperial March for Darth Vader and the Empire. The prequels plant hints of the Imperial March inside young Anakin's music, so the villain's theme is heard growing out of the child.
• ***Jaws* (1975), John Williams.** A leitmotif reduced to two alternating notes that stand in for a creature the film keeps off screen.
• ***The Good, the Bad and the Ugly* (1966), Ennio Morricone.** One howling, yodel-like figure, voiced by a different sound for each of the three men, so the theme identifies who is on screen.
• ***The Lord of the Rings* trilogy (2001–2003), Howard Shore.** A large network of themes for the Shire, the Fellowship, the Ring and the cultures of Middle-earth, developed across all three films.
• ***Harry Potter* series.** John Williams's Hedwig's Theme became the musical signature of the whole wizarding world and kept returning in the later films scored by other composers.

How to plan leitmotifs for your film

Leitmotifs are written by the film composer, but directors and editors shape them in the spotting sessions. A few working rules:

• Keep the list short. Two to four themes are plenty for most features. Give themes to what the story is really about, the protagonist, the central relationship, the threat, not to every side character.
• Protect the first statement. The audience can only recognize a return if they heard the theme clearly the first time, ideally in a scene with little dialogue.
• Map variations to the arc. List the scenes where the character changes and decide how the theme changes with them: fuller orchestration after a victory, a single instrument in grief, a fragment when the character is only remembered.
• Let the theme carry transitions. A leitmotif that starts under one scene and finishes in the next works as a sound bridge, linking a character to a place or a memory across the cut.
• Don't hit every move. A theme that punctuates each gesture slides into mickey mousing; let it breathe under the action.

In FlashBoards you can lay this out as a theme map: one row per character, with the storyboard frames or reference stills of every scene where their theme should return and a note beside each on how it varies. Temp-music references can sit next to the frames they are meant for.

Leitmotif vs. motif: what's the difference?

A motif in storytelling is any element that recurs through a film and builds meaning: an image, an object, a color, a line of dialogue, a sound. A leitmotif is a specific kind of recurring element: musical, and tied to a named referent.

| | Leitmotif | Motif | |---|---|---| | Medium | Music, usually score | Any: image, prop, color, line, sound | | Refers to | One character, place, object or idea | Usually supports the film's broader theme | | Returns | Whenever its subject appears or is evoked | At chosen moments, often without a fixed rule | | Changes by | Key, tempo, instrumentation, fragmentation | Context, framing, what surrounds it |

In music theory motif also means a short melodic cell; a leitmotif may be built from one, as in Jaws, but its fixed association is what defines it. For the rest of the audio track around these themes, see the sound in film hub.

Further reading

Kathryn Kalinak, Film Music: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2010). Doug Adams, The Music of the Lord of the Rings Films (2010).