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It’s no surprise that Richard Wagner’s music is a popular choice for cinematic moments of intense dramaticism, humor, horror, suspense, philosophical gravity, and pleasure. From the many comical moments in the 1957 Warner Bros’ film, “What’s Opera, Doc?,” Werner Herzog’s sobering 1992 documentary experience, “Lessons of Darkness,” the endearing 1930 film, “Fire At The Opera,” or the 1950 biofilm about the soprano Nellie Melba, “Melba,” finding Wagner’s music is hardly a needle in the haystack. Instead, it seems the natural step for any film looking to add subtext without lots of heavy lifting getting in the way. That’s where music comes in, a perfect resource!

Unfortunately, the diversity of choices seems, when looking at it in the abstract, thanks to the resources available, hardly diverse at all. As LA Times Jon Burlingame noted in 2010, one of the most famous examples of contemporary cinematic usage of Wagner’s music, specifically the “Ride of the Valkyries” from the eponymously titled second opera of Wagner’s tetradic epic, “Der Ring des Nibelungen” (or The Ring Cycle), is found in the helicopter scene from the 1970 film, “Apocalypse Now.” But what if I told you there are WAY more than one might think, so many in fact that documenting all of them would be impossible for one article alone, let alone a book. 

Instead of going through each, from the most recent (Tár, 2022) to some of the earliest (The Birth of a Nation, 1915), let’s instead look at what music is used, what kinds of films use it, and what it possibly says about the attractiveness of Wagner’s musical-philosophical worldview. It is no surprise that Wagner’s ideals about the world are full of provocative and controversial perspectives and fans, from his anti-Semitism to “total work of art“ (colloquially, Gesamtkunstwerk, although Wagner hated the term), to his laudation by Nazi leaders, the presence of Wagner’s music in a film is hardly neutral but neither can it be considered purposefully political either.

However, the counterargument is the idea of separating the art from the artist, a topic whose central argument is that an artist can have done harmful things but their art stands above or not in opposition to their personal actions. Of course, as one Reddit user noted, “bad people do, however, make good art, and that they do bad things is not a mutually exclusive fact” but “we just can’t separate the art from the artist. This will always be a problem.” What to do, what to do. Can we enjoy Wagner’s music in films and stand aloof from the creator’s personal beliefs? Maybe it doesn’t matter or maybe it matters a lot. As the controversies around J. K. Rowling demonstrate, valuing art does not have to come at the expense of holding its authors accountable. Instead, personal fallibilities add depth to art.

A Tale of (Many, Many) Films

If you take a look at the Wikipedia page entitled, “List of films using the music of Richard Wagner,” you’ll find a lot of very interesting things. First, you’ll notice that most of the films seem to use the same music. Either its the “Ride of the Valkyries,” the glorious prelude to “Tristan und Isolde,” the “Siegfrieds Trauermarsch“ from “Götterdämmerung,” the famous prelude from “Parsifal,” or the overture to “Tannhäuser.” However, on the rare occasion it’s something else, you’ll find less common choices employed like music from Wagner’s early operas like “Rienzi” from 1838 or non-operatic literature like his WWV 103, or the symphonic poem, “Siegried Idyll,” based on the operatic character.

You would then notice that the film’s dates seem noticeably consistent, almost like using Wagner’s music in films is an industry standard as opposed to a creative quirk. There are a few names who repeat on the list, some being the Spanish director Luis Buñuel and German director Hans-Jürgen Syberberg. Other than these two, it is a rather eclectic mixture of names, from Americans like D. W. Griffith and Todd Field to more worldy figures like Werner Herzog, Yukio Mishima, Elem Klimov, and Baz Luhrmann. Thus, the attraction to Wagner is hardly located in one country but seems something universal, as if Wagner’s music speaks to themes and topics which strike up relationships with other concepts, from Schopenhauer philosophical pessimism to the law of fate and destiny.

Some of the early 20th-century films like Rouben Mamoulian’s 1930 film, “City Streets,” an altruistic crime drama, Leni Riefenstahl’s 1935 Nazi propaganda film, “Triumph of the Will,” and Harold French’s 1942 spy lovestory, “Secret Mission,” ironically, all use music from the same opera, “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.” One of the earliest films to use “The Ride of the Valkyries” was the 1935 film, “R.A.F.” by Gaumont-British Picture Corporation. Later, in 1936, “Tarzan” writer Edgar Rice Burroughs would try his hand at using the iconic music in his 1936 film, “The Lion Man.” After WWII, one would think Wagner’s music would become more, not less, controversial and used but instead, the opposite happened. After 1945, the use of Wagner’s music in films skyrocketed considerably.

Jean Negulesco, director of “Titanic” (1953), led the charge with his iconic 1946 film, “Humoresque,” followed by iconic films like the 1957 film starring Audrey Hepburn, “Love in the Afternoon,” the 1972 historical drama, “Ludwig: Requiem for a Virgin King,” and the 1981 Medieval fantasy, “Excalibur,” my personal favorite. During the 2000s, the trend continued but the kinds of films radically diversified. The 2005 film, “The New World,” directed by Terrence Malick could be considered one of the new directions in American cinema’s relationship with Wagner, now bringing the narrative and usage of Wagner back home and as topical as ever. In recent years, “Army of Thieves” (2021) and “Promising Young Woman” (2020) have reignited Wagnerian music’s lighter side, comedies being the new direction.

So, here we are in 2024, and the legacy of Wagner’s music is as robust as ever. Will there ever be a time when his music is NOT a favorite among directors? Probably not. In any case, let’s relax until the Valkyries come in and the ring is given back to the Rhein (PS: You’ll know it has been returned when the world comes crashing down).

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