Halfyard/The Music of Fantasy Cinema, 6. Superman as Mythic Narrative: Music, Romanticism and the ‘Oneiric Climate’

The chapter explores the origins of Superman’s mythic identity, tracing the religious concerns evident in the film back to Friedrich Schelling’s and Friedrich Schlegel’s call for a new mythology in the years around 1800. Moreover, it draws attention to the ways in which the opening of John Williams’s score appears to allude to Brucknerian symphonic models of absolute music and, in so doing, partakes of the influential ideological currents. Further, by invoking Umberto Eco’s discussion of the comic book’s temporally paradoxical ‘oneiric climate’, the chapter addresses the continuing importance of Williams’s Superman themes for the status of the film franchise as mythic narrative.