Scoring Tradition, Making Nation: Zubir Said’s Traditionalised Film Music for Dang Anom

Abstract

The Malay-language films produced by the Cathay-Keris Studio in 1950s to 1960s Singapore were known for their 'traditional' narratives based on Malay folklore and legends set in the pre-colonial Malay world. Made during a period of nation-making in the region, these films used musical accompaniment that had to be culturally-rooted in the music of the Malay Peninsula while expressing the region's aspirations for postcolonial independence. Interestingly, this task was undertaken prominently by the film composer, Zubir Said, who was not a citizen of Malay-majority Malaysia. Instead, he was commemorated as a national icon of Singapore, in which Malays form a minority. This paper aims to unravel the paradoxical process of 'traditionalising' national culture in a period of cosmopolitan postcoloniality in the Malay world. Through an intertextual study of his biography and film score analysed against the history of Malay nationalism, this article unravels the 'traditionalised' Malay musical aesthetic established through the musical compositions of Zubir Said in historically-themed Malay films. The article analyses the use of musical motifs and styles in Zubir Said's music for Hussein Hanniff's Dang Anom (1962). The juxtaposition of an aesthetically-traditional film score against the film's anti-feudal narrative results in a critique of archaic notions of tradition that articulates a subversive message of ethical modernity, freedom and self-determination. In conclusion, this intertextual analysis of film, music and history reveals how the melodic construction or scoring of musical tradition on the silver-screen was concomitant with the postcolonial aspirations and contradictions of nation-making in the Malay world.

Intertextual Observations of Jimmy Boyle’s Handwritten Manuscripts

“…Johan's account on Zubir Said's film scoring in the 1960s (Johan, 2017) confirmed that the situation in the nascent independence period was one where musicians had to work out their musical solutions in response to ongoing social changes. Johan contrasted the "traditionalised" Malay musical solution worked out by Zubir Said with the anti-feudal narrative of film and explicated the intriguing and at times contradictory facets in music-making of that time.…”

Ave Satani Motifs Relation to Narrative Thematic Development of the Omen: An Analysis of Oscar-Winning Horror Film Music

“…McGuire (2018) (2018) addressed the theme song of Wong Fei-Hung's legendary Kungfu films as conveying the informal transnational national anthem of the Cantonese people. On the other side, Johan (2017) conducted an intertextual study between biographies and film scores to uncover the history of Malay nationalism. The study applied musicological analysis, particularly the breakdown of musical motifs and stylistic Ave Satani Motifs Relation to Narrative Thematic Development of the Omen: An Analysis of Oscar-Winning Horror Film Music identification in Zubir Said's compositions for Hussein Hanniff's Dang Anom film.…”

“…Even though there were musicological analyses of several film music, they did not textually reveal the quality of its music. Most of the studies were only part of the intertextual study of the elements within a film (Johan, 2017). Hilewicz's (2021) musicological studies did not examine music from film illustrations but a piece of music prepared for the film.…”