From Freud to funny music in films: The case of Blazing Saddles

Abstract

This article contends that music creates comedy in film in two significant ways: first, by ‘setting us up’ and confirming our understanding of purely musical, cinematic musical, and cultural musical codes in the symbolic order of film, only to play with or subvert our established responses to such codes thereafter; and second, by a reliance on age-old rhetorico-musical techniques associated with musical comedy. An analysis of selected scenes from the film Blazing Saddles, directed by Mel Brooks and released by Warner Brothers in 1974, follows, wherein such techniques of musical comedy are shown to be evident. By way of reflecting on these techniques, some thought is given to Sigmund Freud's understanding of the continuum of humour involving play, jest and jokes, within the context of his notion of the principle of economy in psychical expenditure. Accordingly, the author concludes that the political discourse of Blazing Saddles is effective precisely because it is clothed in humour.