Victory or death: Music for the last moments of the Alamo in cinema
Abstract
The defense and the battle of The Alamo in 1836 is one of the greatest events of American History. Film writers, directors and producers were interested in it since the early days, so there are several adaptations from 1911 to 2004. The most dramatic moments were the hours before the battle after thirteen days of siege of the Santa Anna’s troops, and the final assault. According to different factors, each film composer has written a personal version of the music for these scenes. In this paper we analyze the musical treatment applied to the scenes of the previous day and of final assault, highlighting the different versions of the deguello, its importance inside the score, its sources, structure and character. For to do this, we use tables of categorical content which let us to compare the six films we studied and to reach the conclusions.
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