ABSTRACT
Film music is like the medium of a dream: it's largely forgotten in the waking state, but this medium is itself not neutral. It conveys meanings that are all the more powerful in not actively being noticed. How does music represent the cultural or ethnic other in movies, and what might be the implications of such musical encoding on moviegoing? This essay examines the American western's music for Indians onscreen, and explores the kinds of cultural and political meanings constructed through these musical representations. Can we trace a history of the musical coding of Indians, and what has been its heritage in the poststudio era since the 1960s?
