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emotional engagement with his films (Carroll, 1999: 34-46).
The importance of music in Bertolucci's films deserves a study of its own, although
this volume will limit itself to an analysis of key examples of how the director uses diegetic
and non-diegetic music to amplify or condition the emotion structure within individual films.
Consideration will also be given to the use of non-diegetic music to orient viewers between
different segments of certain narratives, as in the case of The Grim Reaper and Last Tango in
Paris. To shed light on such processes, concepts by Claudia Gorbman will be incorporated
into discussions of Bertolucci's use of music. In her study on the function of music in films,
Gorbman indicates how, on the basis of 'Wagnerian principles of motifs and leitmotifs',
music in film often 'becomes associated with a character, a place, a situation, or an emotion'
(Gorbman, 1987: 3). In general, music is used to create 'rhythm, atmosphere, cinematic
space, spectatorial distance, and point of view', by being either expressive or informative
(Gorbman, 1987: 16). In analysing Stagecoach (1939), she indicates how rhythmic music can
be used 'as a denotative tag' (Gorbman, 1987: 28) to indicate menace when it is associated
with the same narrative reference, the Indians. She states that music has a range of
connotative values, such as the seduction/sophistication of jazz, and these qualities are
instrumental in establishing a film's emotional tone, notably its mood, and this element, in
particular, reflects the way Bertolucci deploys music in his films.
Gorbman's discussion of the specific case of songs with lyrics and their impact on
cinematic narratives is especially interesting in the context of Bertolucci's films. When these
songs are diegetic, being sung within the world of the film, Gorbman suggests that these
songs 'require narrative to cede to spectacle' and that they seem to freeze the action for their
duration (Gorbman, 1987: 20). However, if they are heard non-diegetically, 'over the film's
images', they can function as a non-diegetic commentary of the images being viewed. An
example of the first effect can be found in The Last Emperor, whereas the sequences within
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