John Williams und das Leitmotiv der Romantik

Is the Romantic longing for what is infinite to be found in 'E.T.'? Does it make sense to talk about the 'late Romantic style' in 'Star Wars'? Does 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' distance itself aesthetically from Richard Wagner?

This study addresses the link between the film music of John Williams and the epochal phenomena that occurred around 1800. It questions an expansive concept of Romanticism for film music and determines aesthetic expressions of the desire for transcendence as a guiding motif in Romantic art. It takes the double meaning of the word 'leitmotiv' into account, thus adopting two perspectives: the motivation of Romantic art on the one hand and the technical term for musical narrative composition on the other.