10 May 2018
The Film Score Stands Alone; Wonderland in Elfman’s “Alice’s Theme”
A musical score often bookends a film, both inviting the audience’s attention as the opening credits fade and waving goodbye as the end credits roll. This is the case in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010): at the start of the film, pieces of a theme by Danny Elfman take form over the opening Disney logo and the theme develops fully as the first image — the moon among drifting clouds — fades into view. The music grows stronger as the film’s title looms across the sky and we see the clock face of Big Ben come into focus.