Post in the 'modern': Greek film music and the work of Nikos Mamangakis

Abstract

This article is focused on Nikos Mamangakis, one of the most ambiguous art-popular composers in Greece. His compositions for cinema are also quite provocative. Mamangakis' cooperation with Finos Film (the major Greek film production company in post-war era) and, on the contrary, his collaboration with Nikos Perakis (one of the most well-known contemporary film directors) vividly illustrate the transformation of film music from the so-called Old to the New Greek Cinema. Through an overall analysis of two of Mamangakis' most important film scores, I hope to reveal the transition process from a realistic modernist perspective to a postmodern one. A second goal is to present critically the general ideological shift in Greek socio-cultural sphere following the seventies change of polity. This paper underlines the perception of Greek music culture as a special case of Western music, which however holds its very distinct stylistic idioms, cultural practices and ideological functions.