POP! Goes My Heart: The Sound of Specific and General Love in Romantic Comedies and Dramas

Abstract

This article argues the original compositions in the romantic comedy Music and Lyrics (2007) and the romantic drama A Star is Born (2018) illustrate the differing depictions of love in the two films—one rooted in the specificity of the on-screen relationship and the other more general and rooted in the emotion of the relationship—which reflect a distinctive positioning within their respective genres. If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.1 —Orson Welles