Messiaen & "Futurama" & 'Turanga Leela'

Last week was the centenary of the birth of leading 20th century composer Olivier Messiaen.

And apparently Matt Groening and the "Futurama" crew have joined in on the celebration. In the recent "Futurama" movie "Bender's Game" it's revealed that the character Leela's family name is Turanga, meaning her full name is 'Turanga Leela'. This refers to Messiaen's most well known orchestral piece, The Turangalila Symphony. This symphony features the 'sci fi'-like sounds of the early French synthesizer, the Ondes Martenot. As the clip below reveals, early Hollywood sci fi scores like "The Day The Earth Stood Still" may very well have been inspired by the music of Messiaen, so a tribute in "Futurama" is entirely appropriate.



Clip description: "Scene from The Day the Earth Stood Still rescored with the music of Olivier Messiaen. The original score by Bernard Herrmann is great of course. But it does seem likely that Messiaen's Trois Petites Liturgies de la Presence Divine (1942) could have been an influence on Herrmann and other composers of scifi soundtracks in the 50s and 60s. In this case, I felt that the highly contemplative nature of Messiaen's music gave a greater feeling of reverent mystery and made Klaatu seem a higher being, and the light more mysterious, even in B&W. Herrmann's score has a lot of mystery and strangeness and a Javanese style of sound, but nonetheless seems a bit more earthbound in comparison."

thanks to The Beat for pointing the Futurama/Messiaen connection out.