In his 1959 Twilight Zone score, for the episode “Walking Distance”, Bernard Herrmann underscores protagonist Martin Sloan’s return to his childhood hometown.
Mind-bending, Sloan slowly realises he has also travelled back in time, to when he was a child.
Pursuing his child self, and meeting his parents, who are a similar age to adult Sloan, the episode climaxes with an accident on a Merry-go-round.
Chasing himself, child Sloan falls, revealing a lifelong limp that adult Sloan still suffers with.
Herrmann underscores this pivotal moment with a cue that accelerates in tempo and, eventually, by diminution.
It also boasts Herrmann’s trademark use of cells and sequences, which present, at first, a falling motif that gradually transforms into a spiralling motif.
Representative of Martin Sloan’s lose of control, in a crazy situation, the music also parallels the cyclical nature of time and the Merry-go-round.
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