Includes bibliographical references (pages 356-394) and index.
Contents:
Part 1: "A film's first audience" : the composer's role in film and television / Evolving practices for film music and sound, 1925-1935 / George Fenton in conversation with Mervyn Cooke -- "Pictures that talk and sing" : sound history and technology / David Cooper ; The composer and the studio : Korngold and Warner Bros. / Ben Winters ; Can't buy me love? : economic imperatives and artistic achievements in the British pop-music film / Stephen Glynn ; "A film's first audience" : the composer's role in film and television / George Fenton in conversation with Mervyn Cooke -- Part 2: Materializing film music / Film-music theory / Miguel Mera -- Studying film scores : working in archives and with living composers / Kate Daubney ; Returning to Casablanca / Peter Franklin ; Parental guidance advised? : mash-ups and mating penguins in Happy feet / Fiona Ford ; Materializing film music / Miguel Mera -- Part 3: "Britannia-the musical" : scores, songs and soundtracks in British animation / Film noir and music / Paul Wells -- Another other history of jazz in the movies / Krin Gabbard ; Horror and science fiction / Stan Link ; The Western / Robynn J. Stilwell ; The music of screen musicals / Caryl Flinn ; "Britannia-the musical" : scores, songs and soundtracks in British animation / Paul Wells -- Part 4: Welcome to Kollywood : Tamil film music and popular culture in South India / Leone, Morricone and the Italian way to Revisionist Westerns / Mekala Padmanabhan. Music, noise and silence in the late cinema of Jean-Luc Godard / Danae Stefanou ; Hans Werner Henze and The lost honour of Katharina Blum / Annette Davison ; Tò„ru Takemitsu's collaborations with Masahiro Shinoda : the music for Pale flower, Samurai spy and Ballad of Orin / Timothy Koozin ; Welcome to Kollywood : Tamil film music and popular culture in South India / Mekala Padmanabhan.
Summary:
His wide-ranging and thought-provoking collection of specially-commissioned essays provides a uniquely comprehensive overview of the many and various ways in which music functions in film soundtracks. Citing examples from a variety of historical periods, genres and film industries - including those of the USA, UK, France, Italy, India and Japan - the book's contributors are all leading scholars and practitioners in the field. They engage, sometimes provocatively, with numerous stimulating aspects of the history, theory and practice of film music in a series of lively discussions which will appeal as much to newcomers to this fascinating subject as to seasoned film music aficionados. Innovative research and fresh interpretative perspectives are offered alongside practice-based accounts of the film composer's distinctive art, with examples cited from genres as contrasting as animation, the screen musical, film noir, Hollywood melodrama, the pop music and jazz film, documentary, period drama, horror, science fiction and the Western.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.