The Cambridge Companion to Film Music

The Cambridge Companion to Film Music

Author: Mervyn Cooke

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-12-08

Total Pages: 439

ISBN-13: 1107094518

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A stimulating and unusually wide-ranging collection of essays overviewing ways in which music functions in film soundtracks.


After the Silents

After the Silents

Author: Michael Slowik

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2014-10-21

Total Pages: 403

ISBN-13: 0231535503

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Many believe Max Steiner's score for King Kong (1933) was the first important attempt at integrating background music into sound film, but a closer look at the industry's early sound era (1926–1934) reveals a more extended and fascinating story. Viewing more than two hundred films from the period, Michael Slowik launches the first comprehensive study of a long-neglected phase in Hollywood's initial development, recasting the history of film sound and its relationship to the "Golden Age" of film music (1935–1950). Slowik follows filmmakers' shifting combinations of sound and image, recapturing the volatility of this era and the variety of film music strategies that were tested, abandoned, and kept. He explores early film music experiments and accompaniment practices in opera, melodrama, musicals, radio, and silent films and discusses the impact of the advent of synchronized dialogue. He concludes with a reassessment of King Kong and its groundbreaking approach to film music, challenging the film's place and importance in the timeline of sound achievement.


Film Music in the Sound Era

Film Music in the Sound Era

Author: Jonathan Rhodes Lee

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-03-10

Total Pages: 1155

ISBN-13: 1000091287

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Film Music in the Sound Era: A Research and Information Guide offers a comprehensive bibliography of scholarship on music in sound film (1927–2017). Thematically organized sections cover historical studies, studies of musicians and filmmakers, genre studies, theory and aesthetics, and other key aspects of film music studies. Broad coverage of works from around the globe, paired with robust indexes and thorough cross-referencing, make this research guide an invaluable tool for all scholars and students investigating the intersection of music and film. This guide is published in two volumes: Volume 1: Histories, Theories, and Genres covers overviews, historical surveys, theory and criticism, studies of film genres, and case studies of individual films. Volume 2: People, Cultures, and Contexts covers individual people, social and cultural studies, studies of musical genre, pedagogy, and the industry. A complete index is included in each volume.


Hearing the Movies

Hearing the Movies

Author: James Buhler

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2015-04-01

Total Pages: 592

ISBN-13: 9780199987719

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Hearing the Movies, Second Edition, combines a historical and chronological approach to the study of film music and sound with an emphasis on building listening skills. Through engaging, accessible analyses and exercises, the book covers all aspects of the subject, including how a soundtrack is assembled to accompany the visual content, how music enhances the form and style of key film genres, and how technology has influenced the changing landscape of film music.


Film Music: A Very Short Introduction

Film Music: A Very Short Introduction

Author: Kathryn Kalinak

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2010-03-11

Total Pages: 162

ISBN-13: 0199707979

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Film music is as old as cinema itself. Years before synchronized sound became the norm, projected moving images were shown to musical accompaniment, whether performed by a lone piano player or a hundred-piece orchestra. Today film music has become its own industry, indispensable to the marketability of movies around the world. Film Music: A Very Short Introduction is a compact, lucid, and thoroughly engaging overview written by one of the leading authorities on the subject. After opening with a fascinating analysis of the music from a key sequence in Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, Kathryn Kalinak introduces readers not only to important composers and musical styles but also to modern theoretical concepts about how and why film music works. Throughout the book she embraces a global perspective, examining film music in Asia and the Middle East as well as in Europe and the United States. Key collaborations between directors and composers--Alfred Hitchcock and Bernard Herrmann, Akira Kurosawa and Fumio Hayasaka, Federico Fellini and Nino Rota, to name only a few--come under scrutiny, as do the oft-neglected practices of the silent film era. She also explores differences between original film scores and compilation soundtracks that cull music from pre-existing sources. As Kalinak points out, film music can do many things, from establishing mood and setting to clarifying plot points and creating emotions that are only dimly realized in the images. This book illuminates the many ways it accomplishes those tasks and will have its readers thinking a bit more deeply and critically the next time they sit in a darkened movie theater and music suddenly swells as the action unfolds onscreen. About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.


A History of Film Music

A History of Film Music

Author: Mervyn Cooke

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2008-09-25

Total Pages: 627

ISBN-13: 1316264866

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book provides a comprehensive and lively introduction to the major trends in film scoring from the silent era to the present day, focussing not only on dominant Hollywood practices but also offering an international perspective by including case studies of the national cinemas of the UK, France, India, Italy, Japan and the early Soviet Union. The book balances wide-ranging overviews of film genres, modes of production and critical reception with detailed non-technical descriptions of the interaction between image track and soundtrack in representative individual films. In addition to the central focus on narrative cinema, separate sections are also devoted to music in documentary and animated films, film musicals and the uses of popular and classical music in the cinema. The author analyses the varying technological and aesthetic issues that have shaped the history of film music, and concludes with an account of the modern film composer's working practices.


Silent Film Sound

Silent Film Sound

Author: Rick Altman

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 492

ISBN-13: 9780231116633

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Silent films were, of course, never silent at all. However, the sound that used to accompany the screen picture in the early days of cinema has been neglected as an area of study. Altman explores the various musical, narrative, and even synchronized sound systems that enriched cinema before Jolson spoke.


Chaplin in the Sound Era

Chaplin in the Sound Era

Author: Eric L. Flom

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-07-11

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1476607982

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Charles Chaplin's sound films have often been overlooked by historians, despite the fact that in these films the essential character of Chaplin more overtly asserted itself in his screen images than in his earlier silent work. Each of Chaplin's seven sound films--City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdoux (1947), Limelight (1952), A King in New York (1957), and A Countess from Hong Kong (1967)--is covered in a chapter-length essay here. The comedian's inspiration for the film is given, along with a narrative that describes the film and offers details on behind-the-scenes activities. There is also a full discussion of the movie's themes and contemporary critical reaction to it.


Wonderstruck

Wonderstruck

Author: Brian Selznick

Publisher: Scholastic

Published: 2015-09-03

Total Pages: 325

ISBN-13: 1407166557

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Ben's story takes place in 1977 and is told in words. Rose's story in 1927 is told entirely in pictures. Ever since his mother died, Ben feels lost. At home with her father, Rose feels alone. When Ben finds a mysterious clue hidden in his mother's room, both children risk everything to find what's missing.


The Dolby Era

The Dolby Era

Author: Gianluca Sergi

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 9780719070679

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Since the 1970s Hollywood cinema has been the site of remarkable developments in film sound. This book provides a substantial account of sound in contemporary Hollywood cinema.