Hearing Film: Tracking Identifications in Contemporary Hollywood Film Music

by Kassabian,Anahid

• ISBN13: 9780415928540
• ISBN10: 0415928540
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2000-12-05
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Music is one of the central components of a film, arguably as significant as the visual and narrative components, yet few scholars have examined the importance of music in film or constructed a film theory that includes music. Hearing Film offers the first critical examination of music in contemporary films, paying close attention to the role of newly composed scores versus compiled soundtracks and how they condition different kinds of identification processes.

Anahid Kassabian describes and analyzes the differing functions of compiled and composed scores in such films as Dangerous Liaisons, Bagdad Cafe, Dirty Dancing, Thelma and Louise, Lethal Weapon 2, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Dangerous Minds, and Mississippi Masala. Drawing on issues in film, musicology, popular music studies, media studies, cultural studies, and feminist theory, this interdisciplinary study will influence all future analyses of film music and change the way filmgoers hear and perceive music in film.

Author Biography

Anahid Kassabian is Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	vii
A Prologue Listening for Identifications	1	(14)
How Film Music Works	15	(22)
How Music Works in Film	37	(24)
A Woman Scored	61	(30)
At the Twilight's Last Scoring	91	(26)
Opening Scores	117	(24)
An Epilogue Tracking Identifications	141	(8)
Appendices	149	(8)
Works Cited	157	(10)
Videos Cited	167	(6)
Notes	173	(8)
Index	181