Today's Sounds for Yesterday's Films Making Music for Silent Cinema

by Donnelly, K.J.; Wallengren, Ann-Kristin

• ISBN13: 9781137466358
• ISBN10: 1137466359
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2016-01-06
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

In recent years, there has been something of an explosion in the performance of live music to silent films. There is a wide range of films with live and new scores that run from the historically accurate orchestral scores to contemporary sounds by groups such as Pet Shop Boys or by experimental composers and gothic heavy metal bands. It is no exaggeration to claim that music constitutes a bridge between the old silent film and the modern audience; music is also a channel for non-scholarly audiences to gain an appreciation of silent films. Music has become a means both for musicians and audiences to understand this bygone film art anew. This book is the first of its kind in that it aims to bring together writings and interviews to delineate the culture of providing music for silent films. It not only has the character of a scholarly work but is also something of a manual in that it discusses how to make music for silent films.

Author Biography

K.J.Donnelly is Reader in Film Studies at the University of Southampton, UK. He is author of Occult Aesthetics: Synchronization in Sound Film (2014), British Film Music and Film Musicals (2007), The Spectre of Sound (2005) and Pop Music in British Cinema (2001), and editor of Film Music: Critical Approaches (2001), co-editor of Music in Video Games: Studying Play (2013) and Music in Science Fiction Television (2012).
 
Ann-Kristin Wallengren is Professor in Film Studies, Lund University, Sweden. Her research embraces questions about film and national and cultural identity, representation, ideology and transnationality, as well as on different aspects of film music. She has recently published Welcome Home Mr Swanson: Swedish Emigrants and Swedishness in Film and, together with K.J.Donnelly, a special issue of Music and the Moving Image about the psychology of film music.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
Notes on Contributors
1. Music and the Resurfacing of Silent Film: A General Introduction; Ann-Kristin Wallengren and K.J.Donnelly
2. How Far Can Too Far Go?: Radical Approaches to Silent Film Music; K.J.Donnelly
PART I: ARCHIVES AND HISTORICAL PRACTICES
3. Between Practice and Theory: Silent Film Sound and the Music Archive; Carolin Beinroth
4. Gottfried Huppertz's Metropolis: The Acme of 'Cinema Music'; Emilio Audissino
5. The Music of The Circus; Gillian B.Anderson
6. Cowboys, Beggars and the Deep Ellum Blues: Playing Authentic to Silent Films; Michael Hammond
PART II: NOVEL MUSIC AND NEW ISSUES
7. Bringing a Little Munich Disco to Babelsberg: Giorgio Moroder's Score for Metropolis; Jeff Smith
8. Soviet Fidelity and the Pet Shop Boys; Beth Carroll
9. Multiple Soundtrack Versions on DVD: Scoring Modern City Life and Pastoral Countryside; Christopher Natzén
PART III: CURRENT PRACTICES AND NEW TRADITIONS
10. Edit's Hand. Music to The Phantom Carriage; Matti Bye
11. Scoring Ruttman's Berlin: Musical Meaning in Historical and Critical Contexts; Matt Malsky
12. Silent Film, Live Music and Contemporary Composition; Ed Hughes
13. To be in Dialogue with the Film: With Neil Brand and Lillian Henley at the Masterclasses at Pordenone Silent Film Festival; Ann-Kristin Wallengren