Lowering the Boom : Critical Studies in Film Sound

by Beck, Jay

• ISBN13: 9780252033230
• ISBN10: 025203323X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-09-26
• Publisher: Univ of Illinois Pr

Summary

As the first collection of new work on sound and cinema in over a decade, Lowering the Boom addresses the expanding field of film sound theory and its significance in rethinking historical models of film analysis. The contributors consider the ways in which musical expression, scoring, voice-over narration, and ambient noise affect identity formation and subjectivity.Lowering the Boomalso analyzes how shifting modulation of the spoken word in cinema results in variations in audience interpretation. Introducing new methods of thinking about the interaction of sound and music in films, this volume also details avant-garde film sound, which is characterized by a distinct break from the narratively based sound practices of mainstream cinema. This interdisciplinary, global approach to the theory and history of film sound opens the eyes and ears of film scholars, practitioners, and students to film's true audio-visual nature.Contributors are Jay Beck, John Belton, Clark Farmer, Paul Grainge, Tony Grajeda, David T. Johnson, Anahid Kassabian, David Laderman, James Lastra, Arnt Maasø, Matthew Malsky, Barry Jason Mauer, Robert Miklitsch, Nancy Newman, Melissa Ragona, Petr Szczepanik, Paul Théberge, and Debra White-Stanley.

Author Biography

Jay Beck is an assistant professor of media and cinema studies in the College of Communication at DePaul University. Tony Grajeda is associate professor of cultural studies in the English Department at the University of Central Florida.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction: The Future of Film Sound Studies	p. 1
Theorizing Sound
The Phenomenology of Film Sound: Robert Bresson's A Man Escaped	p. 23
The Proxemics of the Mediated Voice	p. 36
Almost Silent: The Interplay of Sound and Silence in Contemporary Cinema and Television	p. 51
The Sounds of "Silence": Dolby Stereo, Sound Design, and The Silence of the Lambs	p. 68
Historicizing Sound
Sonic Imagination; or, Film Sound as a Discursive Construct in Czech Culture of the Transitional Period	p. 87
Sounds of the City: Alfred Newman's "Street Scene" and Urban Modernity	p. 105
Film and the Wagnerian Aspiration: Thoughts on Sound Design and the History of the Senses	p. 123
Sound and Genre
Asynchronous Documentary: Bunuel's Land without Bread	p. 141
"We'll Make a Paderewski of You Yet!": Acoustic Reflections in The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T	p. 152
Paul Sharits's Cinematics of Sound	p. 171
"Every Beautiful Sound Also Creates an Equally Beautiful Picture": Color Music and Walt Disney's Fantasia	p. 183
Film Sound and Cultural Studies
"A Question of the Ear": Listening to Touch of Evil	p. 201
"Sound Sacrifices": The Postmodern Melodramas of World War II	p. 218
Real Fantasies: Connie Stevens, Silencio, and Other Sonic Phenomena in Mulholland Drive	p. 233
Case Studies of Film Sound
Selling Spectacular Sound: Dolby and the Unheard History of Technical Trademarks	p. 251
(S)lip-Sync: Punk Rock Narrative Film and Postmodern Musical Performance	p. 269
Critical Hearing and the Lessons of Abbas Kiarostami's Close-Up	p. 289
Rethinking Point of Audition in The Cell	p. 299
Works Cited	p. 307
Contributors	p. 327
Index	p. 331
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