Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Music for silent film'

Film d'Art, the French production company responsible for the development of Henri Lavédan's L'Assassinat du Duc de Guise (1908), demonstrated a forward-thinking vision for film and music. Through their innovations, the company combined many elements of cinematography with new standards for quality productions. This project report will investigate the goals of Film d'Art and its unusually high ambitions, standard music practices in the silent film era, the issues revolving around the instrumentation to Saint-Saëns' score to Henri Lavédan's L'Assassinat de Duc de Guise (1908), and the performance of my arrangement in a graduate recital.

The Basilica Notre-Dame Choir accompanying screenings of The Hunchback of Notre Dame at the Regent in 1924, imaginative community prologues before Mary Pickford’s Pollyanna at the Russell in 1920, and costumed opera soloists singing alongside the showing of The Bohemian Girl at the Imperial in 1926: the history of Ottawa’s silent cinemas is an exciting mix of film, theatre, technology, music, and community. Unfortunately, Ottawa’s musical history in the early 1900s has been, by and large, forgotten, and local cinema histories are relatively sparse. In much the same manner that Ottawa theatres incorporated both North American and local elements into their programming, this thesis demonstrates that an examination of the musicians of local cinemas can not only provide information to understand the development of silent film music practices in general, but also unveil a network of musicians and a series of important histories. This thesis reconstructs parts of Ottawa’s silent film music history using a number of methodologies (digital research, archival research, and social network mapping) and primary sources (IATSE union documents, Department of Labour strike documents, newspapers, and trade journals). It also analyses several screenings where music and film were uniquely combined and introduces key figures in Ottawa’s silent film music scene (including violinist Rudolph Pelisek and organist Amédée Tremblay), showing how their training provided prestige to cinemas and how their involvement in military, religious, and communal activities added to cinemas’ appeal. ----- Le Chœur de la Basilique Notre-Dame accompagnant les présentations du film The Hunchback of Notre Dame au Regent en 1924, les prologues communautaires inventifs avant le Pollyanna de Mary Pickford au Russell en 1920, et les soloistes d’opéra chantant à côté de la projection de The Bohemian Girl à l’Imperial en 1926: l’histoire des cinémas muets d’Ottawa est un mélange excitant de film, théâtre, technologie, musique et communauté. Malheureusement, le passé musical d’Ottawa au début du vingtième siècle a été largement oublié, et les histoires locales du cinéma sont relativement rares. De la même façon que les théâtres d’Ottawa incluaient à la fois des éléments locaux et nord-américains dans leur programmation, cette thèse démontre qu’un examen des musiciens des cinémas locaux peut non seulement procurer des renseignements pour comprendre le développement de la musique du cinéma muet en général, mais encore lever le voile sur un réseau de musiciens et une série de récits d’importance. Cette thèse reconstruit des aspects de l’histoire de la musique du du cinéma muet à Ottawa en utilisant un plusieurs méthodologies (la recherche numérique, la recherche en archives, et la cartographie des réseaux sociaux) et de sources primaires (documents du syndicat ouvrier IATSE, documents de grève du ministère fédéral du Travail, quotidiens, et revues spécialisées). La thèse analyse aussi quelques instances uniques de combinaison de musique et de film, et présente des personnages clé de la scène musicale du cinéma muet d’Ottawa (incluant le violoniste Rudolph Pelisek et l’organiste Amédée Tremblay), tout en montrant comment leur formation procurait du prestige aux cinémas, et comment leur implication dans des activités militaires, religieuses, et communautaires ont ajouté à la popularité des cinémas.

This thesis argues that how-to manuals and cue sheets are indicative of ideal performance practice amongst musicians from the silent film era. Pre-scored music was widely practiced amongst musicians. How-to manuals and cue sheets helped the musician accurately and consistently accompany a film. Authors of period manuals include W. Tyacke George, Edith Lang and George West, Ernst Luz and George Tootell. Compilers of cue sheet include James C. Bradford, Ernst Luz, Edward Kilenyi and Michael P. Krueger. Cue by cue analyses of The Cat and the Canary and The Gaucho show a high repetition of music, establishing continuity between the music played and the image on the screen. This shows how compilers associated music and film. These manuals and cue sheets prove that the musician community strove for a close connection between the image on screen and accompaniment. By 1920, arbitrary improvisation was unacceptable.

The thesis examines ’intermediality’ in Svenska Bios (Swedish Biograph) first fiction films. Värmlänningarne (1910), Fänrik Ståls Sägner (1910), Bröllopet på Ulfåsa (1910), Regina von Emmeritz och Konung Gustaf II Adolf (1910), Amuletten (1910), Emigranten (1910) and Järnbäraren (1911) are analysed in relation to theatre, literature, music and ‘reality’. A detailed discussion of intermediality is combined with specific theories relating to pictorialism and literary presentation in film. The thesis conclude, that early fiction films in general, and Svenska Bios films in particular, depended on their association with other media. The thesis also includes a short discussion concerning silent cinema music.

Ce travail étudie le rapport entre le langage narratif cinématographique et le discours musical contemporain. Le point de départ en a été l’étude des nouvelles créations contemporaines écrites pour accompagner certains films de l’époque du cinéma muet. Pour atteindre ces objectifs, nous sommes partis d’une vision théorique, pour arriver à l’analyse plus concrète qui nous a donné les consignes de base pour créer notre propre modèle d’analyse applicable à la composition. Ce modèle permet de préciser les concepts nous permettant d´aborder la relation entre le film et la musique selon deux axes, que nous appelons respectivement « points d’ancrage » (qui traitent des points d’articulation du discours cinématographique avec la musique) et « points de référence » (qui gèrent les éléments formels du discours cinématographique et musical). Dans la dernière partie de ce travail, nous appliquons notre modèle à la réalisation de quatre projets personnels, qui représentent une « conclusion artistique » des éléments analysés au cours de cette recherche
This work studies the relationship between the film’s narrative language and the contemporary music speech. The starting point of this work is the study of the new contemporary scores, which were composed for silent films from the 1920’s onwards. To reach these goals, we started from a theoretical vision, to subsequently perform a practical analysis. This gave us the important points to create our analysis model to be used for music composition. This model allows us to clarify the relationship between the film and the music, based on two main axes: the “anchoring points” (giving us the articulation points between the music and the film) and the “reference points” (which deals with the formal elements of both film and music speech). In the last part of our work, we have applied our model to the composition of four personal projects, which were created as an artistic conclusion of our research

The fact that silent cinema is not to be considered just as a precursor to sound cinema, in an evolutionary sense, is today well acknowledged. The studies of scholars such as Tom Gunning, André Gaudreault, Richard Abel, Noël Burch and Charles Musser have moreover invited to consider what the “silent era” harbored not just as another cinema than the “sound” one, but as a number of “other” ways to conceive cinema, each one of them needing an accurately different approach, whatever is the chosen perspective (historiographical, aesthetic, sociologic, etc.) to look at them from. However, it is strange how one of these perspectives seems to be reluctant in accepting this awareness towards the silent production. It is the musical perspective: even if studies that deal with silent film music according to the specific features of the different languages of the silents have been developed indeed (most notably, the ones by Rick Altman), they nonetheless remain a minority. The panorama of discourses about film music, as of 2010, can still include authoritative contributions saying that «almost nothing has changed from the beginnings to present days» in the general way in which music interacts with moving images. Signs of this attitude are to be found even in the field of film preservation. Film archives devoted to silents, in fact, do not often accompany their film collections with pertinent music collections. There are, of course, meaningful exceptions, like the silent music collections at the Library of Congress or at the MoMA, or the Eyl/Van Houten Collection at the Nederlands Filmmuseum. But they are, precisely, exceptions. This situation apparently clashes with the need for «painstaking historical research» that Rick Altman recommends to be at the core of contemporary studies on silent films. A research done within an archive of silent film, in fact, is likely to be incomplete on the side of music and sound practices. Musicians of the silent era interacted with films by staying at the side of the screen, in the shadows next to the light of the projector: it is quite ironic how the discourse on their music, now, is again confined in a “shadow” – a metaphoric one, though - which borders with the “light” of the modern studies on silent cinema, but cannot proficiently interact with it. «It is time», as Altman said, «to include sound in silent cinema’s historiographical revival». A complete silent film music archive should be at the interface between a music library and a performing arts collection. Written scores, during the silent era, were a minority: the greatest part of the musical practice was instead based on cue sheets, compilations, repertoires, or even improvisations –which cannot of course have left any trace outside occasional accounts from audience members or the performers themselves. Moreover, practices of non-musical sonorization where often complementary to and concurrent with music performances: so, there is an evident need to keep record of them too. In addition to that, it must be remembered that, especially since the 1980 Thames Television presentation of Abel Gance’s Napoléon, reconstructed by Kevin Brownlow with new music by Carl Davis, the repertoire of the music for the silents started to grow again. In the last 30 years, the venues where silent film are screened in a way respectful of historical practices multiplied, as well as the production of appropriate music accompaniments founded on complete scores, but also, again, on cue sheets and improvisations, just like during the actual silent age. It seems reasonable for this “new” tradition of music for silents to be preserved alongside the historical documents which are its origin and source of inspiration. My Ph. D. thesis uses these considerations as a premise to reconstruct and study a special and circumscribed collection of silent film music: the repertoire played at the international silent film festival Le Giornate del Cinema Muto from 1982 to present days. The accuracy shown by this festival in the presentation and divulgation of silent film music practices provides in fact a solid ground for a project of this kind. In addition to that, Le Giornate have already expressed, in 2009, the intention of having such an archive developed in Pordenone, after a suggestion I advanced during the XI Collegium organized by the festival. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first one includes an introductory chapter, where problems about the archival preservation of musical sources pertinent to silent film music are discussed; then, a first chapter deals with an outline of the history of music for silent films, choosing a non-linear approach based on the insurgence of musical practices more than on a chronological succession; finally, the first part is concluded by a chapter describing the aesthetic of music for silent films, comprehensive of a review of the pertinent literature and a description of the audiovisual strategies used by the composers. The second part is the repertoire of the music that has been performed live at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto on the basis of written scores. 115 films are listed following the 29 editions of the Festival, with full filmographic information. Each film is accompanied by a short analysis of the main audiovisual strategies. The sources of this research are mainly the audiovisual recordings of the screenings at le Giornate del Cinema Muto preserved at La Cineteca del Friuli, Gemona. Other details have been collected through conversations (in person or via email) with some of the authors of the music: Gillian B. Anderson, Neil Brand, Günter A. Buchwald, Philip Carli, Antonio Coppola, Berndt Heller, Stephen Horne, Maud Nelissen, Donald Sosin and Gabriel Thibaudeau.
Il fatto che il cinema muto non possa essere considerato un mero precursore del cinema sonoro, secondo una logica «biologica e teleologica», è oggi ampiamente riconosciuto. Le riflessioni di studiosi quali Tom Gunning, André Gaudreault, Richard Abel, Noël Burch e Charles Musser hanno inoltre invitato a considerare il muto non solo come un altro cinema rispetto al sonoro, ma come un sistema di pratiche cinematografiche concorrenti ed essenzialmente diverse da quella del sonoro, decisamente mal raccolte sotto l’etichetta generica “cinema muto”. Ciascuna di queste maniere cinematografiche, numerose e dall’identificazione e denominazione controversa– cinematografia-attrazione, cinema dei primi tempi, cinema primitivo, ecc. – necessita di distinti strumenti d’analisi, quale che sia il punto di vista (storiografico, estetico, sociologico, ecc.) scelto per studiarla. È tuttavia strano come uno di questi possibili punti di vista si stia ancor oggi dimostrando piuttosto riluttante nell’accettare tale genere di consapevolezza nei confronti del muto. Si tratta del punto di vista musicale. È vero che non sono mancati gli studi teorici capaci di trattare la musica per il cinema muto tenendo conto della molteplicità e delle differenti necessità dei linguaggi visivi di quell’epoca: Rick Altman ha in particolare offerto alcune delle riflessioni più interessanti in tal senso. Ma tali riflessioni sono rimaste una minoranza. Il panorama dei discorsi sulla musica per film nel 2010 è ancora in grado di accogliere contributi importanti che tuttavia non differenziano le strategie audiovisive del sonoro da quelle del muto, sostenendo che nella maniera generale in cui la musica interagisce con l’immagine in movimento «poco o nulla è cambiato dalle origini ad oggi». Segni di questa tendenza si riscontrano persino nell’ambito della preservazione dei film. Gli archivi cinematografici attivi nella conservazione del muto, infatti, raramente accompagnano le loro collezioni con archivi paralleli destinati alla documentazione relativa alla musica. Esiste, bisogna riconoscere, la consapevolezza dell’importanza che i documenti musicali possono avere nelle operazioni di restauro e preservazione dei film. Esistono inoltre casi particolari di raccolte di musica per il muto gestite in sinergia con archivi di film, come le collezioni di musica per il muto conservate alla Library of Congress di Washington, DC, o al Museum of Modern Arts (MoMA) di New York, oppure la Eyl/Van Houten Collection presso il Nederlands Filmmuseum. Ma si tratta di eccezioni: e fino alla fine degli anni ’80 in effetti non esistevano significative raccolte di musica per il cinema muto al di fuori di quella del MoMA. Questo stato delle cose sembra in apparente contrasto con la necessità di una «ricerca storica coscienziosa» che Altman raccomanda parlando dell’approccio contemporaneo al muto. Infatti, allo stato attuale delle cose, una ricerca sul muto svolta in un singolo archivio rischia plausibilmente di essere molto carente sul versante delle pratiche sonore e musicali. Durante l’epoca del muto, i musicisti interagivano con i film restando accanto allo schermo, nell’ombra vicina alla luce del proiettore. È piuttosto ironico come oggi i discorsi sviluppati attorno alla loro musica siano nuovamente costretti in un’“ombra” – metaforica, stavolta – che sta ai confini della “luce” costituita dai moderni studi sul cinema muto, senza però poter ben interagire con essa. «È tempo», come ha scritto Altman, «di includere il suono nella rinascita storiografica del cinema muto». Un archivio della musica per il cinema muto dovrebbe porsi all’intersezione tra una biblioteca musicale ed una collezione di materiali legati alle arti performative. Le partiture scritte, durante l’epoca del muto, erano infatti una minoranza: la maggior parte della pratica musicale si fondava su cue sheet, compilazioni, repertori o improvvisazioni – che non possono aver lasciato alcuna traccia al di fuori di occasionali resoconti di membri del pubblico o degli stessi musicisti. In più, pratiche di sonorizzazione non musicali erano spesso concomitanti e complementari alle esecuzioni: esiste dunque una chiara urgenza di preservare anche qualsiasi tipo di documentazione parli di esse. In aggiunta a ciò, occorre ricordare che, almeno dalla presentazione del 1980 del Napoleon di Abel Gance prodotta da Thames Television, che ha mostrato il film ricostruito da Kevin Brownlow con una nuova musica di Carl Davis, il repertorio della musica per il muto ha cominciato a crescere di nuovo. Negli ultimi trent’anni, i luoghi dove i film muti vengono proiettati in maniera rispettosa di pratiche musicali storiche si sono moltiplicati, assieme alla produzione di partiture, cue sheet e improvvisazioni. Sembra ragionevole offrire a questa “nuova” tradizione di musica per il muto un posto accanto ai documenti che ne sono origine ed ispirazione. La mia tesi di dottorato utilizza queste considerazioni come premessa per ricostruire e studiare una collezione particolare e circoscritta di musica per il cinema muto: il repertorio di partiture eseguite al Festival internazionale Le Giornate del Cinema Muto, dal 1982 al 2010. L’accuratezza filologica dimostrata da tale Festival nella presentazione e nella divulgazione delle pratiche musicali del muto offre infatti una solida base per studi di questo genere. Inoltre, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto hanno già espresso, nel 2009, l’intenzione di fondare concretamente un archivio come quello sopra descritto, in seguito ad un suggerimento da me avanzato nel corso del XI Collegium di studi organizzato dalla manifestazione. La tesi è divisa in due parti. La prima include un capitolo introduttivo, dove vengono discussi problemi riguardanti la conservazione archivistica delle fonti musicali pertinenti alla musica per il muto; dopodiché, un primo capitolo tratta della storia della musica per il muto, scegliendo un approccio non lineare guidato dallo sviluppo delle pratiche musicali, e non da una consequenzialità cronologica; infine, la prima parte si conclude con un capitolo descrivente l’estetica della musica per il muto, nel quale si offre una rassegna della letteratura sull’argomento ed una descrizione delle strategie audiovisive utilizzate dai compositori. La seconda parte presenta il repertorio della musica che è stata eseguita a Le Giornate del Cinema Muto sulla base di partiture scritte. Si tratta di un elenco di 115 film, coprente la 29 edizioni del Festival e completo di informazioni filmografiche. Ogni scheda di film è accompagnata da una breve analisi delle principali strategie audiovisive. Le fonti di questa ricerca sono principalmente le registrazioni audiovisive delle proiezioni a Le Giornate del Cinema Muto conservate presso La Cineteca del Friuli, Gemona. Altri dettagli si sono ottenuti tramite conversazioni (di persona o tramite email) con alcuni degli autori delle musiche: Gillian B. Anderson, Neil Brand, Günter A. Buchwald, Philip Carli, Antonio Coppola, Berndt Heller, Stephen Horne, Maud Nelissen, Donald Sosin e Gabriel Thibaudeau.

The History of Horn Playing in Los Angeles from 1920 to 1970 begins with the horn players who played in the silent film orchestras and the Alfred Brain's tenure with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. This study details the introduction of soundtracks, the early studio orchestras, the contract studio orchestras, the musician union's role in structuring the work environment, the horn players who played in both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the studios, major figures from the subsequent freelance period such as Vincent de Rosa, and the local and international influence of the Los Angeles Horn Club.

This thesis explores holistic approaches to the performing body. Beginning with the inner world of sensation, I discuss Anna Halprin’s use of emotional geography and associative scoring in her community rituals. In Lawrence “Butch” Morris’ Conductions, I consider the body as score. And in an analysis of Sophia Gubaidulina’s symphony Stimmen… Verstummen…, I describe the use of gesture as it is functions to frame the body as a symbol of transformation. I then describe the affect of these representative methods of composing for the performing body as they manifest in own work, using specific examples from (de)attachment for saxophone quartet.

The influence of new media on theatrical practice over the past fifty years has spurred a movement towards theatrical forms which are increasingly organized around the sensory elements of performance. This change is most noticeable in the visual approaches to theatre, and it has produced what I have labeled a theatre of visuality. This thesis argues that the tendencies for visualization found in visual media have extensively marked the performance strategies of contemporary theatre practice, resulting in a shift away from the logocentric dramatic text and towards theatre performance organized around the visual. Looking at four contemporary productions of Georg Buchner’s Woyzeck –Thomas Ostermeier’s Woyzeck (2005), Vesturport’s Woyzeck (2005), Robert Wilson’s Woyzeck (2000), and Josef Nadj’s Woyzeck ou l’Ébauche du Vertige (1994)– this thesis produces a preliminary typology of four distinct visualities/theatrical forms which make up the theatre of visuality: hyperrealism, synesthesia, superficiality, and visual narration. This thesis contributes to the conceptualization and understanding of postdramatic theatre by linking the theatre’s rejection of the text to the increased centrality of the visual in performance, and by tracing these shifts to the influence of visual media.

The thesis revisits film and film-culture history in Sweden, Denmark and Norway with a view to discourses and practices of the inter- and trans-Scandinavian in the silent era. Excluding the earliest films, but including the transition to synchronised sound, it covers the period of the 1900s to 1930 with emphasis on the 1910s and 1920s. The thesis identifies notions about the relations between the Scandinavian and the national by means of a number of case studies based on textual historical sources. As a consistent Scandinavian perspective on this period is new, the investigation substantially supplements and revises the individual national film histories of these countries. It adds missing context to national developments and makes visible border phenomena such as transnational collaborations and co-producing practices. The thesis finds that film production in Scandinavia in the silent era was orientated towards one of two poles, at times combined or in a state of negotiation: international economic ambitions or national cultural aspirations. The latter was frequently conceptualised as northern, Nordic and Scandinavian. ‘Scandinaviannesses’ performed when drawing on nature, folklore, literature and heritage, not least that of Norway, were employed for use in and out of Scandinavia by means of strategies of ‘double-entry book-keeping’.  During the period, the notion of location underwent changes from an illusory, theatrical device to an inherently meaningful entity carrying identities infused with the Scandinavian. Examining the effects of shared comprehension of language and a shared recent history of Scandinavist ideas, the thesis identifies instrumental notions of kindredness and senses of cultural proprietorship extending to the output of the neighbouring countries. These notions were mobilised selectively within film culture and motivated practical transnational collaboration from the side of the authorities as well as in trade organisations.

The proliferation of the doppelgänger theme in so many films of Wilhemine and Weimar Germany raises the question of its historical significance, in particular during Germany’s “crisis of classical modernity”. While previous studies have addressed the double from a narrative perspective, focusing on its psychological significations as divided self, this thesis instead considers the theme from a structural and historical perspective: how, as a technical reproduction of the human body that is ontologically double, at once real and unreal, it serves as a site for reflection on the visual experience of modernity and on the medium of cinema. The thesis begins by considering the relationship between the theme of the double, born circa 1800, and the burgeoning visual regimes of modernity. Important aspects of this relationship are the abstraction of representation from stable referents in the aftermath of Kantian thought, the empirical study of the observing subject, and the development of new technologies of recording and projection. Nineteenth-century technologies of optical illusion, such as the phantasmagoria and lifelike automata, as well as the itinerant showmen who displayed them, gave rise to doubles of the human body with uncanny effects of ontological uncertainty. These not only influenced the doppelgänger stories of German Romanticism and after, but also were ancestors of cinema’s doubles and their showmen. This study considers the “cinematic” themes of a set of stories and films of the double, including repeatedly performed scenarios of exhibition and voyeurism, visual pleasure and anxiety, foregroundings of the narration, and allusions to the history of cinema and media technologies. The central chapters of the thesis offer readings of five classics of German film: The Student of Prague (1913), The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (1920), The Golem: How He Came into the World (1920), Waxworks (1924), and Metropolis (1926). Addressing the double as a reflexive theme of optical uncertainty, these readings focus on how moments of optical distress are depicted and how film language is used to construct a cinematic uncanny: an ontological problem arising from the ambivalent character of visual experience that affects the narrative and film form, characters and spectator alike. This perspective sheds light on the historical significance of the double theme, revealing its close relationship with the problematic status of vision and the observing subject in modernity, and with a special case of modern visual experience, the technological medium of cinema.

This thesis explores the role that film genre plays in the construction of, predominantly, Hollywood movie scores. It begins with the simple assumption that each genre has its own set of musical conventions, its signature "paradigm", with the result that Westerns sound different from Horror films, which sound different from Romantic Melodramas and so on. It demonstrates that while this is broadly speaking so, the true picture is more complex, the essentially hybrid nature of most Hollywood films on a narrative level resulting in scores that are similarly hybrid in nature. To begin with, the various functions of film music are described, and that of generic location is isolated as being of key importance. The concept of film genre is then discussed, with particular reference to the notion of hybridity. The substance and sources of the musical paradigms of the Western, Horror film and Romantic Melodrama are described in depth; specific aspects of the War Film, Gangster, Thriller and Action paradigms are addressed more briefly. The thesis concludes with a cue by cue analysis of John Barry's score for Dances with Wolves (1990), demonstrating that while the dominant paradigm the music draws on is indeed that of the Western, the score also incorporates elements from a variety of other generic paradigms, shifts in musical emphasis that are dictated by the changing requirements of the narrative. Film music is shown to be profoundly influenced by film genre, but that the use of generically specific music is as complex and nuanced as cinema's negotiation of genre at narrative level. While genres do indeed have signature musical paradigms, these do not exist discretely, but in constant tension with and relation to one another.

Esta tesis estudia el sonido del cine estructural analizando sus fundamentaciones teóricas, sus tratamientos prácticos y sus apreciaciones estéticas. Se parte de una serie de películas estructurales internacionales englobadas bajo cuatro conceptos acústicos para discutir las dinámicas de sus sonidos. La investigación se centra en la noción de ruido, la utilización de la voz, las técnicas de repetición y el concepto de paisaje sonoro, para examinar doce filmes que desnaturalizan el sonido enfatizando su materialidad. El estudio confirma la experimentación acústica del cine estructural como uno de los recursos esenciales para interrogar las limitaciones tecnológicas del medio.
This thesis studies the structural film sound analyzing their theoretical foundations, its practical treatments and aesthetic appreciation. A series of international structural films included under four acoustic concepts are located in order to discuss the dynamics of their sounds. The research focuses on the notion of noise, the use of the voice, the techniques of repetition and the concept of soundscape, to examine twelve films which distort the sound emphasizing its materiality. The study confirms the acoustic experiments os structural film as an essential resource to question the technological limitations of the medium.

La sempiternelle recherche de compréhension par le visuel, des émotions générées par la musique, ouvre un horizon de paradoxes au cinéma qui mérite que l'on s'y attarde. L'esthétique du réalisateur-compositeur Tom Tykwer qui réalise ses films comme Wagner compose ses opéras en écrivant partition et livret, et dont l'inflexibilité sur sa double fonction est probablement unique au cinéma, nous sert de modèle pour consolider notre révision de quelques pensées communément admises sur la relation entre musique et images. Nous y revisitons la définition de la musique en tant que matière sonore du film, la question de sa concordance avec l'image, de son indépendance alors qu'elle intègre un tout unifié, ainsi que de son rapport aux sens et à leur transcendance. Les images comme substrat matériel et la musique comme élément de conscience chez ce réalisateur-compositeur, conservent leur autonomie de sens alors même que la partition est intimement liée à la structure du film. Elles s'inscrivent dans un rapport de complémentarité qui remet en cause tout un paradigme basé sur l'idée d'analogie ou de convergence, en somme, de dualité entre images et musique au cinéma
The perennial search of comprehension by the visual, of emotions generated by music, opens an horizon of paradoxes in cinema that merits further consideration. Filmmaker-composer Tom Tykwer's aesthetics that allows him to direct movies as Wagner composes his operas by writing scores and libretto, and whose inflexibility of his double function is probably unique in cinema, serve us as model to strengthen our revision of some commonly admitted thoughts about the relationship between music and images. We reassess the definition of music as sound material of films, the question of its concordance with the image, of its indépendence even though it integrates an unified whole, as well as its connection with the senses and their transcendence. Images as material substrate and music as element of consciousness in this director-composer's work retain their autonomy of sense while the score is closely connected to the film'structure. They are consistent with a complementary relation that questions an entire paradigm based on the idea of analogy or convergence, in short, of a duality between images and music in cinema

This thesis explores women’s writing and its place in the formation of female film culture in the British silent cinema era. The project focuses upon women’s literary engagement with silent cinema as generative of a female film culture, looking at materials such as fan letters, fan magazines, popular novels, short story papers, novelizations, critical journals and newspaper criticism. Exploring this diverse range of women’s cinema writing, the thesis seeks to make an original contribution to feminist film historiography. Focusing upon the mediations between different kinds of women’s cinema writing, the thesis poses key questions about how the feminist film historian weights original sources in the reclamation of silent female film culture, relative to the varying degrees of cultural authority with which different women commentated upon, reflected upon, and creatively responded to film culture. The thesis moves away from conceptualization of cinema audiences and reception practices based upon textual readings. Instead, the thesis focuses upon evidence of women’s original accounts of their cinemagoing practices (fan letters) and their critical (newspaper and journal criticism) and creative (fiction writers) responses to cinema’s place in women’s everyday lives. Balancing original archival research with multiple overarching methodological frameworks—drawing upon fan theory, feminist reception theory, audience studies, social history and cultural studies—the thesis is attentive to the diversity of women’s experiences of cinema culture, and the literary conduits through which they channeled these experiences. Shifting the recent focus in feminist silent film historiography away from the reclamation of lost filmmaking female pioneers and towards lost female audiences, the thesis thus constructs a nationally specific account of British women’s silent era cinema culture.

This thesis grows from the premise that film music analysis is currently at an impasse. The reason for this impasse is the inability of film theory and music theory to relate to one another because of their lack of a common theoretical language. It is my contention that a large percentage of the scholarly writing on film music is less than successful, because of the inability of these two disciplines to relate to each other theoretically. Therefore, it is the intention of this thesis to construct a methodological bridge which will allow music theory and film theory to relate to each other on a common analytical plane. I am primarily concerned with just how the film score functions once it enters into the mise-en-scène and is able to exist on an equal theoretical plane with the other elements of the filmic universe. In order to facilitate this, I will apply philosophical concepts drawn from the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze to the analysis of six individual film/score(s): L’Atalante (Jean Vigo, 1934), Things to Come (William Cameron Menzies, 1936), Scott of the Antarctic (Charles Frend, 1948), East of Eden (Elia Kazan, 1955), Hamlet (Grigori Kozintsev, 1964) and Blue (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1993). Each of these scores provides a specific theoretical challenge which can not be overcome through the use of traditional analytical methodologies. By adapting specific Deleuzian philosophical concepts (sensation, nomadology, the refrain, the eternal refrain, becoming, utopia, smooth space, and duration) to the individual scores in question I will demonstrate that it is possible to create a flexible analytical methodology which draws the various elements of the film into a deep relationship with the score, thereby revealing the score’s actual function in each instance.

It is proper that I should begin by admitting that I am only an apprentice Reger-scholar. In planning this invited paper I evertheless learned much about how and why a British Mahler- and Schreker specialist, interested in the music of Hans fitzner and Franz Schmidt, might have remained so inconsistently ignorant of Reger. Setting aside, for the moment, the specific question of film music, what I have learned is clearly of levance to questions about why Reger appears not to ‘travel well’ internationally and about his reception by a UK audience.

Traditionally a Shakespeare film is seen as an act of translation from one idealised source of meaning (the text) to another (the language of cinema). This approach dismisses or misinterprets the majority of films made because they are either silent or foreign. Silent films, it is claimed cannot recreate the text. Many foreign films distort the plays' 'meaning' to cater for their audiences. This thesis challenges these assumptions by analysing two representative examples from these 'areas of resistance', Rather than compare these to an ideal concept of the plays it seeks to contextualise the films in their social and historical positions. The subjects chosen are the silent films made prior to 1912, and Kurosawa's Kumonosu jo (Macbeth. 1957). By studying the history of nineteenth Shakespeare presentation in art, literature and the theatre this thesis demonstrates that the pre-1912 films were part of a long-established tradition of silent and spectacular performances. Between 1907 and 1912 British companies used this tradition to try and create a high-class style of film to challenge the influx of mass-produced narrative-base melodramas from North America. The second section describes how Shakespeare was used by a nascent class of urban intellectuals in 19th and 20th century Japan to define the problems of the individual's relationship to the state. Kumonosu jo , a film by a self-confessed liberal humanist, perpetuates this tradition by formulating a nihilist study of militarism using the structures of the Noh theatre. Finally the thesis points out that each of these areas of film is emblematic of the position of Shakespeare in a specific culture at a specific time. Only an analysis which seeks to understand a film as a historically conditioned act of meaning can avoid the mis-readings and sweeping appropriations that non-orthodox Shakespeare films have been subject to in the past.

This thesis addresses a neglected area of British national cinema history, presenting the first comprehensive study of Scotland’s incursions into narrative film production before the coming of sound. It explores both the specificity of Scottish production and its place within the broader cultural, political and economic contexts of the British film industry at key periods in the ‘silent’ era before and after the Great War. Early film production in Scotland has been characterised as a story of isolated and short-lived enterprises whose failure was inevitable. The work problematises this view, focusing instead on the potential for success of the various production strategies employed by Scottish film-makers. It demonstrates that producers were both ambitious and resourceful in the manner in which they sought to bring their films to local, national and international screens. Previously unknown markets for these films are also identified. In 1911 the first British three-reel film, Rob Roy, made in Scotland by a Glasgow production company, reached audiences as far away as Australia and New Zealand. Scottish efforts in film production, including the development of synchronised sound systems, were not haphazard but mirrored trends in the British and worldwide film industries until the late 1920s. With the coming of sound, the costs of commercial film production represented too great a challenge for the limited resources of Scottish producers. The study encompasses a detailed exploration of efforts in feature film production; how far these productions travelled and for whom they were made; the presentation and treatment of Scottish-made films by the trade press and local newspapers and their critical reception both at home and overseas. The majority of these films are lost, but close scrutiny of contemporary publicity and archival documents including business records has enabled a detailed picture to emerge of their content, nature and production background. Scottish stories and the Scottish landscape were important to the British film industry from its earliest days, and feature films shot on Scottish locations by outside producers are also discussed. Were these the films Scots would have made, if they could?

This thesis aims to demonstrate the congruence between music and philosophy. The demonstration has three aspects: a discussion of philosophical and ontological aspects of music, a discussion of the importance of music in the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle and a discussion of philosophy itself. The starting point for the demonstration is a discussion of the philosophy of music in relation to the ontology of the musical work, the relationship of performance to notation and the musical work, the nature of improvisation and the temporality of music. I discuss the contextualisation of the musical work concept, the aporetic character of music and consider phenomenological accounts of music and time consciousness. Following this discussion I propose an ontological concept of the musical work as a topos of musical activity. The second section discusses music in the context of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy. It develops characteristics of music which are also relevant to theoria and philosophy. Most notable among these are the characterisations of music as play and energeia. I consider music in the context of the Aristotelian distinction between praxis and poiesis and argue for a qualified conception of music as energeia. The concluding section of the thesis deals with philosophy itself. I discuss the requirements of philosophy to maintain the energeia of thinking in the living and breathing word in the context of Plato’s Phaedrus. I attempt to demonstrate that the active conceptions of philosophy as a journey, examination of life, way of life (Hadot) and Lebensphilosophie align philosophy with a conception of music as meditatio mortis and form of temporality.

I created a one minute 2D, hand-drawn, frame-by-frame animation with an original music score utilizing Toon Boom to demonstrate my ability to convey an interesting story without the use of any dialogue.I relied instead on pantomime, expressions, and context clues to communicate the story to the viewer.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 2007.
Title from title screen (viewed 28 March 2008). Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Dept. of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts. Degree awarded 2007; thesis submitted 2006. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.

In the last ten years there has been a significant shift of interest in film music from Film departments to Music departments. This study seeks to balance the situation and bring film music back into the sphere of action of Film Studies. Film scholars can still give an important specialistic contribution by tackling the music as one of the cinematic devices, and focussing on the analysis of its interplay with the other formal elements of film. In this view, the scope of this study is to develop an approach and a set of analytical tools that serve as a guidance to film scholars to address music in film from their discipline-specific perspective. The analytical approach here offered stems from a mix of Neoformalism – from Film Studies – and concepts drawn from Leonard Meyer's music theories. Neoformalism describes and explains the filmic system focussing on the overall form and style, not only on the interpretation of the film's contents and meanings. In particular, the analysis concentrates on the function(s) and motivation(s) of a series of devices, whose interplay is at the basis of the film's formal system. Being one of the film's devices, music carries out specific functions and responds to specific motivations. Yet, film music is also music. Hence, Neoformalism is coupled with Leonard B. Meyer's theories. According to Meyer the meaning and emotional effect of a tonal piece of music derives from the way in which the composition plays with the listener’s expectations and anticipations, which are based on a shared knowledge of norms and conventions. This interest in norms and conventions and in the psychology of perception links Meyer's studies to Neoformalism. And their common interest in the 'whole,' in formal stabilisation, and closure makes Gestalt Psychology a fitting overarching theoretical framework to integrate Neoformalism with Meyer's musicology. The combination of the micro-configuration of the music and that of the visuals produces a macro-configuration in which the whole is something different from the sum of its parts. In this audiovisual interaction, three areas of musical agency are identified in the film: music can have a perceptive function; an emotive function; a cognitive function. The findings are valuable for both the disciplines involved. To film scholars, it presents film music as a topic that can be handled with more confidence and breadth, because the musicological analysis of the musical text (the score) is not required in this approach. To musicologists, it provides a way to deepen their understanding of and insights into the formal and stylistic ways in which music interacts and combines with the other cinematic components.

Nollywood is the branded name of Nigeria’s unique and globally recognised film industry. For over two decades (since 1992), the products of mainstream Nollywood film and music practitioners have been continually presented as a reflection and representation of the Nigerian society. Yet those creative and cultural underpinnings in Nollywood film music––processes, approach, symbology, commerce, and identity––have remained undocumented. This ethnomusicological research aims to establish verifiable evidence of Nigerian musical culture in the actions and inactions, assertions, and subversions within Nollywood film music practice. To do so, the study considers the industry from 1994 (the year of its first English-language film production) to 2016. Relying on an ethnographic study, this period provides the latitude for understanding Nigerian musical culture, and how the industry’s musicians have transported, transformed, and re- or de-contextualised it in film. The methodology for this material is based, in part, on an approach akin to grounded theory wherein the data drives the theoretical outcomes. This is achieved through a critical examination of the socio-cultural, economic, and technological determinants of Nollywood soundtracks with emphasis on three Nollywood films, a text-tune correlation analysis of a transcribed videofilm song, publications on the subject, as well as data from studio observations and interviews/conversations with practitioners. Findings validate the argument that there are three Nollywood film music schools of thought; that identity is performed through three mutually exclusive contexts labelled ‘Blocking’, ‘Blurring’, and ‘Acquiescing’; that there exists a Nollywood film music identity system (NoPIS); and that identity is a subtly packaged commodity that exists in ‘shades’ and is regulated by various elements including, but not limited to, politics, power, music and film genres, language, money, as well as localisation and deterritorialisation. To be clear, Nollywood film music draws heavily from Nigerian musical culture. And this is why the entire process (of film music production and the notion of identity) remains a socio-cultural construction that is plural––always in the process of becoming, and to some degree susceptible to re-signification.

Thesis (MFA)--Montana State University--Bozeman, 2009.
Typescript. Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Theo Lipfert. Fractal is a DVD accompanying the thesis. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 22-23).

In the early years of the twentieth century, the unique new medium of motion pictures was the focus of significant theorization and experimentation at the fringes of the American advertising industry. Alongside the growth of the nickelodeon, and the multiple shifts in the American cinema's business model in the 'transitional era,' various individuals at the margins of the advertising industry attempted, and most often failed, to integrate direct consumer-goods advertising regularly into motion picture theaters. Via techniques as diverse as the glass slide, the commercial trailer, and the advertising wall-clock, cinema patrons of the 1910s witnessed various attempts by merchants and manufacturers to intrude upon their attention in the cinema space. Through research in the trade presses of the cinema, advertising, and various consumer-goods industries, along with archival ephemera from the advertising companies themselves, this dissertation explores these various on and off-screen tactics for direct advertising attempted in silent cinemas, and their eventual minimization in the American cinema experience. Despite the appeal of the new, popular visual medium of cinema to advertisers, concerns over ticket prices, advertising circulation, audience irritation, and the potential for theatrical 'suicide-by-advertising,' resulted, over a mere fifteen years, in the near abandonment of the cinema as an advertising medium. As a transitional medium between the 19th century forms of print and billboarding, and 20th century broadcasting, the silent cinema was an important element in the development of modern advertising theories.

Sound and music, both independently and inside film are sometimes considered to be secondary to the visual. Some disciplines wish to classify them as triggers to neurological systems while some others will emphasise their affect-inflicting capacity; in both cases these remain as secondary functions and in the case of film as nothing but accompanying elements. Yet, observed psychologically sound and music have a unique and wholesome function in the human psyche. Carl Gustav Jung’s analytical psychology opens the door for the understanding of both as images, far beyond the consensual acceptance of image being of a visual faculty only. Understanding music as image puts music in a different position inside a film as well as a stand-alone phenomenon in the every-day life. Analytical psychology, in both original Jungian and contemporary Post-Jungian versions, using the core ideas of archetype, opposites, functions of the psyche and image - supports the very concept of music/sound as image. This thesis will approach the consequent understanding of the role of music in film beyond the decorative-accompaniment task attributed to it and as an image on its own right. The work is divided into three main parts: Part I will introduce general Jungian aspects to build the case of a Jungian psychological account of the music-image. Part II will attempt to combine theory with practice in analysing how the auditory image (mainly music) works (or sometimes clashes) with the visual (picture) to create the ‘film as a whole’ experience. Part III will implement a specific understanding of three individual film cases of different genres, eras and styles as psychologically scrutinised ‘case histories’.

Thesis (D.M.A.)--Boston University
As popular texts that circulate widely, films contribute to the way groups, individuals or ideas are understood in society. In this study I sought to explore the portrayals of music teaching in Hollywood movies, and examine the ways films might contribute to the occupational identity of music teachers. This investigation focused on four films that feature music teachers as major characters and that demonstrate a prevalent position in public consciousness as indicated by commercial success: Mr. Holland's Opus (1995), Music of the Heart (1999), Drumline (2000) and School of Rock (2002). I employed two poststructural approaches to analysis which view meaning as plural, negotiated and produced primarily by the reader's encounter with the text. One reading uses Derrida's project of deconstruction to focus on aporias, or paradoxes, and assumptions upon which texts make claims of truth. Aporias of responsibility, hospitality and the gift serve as lenses through which I investigate issues of professionalism, access and the image of the hero-teacher within music education. A second reading uses an intertextual approach to film analysis, acknowledging that texts derive meaning in part from their association and communication with other texts. Using related films, texts from popular culture and movie reviews, I investigate how these films construct images about gender, race and the value of music in schools. Exploring possible dominant, negotiated and contrary readings of these film texts, I look at a variety of possible interpretations and suggest ways that the films might be used by teachers and pre-service teachers to better understand expectations that people carry with them into the music education environment. As films may be used as sources for common-sense understandings in society, I explore how these films may act as structures to the agency of music teachers and how the negotiation of these portrayals might impact the music education environment.

This thesis discusses the use of pop songs in narrative films, with particular attention paid to their role in characterisation. My argument concerns the potential for pop to retain its specificity as a certain type of music whilst it carries out functions normally attributed to a composed score. Many commentators have assumed that, because a song may be known before it is used in a film, its narrative meanings are "pre-packaged". I combine an appreciation of pop music's propensity to come to a film already 'known' with an attempt to demonstrate how individual narratives ask songs to perform different affective roles. It is my contention that pop music's quality of 'knownness' is fundamental to its narrative affect in films, without, however, pre-determining that affect. I argue my case through close textual analysis, discussing the relationship between real-life pop stars' musical personas and the film characters they are asked to play, as well as offering numerous examples of songs without an on-screen performer becoming involved in processes of filmic narration.

A study of the use of pre-existing music in fiction sound film, this thesis fills a gap in the literature by studying pre-existing music as a category of music in film in itself, the premise being that there are conclusions to be drawn about the use of such music that relate to its pre-existing status, regardless of style, genre, and so on. The main questions are as follows: How and why is pre-existing music used in films? What effects can its use have for and on films and their audiences? And what lasting effects does appropriation have on the music? The exploration of these issues draws on concepts and frameworks from fields beyond that of the study of music in film, including literary theory and scholarship on musical borrowing defined more generally, and incorporates discussion of factors such as those of copyright and commerce alongside examination of texts and their effects. The thesis establishes a framework from which future work in the area can more efficiently proceed, and in relation to which previous work can be contextualised. Broadly, pre-existing music is shown to have unique attributes that can affect both how filmmakers construct their works (practically as well as artistically), and how audiences receive them, while film is argued to be a powerful influence in and on processes of musical reception. The thesis is a significant contribution to scholarship on music on film, but can also be seen as a study of the reception of music (both by and through film), and as situated within the fields of scholarship on musical borrowing and musical intertextuality.

This thesis explores the concept and expression of musicality in the absolute visual music film, in which visual presentations are given musical attributes such as rhythmical form, structure and harmony. The role of music has, in general, been neglected when analysing visual music textually and if discussed it has been examined predominantly from the academic vantage points of art and avant-garde film theory. To adequately scrutinise these texts I consider it essential to look at them not only in terms of their existence as moving pictures but also to give equal weight to their aural aspect and to consider them in terms of specifically musical parameters. This thesis therefore seeks to redress previous imbalances by undertaking a close analysis of the expressly musical qualities of these texts. Drawing on the seemingly disparate areas of film theory, art history, music theory and philosophy, it takes an interdisciplinary approach to investigating the measurable influence that wider contextual, philosophical and historical developments and debates in these areas bore on the aesthetics of specific visual music films. By drawing on the analogy of the absolute in music to demonstrate how musical concepts can function across the disciplinary boundaries of music and film, the first half of this thesis illustrates how musical ideas can be applied both formally and conceptually to the moving image in order to elucidate the musical characteristics of the text. Using the notion of the absolute as a conceptual framework allows for a thorough overview of changing trends and aesthetics in music, film and art and the visual music film. The centrality of notions of the absolute to visual music is demonstrated through close analysis of films by Viking Eggeling, Hans Richter, Walter Ruttmann, Norman McLaren, James Whitney and Jordan Belson. The second part of this thesis concentrates less on the philosophical vestiges carried over from musical thought to the visual music film, instead focusing on the variety of techniques and technological developments that evolved in tandem with the visual music film, each simultaneously exerting an influence on one another. It explores the effect that colour processing had on not only the visual but the overall audiovisual structure of the visual music film through a textual analysis of Kreise (1933) by Oskar Fischinger. It also investigates how particular styles of musical composition dictated the development of specific technical processes such as painting directly onto the celluloid strip, in order to capture the syncopated and frenetic musicality of jazz music. The case studies here are Begone Dull Care (1949) by Norman McLaren and A Colour Box (1935) by Len Lye. Further to this, it examines how the technical processes of animated sound emerged in the search for a greater correlation between the visual and sound tracks of the visual music film through close analysis of Synchromy (1971) by Norman McLaren and the optical sound films of Guy Sherwin. Finally, this thesis marries the inquiry into technological innovation of its second half with the historical, aesthetic and philosophical concerns of earlier chapters by considering the work of visual music pioneer John Whitney. Focusing on his digitally produced visual music films, the thesis explores Whitney’s enduring concern with the unification of sound and image through the shared foundation of mathematical harmony.

Automatic music composition is a fast-moving field which, from roots in serialism, has developed techniques spanning subjects as diverse as biology, chaos theory and linguistic grammars. These algorithms have been applied to specific aspects of music creation, as well as live performances. However, these traditional approaches to generation are dedicated to the creation of music which is independent from any other driving medium, whereas human-composed music is most often written with a purpose or situation in mind. Furthermore, the process of composition is naturally hierarchical, whereas the use of a single algorithm renders it a monolithic task. In order to address these issues, a model should be able to encapsulate a sense of composer motivation whilst not relying on a single algorithm for the composition process. As such, this work describes a new framework with the ability to provide a means to generate music from film in a media-driven, distributed, manner. This includes the initial annotation of the media using our new OntoMedia ontology; the mapping of annotated information into parameters suitable for compositional algorithms; the design and implementation of an agent framework suitable for the distribution of multiple composing algorithms; and finally the creation of agents capable of handling the composition of musical elements such as rhythm and melody. In addition, a case study is included which demonstrates the stages of the composition process from media annotation to automatic music generation.

From the very beginning of cinema, music always played an important role in the history of filmmaking. Nonetheless, film music is judged by critics as a kind of low-grade art form. However, the majority of film score composers enjoyed a classical education and composed as well for the silver screen as for the concert hall. Film music also has its roots in the musical era of romanticism. Therefore, symphonic film scores can be regarded as program music in a broader sense. These scores were influenced by a motion picture instead of a poem, a landscape, or a painting. It is neither necessary nor supposed that film music must be subordinate to its belonging film. In fact, a well-written film score may enhance the impact of a film by using its own language—the language of music. Film music is still not truly recognized as an own style of music which is to be performed regularly in a concert hall. There are still strong prejudices about film music—too nice, too industrial, full of clichés, and unworthy to be performed live by an orchestra. This book wants to explore the nature of film music and its relation to classical music in this volume. How is film music perceived today? Does film music have its place on its own—uncoupled from its original film—in the concert hall? And how does film music relate to other musical genres in the 19th and 20th century? With contributions by Emilio Audissino, Marco Cosci, Kristjan Järvi, Irena Paulus, Gene Pritsker, Jaume Radigales, Lorenzo Sorbo, Sebastian Stoppe, and Pascal Vandelanoitte.:Sebastian Stoppe : Film Music in Concert: Introduction Sebastian Stoppe : Film Composing between Art and Business Emilio Audissino : Overruling a Romantic Prejudice: Film Music in Concert Programs Jaume Radigales : Wagner’s Heritage in Cinema: The Bernard Herrmann Case Irena Paulus : Williams versus Wagner — Or an Attempt at Linking Musical Epics Emilio Audissino : Golden Age 2.0: John Williams and the Revival of the Symphonic Film Score Gene Pritsker: On Film Music in the 21st Century Kristjan Järvi : “A Soundtrack to Our Lives...” Gene Pritsker : Composing Cloud Atlas Symphony Lorenzo Sorbo : The Dramatic Functions of Italian Spaghetti Western Soundtracks: A Comparison between Ennio Morricone and Francesco De Masi Marco Cosci : Musical Labyrinths in Time: Alain Resnais’ L’Année dernière à Marienbad Pascal Vandelanoitte : Ludwig: Consonant Music in a Dissonant Life Contributors

This paper examines the role of the pioneer Filipino filmmaker Jose Nepomuceno and his films in the Philippine quest for independence and in the process of nation-building. As all of Nepomuceno's films are lost, most of the information was gathered from old newspaper articles on microfilm in different archives in Manila. Many of these articles were hitherto undiscovered. Nepomuceno made silent films at a time when the influence of the new coloniser, United States, was growing, and the Spanish language was what unified the intellectual opposition. Previous research on Nepomuceno has focused on the Hispanic influences on his filmmaking, as well as his connections to the stage drama. This paper argues that Nepomuceno created a national consciousness by making films showing native lives and environments, adapting important Filipino novels and plays to the screen and covering important political topics and thereby creating public opinion. Many reviews in the newspapers connected his films to nation-building and independence, as the creation of a national consciousness is a cornerstone in the process of building a nation and defining "Filipino". Furthermore, the films of Nepomuceno helped spreading the Tagalog culture and language to other parts of the Philippines, hence making Tagalog the foundation of the national Filipino language.

Excerpt: I never imagined that I would help produce a documentary film based on my ethnographic fieldwork. Meeting documentary filmmaker Shara Lange during new faculty orientation at the university where we were both newly hired eventually led to our film Banjo Romantika (2013)—a full-length feature based on my research on bluegrass music in the Czech Republic, in which I play a key role as writer, producer, and on-screen character. Taking part in this film project has led me to consider how film enriches relationships with field colleagues, providing new opportunities for teaching and learning. I find that collaborations like ours can reframe and extend ethnomusicological work in productive ways.

In 1951, Saul Chaplin, John Green, and Conrad Salinger adapted the music of composer George Gershwin (1898-1937) for a film musical titled An American in Paris, the finale of which was a 17-minute ballet scene set to a modified version of the composer’s tone poem from 1928. The plot bears broad similarities to isolated aspects of George Gershwin’s life. Such narrative elements offered a scaffold for an attractive subtext explored through the film score: a review of the trajectory and breadth of George Gershwin's compositional career from 1922-1937. My own analysis of the film and its score, using the techniques of Lars Franke, further illustrates how the creators of An American in Paris used the cinematic frame to comment on George Gershwin's life and to respond to contemporary critics as well as fans of his music.

This thesis examines largely British and American approaches to Shakespeare on film from the silent era to 1996, while also referring to Japanese and European productions. By analysing key films where Shakespeare is used in an altered or unacknowledged way, Shakespeare's cultural position in cinema can be identified and assessed. The British cinematic approach tends to rely upon nostalgia and taps into a longstanding theatrical tradition of Shakespearean performance while, in the US, Shakespeare is usually subordinated to cinema by being redefined through cinematic genre. There is much overlap between these culturally defined approaches to Shakespeare on film. Above all, Shakespeare is employed as a key intertextual device within each film, providing narrative structure and a frame of reference which highlights or brings into question a sense of cultural identity. In addition to cultural ramifications, the evolution of Shakespeare on film is charted to demonstrate how the treatment of the playwright and his work changed to suit the development of film as an artform capable of sustaining its own dramatic lexicon. Ten case study films from the mid to late twentieth century are analysed from a cultural standpoint and to map the interplay between Shakespearean and cinema. Broadly speaking, Shakespeare may be manipulated in two main ways, so that plots or themes from the plays may be evident in an altered way in a film, or scenes or dialogue may be included in an otherwise contemporary cinematic setting. It is at the nexus of this interplay that the two elements coalesce, realigning Shakespeare from a cinematic perspective on one hand, while providing filmmakers with highly adaptable source material for their own productions on the other. By focusing on films which position Shakespeare outside of conventional or mainstream cinematic adaptation, this thesis advances prevailing critical interest, locating the playwright as a figure open to numerous and innovative cultural and cinematic reinterpretations. The thesis makes a significant contribution to Shakespeare on film studies as it serves to develop an understanding of the shifting relationship between Shakespeare and cinema in Britain and America during the twentieth century.

This thesis is based on eight of the author's published works that challenge some of the disciplinary biases, methodological approaches, and deficiencies in first generation film musicology. Creating a balance between theoretical and practicebased approaches, these works are: Writing l. Mera, M. M)'chael Danna's The Ice Storm. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007. 2. Mera, M. and Bumand, D. European Film Music. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. 3. Mera, M. 'Takemitsu's Composed Space in Kurosawa's Ran', in Robynn Stilwell and Peter Franklin, eds., Cambridge Companion to Film Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [in press, forthcoming]. 4. Mera, M. 'Reap Just What You Sow: Trainspotting's Perfect Day', in Steve Lannin and Matthew Caley, eds., Pop Fiction- the Song in Cinema. Bristol: Intellect, 2005, 86-97. Film Compositions 5. Mera, M. Broken, dir. Vicki Psarias, Ten Thousand Films, 2007 6. Mera, M. What Does Your Daddy Do? dir. Martin Stitt, Sprig Productions, 2006. 7. Mera, M. Moth, dir. Simon Corris, Amulet Films, 2005. 8. Mera, M. The Goodbye Plane, dir. David Bartlett, Kewhaven Pictures, 2003. The term 'second-generation' in relation to film musicology was first coined by Robynn Stilwell to identify a productive shift away from the ideas of scholars such as Kathryn Kalinak and Claudia Gorbman. Gorbman's seminal text, Unheard Alelodies, for example, contained recurrent arguments about film music as a subservient element in a narrative system, an invisible discourse that 'functions to lull the spectator into being an untroublesome (less critical, less wary) viewing subject.' (1987, 15). More broadly first-generation film musicology was focused on mainstream Hollywood scoring, narrative causality, and the non-diegetic score, often at the expense of other elements of the soundtrack. The Critical Appraisal demonstrates how the author's published work positions itself in relation to and against this first-generation work, seeking to expand the field by employing new methodologies and exploring hitherto undervalued areas of study. The specific areas of examination are: (a) Film music beyond the mainstream Hollywood studio system ('Indiewood', Europe, Japan, Britain); (b) The use of silence, space and ambiguity as a scoring approach and the means by which this empowers the audience, demanding their active engagement with the filmic text, and; (c) Methods of collaboration and communication and their effect on compositional process and product, with a particular focus on the temp-track. As a practising film composer, the author has a unique perspective from which to explore this subject area. In particular, political context, industrial and collaborative practice, and technological methods are interrogated in a manner that is borne out of personal experience. The relationship between the published written and composed texts, therefore, challenges idealistic and mythologized notions of film music that fail to reflect how political structures and creativity interact. The Critical Appraisal also suggests some future directions for study in a rapidly progressing and vibrant field of study.

This thesis discusses the film scores of Edmund Meisel (1894–1930), composed in Berlin and London during the period 1926–1930. In the main, these scores were written for feature-length films, some for live performance with silent films and some recorded for post-synchronized sound films. The genesis and contemporaneous reception of each score is discussed within a broadly chronological framework. Meisel’s scores are evaluated largely outside their normal left-wing proletarian and avant-garde backgrounds, drawing comparisons instead with narrative scoring techniques found in mainstream commercial practices in Hollywood during the early sound era. The narrative scoring techniques in Meisel’s scores are demonstrated through analyses of his extant scores and soundtracks, in conjunction with a review of surviving documentation and modern reconstructions where available.