Soundtrack Studies: Music, Voices, Noise

This course considers the interaction of film, sound, and music from the silent era to the present by screening representative films from around the world and exploring current directions in scholarship from the disciplines of film studies and musicology. Topics to be discussed include: historical and critical understandings of the sound track, major film sound theorists (such as Michel Chion), technological shifts (such as synchronized sound, Dolby, and digital surround sound), the uses of Richard Wagner (both his music and his ideas), the relationship between a film genre (noir) and sound and music and the relationship between a musical genre (opera) and film, and the juxtaposition of popular and classical, Western and non-Western musical styles in art cinema. Films to be screened include Meek's Cutoff, Blow Out, Days of Heaven, Sous le toits de Paris, Love Me Tonight, Casablanca, Alien, Apocalypse Now, La cérémonie, Le Cercle rouge, The Pillow Book, The Scent of Green Papaya, and The Bourne Ultimatum.
The course is in seminar format. Readings from recent scholarly work on film sound and music will inform class discussions of the films to be screened. Close analysis of how music, sound, and image interact in film making and the film experience lies at the heart of the course. The ability to read music is not required. A primary goal of the course will be the development of specific listening skills that are useful when working in this area. Targeted writing assignments will ask students to write about film sound and music from a variety of critical and historical perspectives.
Pre-requisites: graduate status or completion of The History of the Film Score (FMS 360 / AMCS 360 / MUS 328) and permission of the instructor.
REQUIRED SCREENING: Tuesdays @ 7 pm

Course Attributes: EN H; AS HUM

Soundtrack Studies: Music, Voices, Noise

FILM AND MEDIA STUDIES 456

Section A

Section 01