Music in film / Michel Chion ; edited and translated by Claudia Gorbman. [E-Book]
Material type:
TextSeries: Film and culturePublisher: New York : Columbia University Press, 2021Description: 1 online resourceISBN: - 9780231552851
- Musique au cinéma. English
- 781.54209 23
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
Michel Chion is renowned for his explorations of the significance of frequently overlooked elements of cinema, particularly the role of sound. In this inventive and inviting book, Chion considers how cinema has deployed music. He shows how music and film not only complement but also transform each other.
The first section of the book examines film music in historical perspective, and the second section addresses the theoretical implications of the crossover between art forms. Chion discusses a vast variety of films across eras, genres, and continents, embracing all the different genres of music that filmmakers have used to tell their stories. Beginning with live accompaniment of silent films in early movie houses, the book analyzes Al Jolson's performance in The Jazz Singer , the zither in The Third Man , Godard's patchwork sound editing, the synthesizer welcoming the flying saucer in Close Encounters of the Third Kind , and the Kinshasa orchestra in Felicité , among many more. Chion considers both original scores and incorporation of preexisting works, including the use and reuse of particular composers across cinematic traditions, the introduction of popular music such as jazz and rock, and directors' attraction to atonal and dissonant music as well as musique concrète, of which he is a composer.
Wide-ranging and original, Music in Cinema offers a welcoming overview for students and general readers as well as refreshingly new and valuable perspectives for film scholars.
Includes index.
E-Book
Music redefined by cinema -- Part I. Historical perspectives -- Dreams and realities: 1895-1935 -- Classicism to modernism: 1935-1975 -- Back to the future: 1975-1995 -- Whither film music? 1966-2020 -- Part II: The three faces of music in cinema -- Music as an element and as a means -- Music as a world -- Music as subject, metaphor and model -- By way of a conclusion.
"In a major book for the field, Michel Chion considers film music with his trademark panache. Discussing the historical considerations of film music and the theoretical implications of the crossover between the mediums of music and film, Chion expands on the concepts he has introduced and applies them exclusively to film music. From Sunrise to The Jazz Singer to Birdman to Felicité, The Music of Cinema will be both a strong entry point for general readers interested in learning more about film music, a solid textbook in the field, as well as an evergreen resource for film scholars. The first section of the book examines music in films from the historical perspective, exploring how technical advances are related to aesthetic considerations. Next, a more theoretical section addresses the use of music in film as both element and medium, world and subject, metaphor and model"-- Provided by publisher.
Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed.
Author notes provided by Syndetics
Michel Chion is an independent scholar, composer, filmmaker, and teacher who has written more than thirty books on sound, music, and film. His previous Columbia University Press books include The Voice in Cinema (1999); Film, a Sound Art (2009); Words on Screen (2017); and Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen (second edition, 2019).
Claudia Gorbman is professor emerita of film studies at the University of Washington, Tacoma. She has written widely about film sound and music and has translated several books by Michel Chion.