James Buhler, Theories of the Soundtrack

Abstract

© Copyright the International Film Music Society, published by Equinox Publishing Ltd 2019, Office 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield, S1 2BX. Like proverbial showbiz stories of overnight success, the sudden rise of “sound studies” within academia is a development several decades in the making. The past fifteen years have seen the appearance of new journals, new scholarly interest groups, new professional organizations, and several new compendia of published research. Contributions to this field represent a wide range of different approaches drawn from a vast array of more established disciplines: linguistics, semiotics, psychology, musicology, narratology, and media studies. Its main areas of inquiry also run the gamut, displaying a concern with aesthetics, technology, and culture. The result of this intellectual ferment is an arena ever more difficult to navigate. Thankfully, Oxford University Press has published a new book that can help guide intrepid newcomers: James Buhler’s Theories of the Soundtrack, an ambitious survey of sound’s role within more than a century of media theory. Buhler notes in his acknowledgments that Theories of the Soundtrack was inspired by the work of two film theorists: Dudley Andrew and Francesco Casetti.1 Andrew’s and Casetti’s influence is palpable not only in the specific topics that Buhler covers, but also in the book’s overall design. Two chapters are dedicated to classical film theory, a framework that seeks to legitimate film as an art form by specifying the bases of its aesthetic potential. The remaining chapters