{"title":"Setting the Tone of the Southern Question: Music and/as Fatalism in Italian Cinema of the Economic Miracle","authors":"M. Corbella","doi":"10.1558/JFM.37319","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.37319","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores film music’s role in shaping the discourse of Italy’s questione meridionale (“Southern Question”) during the long 1960s. Part of its main argument is that music, working as a subliminal agent in film dramaturgies, impacted the perception of the Italian south on an affective, non-verbal level. It focuses on the trope of fatalism, which has often been attached to southern-ness, and examines how it was musically fleshed out in film narratives. Each of the article’s three sections tackles one specific nuance of fatalism (“sublime,” “grotesque,” and “cynical”) as it is elicited by the combination of music and the moving image. It unpacks film music’s agency by referencing topic theory and leitmotif theory, discussing film composers’ backgrounds and production practice, and tracking the historical-cultural timeliness of specific musicodramatic configurations, with reference to the Italian economic “miracle.”","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"148 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116337827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Looking at the Screen through the Spindle Hole: A Phonographic Approach to Italian Cinema of the 1960s","authors":"A. Bratus","doi":"10.1558/JFM.37322","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.37322","url":null,"abstract":"The use of songs in Italian cinema could be regarded as a minor issue from a cinematographic perspective, being seen possibly as a derivative by-product in both a film’s production and in its critical reception. However, music plays a crucial role in postwar Italian popular culture, as evidenced by the heated debate about the ideological function of popular and folk music that has raged among intellectuals (most notably Umberto Eco), musicians, ethnomusicologists, and composers. My starting assumption is that a perspective on cinema production gained from the vantage point of the phonographic medium can help to enlighten issues related to changing styles and production practices in Italian popular culture after World War II. Investigating the connections between the film and recording industries also highlights the need for film composers to be versatile and proficient in different genres, a quality that was an integral part of their role as specialized professionals.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126192287","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Listening to Another Italy: Egisto Macchi’s New Music for Italian Documentaries of the 1960s","authors":"M. Cosci","doi":"10.1558/JFM.37320","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.37320","url":null,"abstract":"The transition between the 1950s and 1960s is a watershed moment for the construction of the Italian post-war identity through cinema. Not only do feature films of those years reflect this critical point, but also documentaries become a privileged medium for revealing the contradictions of a country that was increasingly divided between tradition and progress. In this article I focus on the production of composer Egisto Macchi, a leading figure in the renewal of Italian music. He worked with significant filmmakers scoring hundreds of non-fiction films during the 1960s. Combining archival sources with historiographical and theoretical discourses of musicology and film studies, I examine some key examples of Macchi’s soundtracks. Macchi’s scores shun widely encoded musical styles in an attempt to investigate the most striking and hidden character of the reality observed by the camera. On the one hand, experimental music is seen as the best way of engaging afresh with the subject matter; on the other, these documentaries establish a viewpoint and a way of hearing rooted in the contemporary music soundscape.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"38 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125015828","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Source and Myth: Opera in Italian Cinema of the 1960s","authors":"Matteo Giuggioli","doi":"10.1558/JFM.37318","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.37318","url":null,"abstract":"Going back to the early days of film, Italian cinema's attraction to opera showed no sign of abating in the aftermath of World War II, albeit with a change of direction and and an expansion into new expressive and semantic paths. The initiator of the new direction was Luchino Visconti in the 1950s, followed by a new generation of renowned Italian film directors in the 1960s. in the heated social, political, and artistic environment of the \"economic miracle,\" Italian cinema of the 1960s first and foremost questioned the symbolic status that opera had acquired and maintained in Italian popular culture throughout the first half of the century. Prominent film directors identified opera as a relevant object for their critical inquiries into the controversial nation-building process and the customs of the Italian people. This article focuses on three films in which excerpts from opera activate complex intertextual plots: Valerio Zurlini's Girl with a Suitcase (1961), Bernardo Bertolucci's Before the Revolution (1964), and Marco Bellocchio's China is Near (1967). Against a backdrop of such different cinematic experiences, the article shows how opera acquired the common profile and value of a sublime and troubled mythology in 1960s Italian film culture.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-09-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128197713","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Music in German Silent Cinema: Reception in the Film Trade Press 1907-1925","authors":"Carolin Beinroth, Claudia Bullerjahn","doi":"10.1558/JFM.30971","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.30971","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"127 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134232664","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Not with a Bang . . . Silence, Noise and Musical Nihilism in Béla Tarr’s A torinói ló","authors":"J. Berger, Talya Berger","doi":"10.1558/jfm.31323","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.31323","url":null,"abstract":"Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA HE In this paper, we analyze the soundtrack of Bela Tarr’s A torinoi lo from multiple perspectives. We consider each of the distinct categories of sonic elements and consider their interactions in terms of their dramatic, symbolic, and structural roles. These primary elements—repetitive sample loops of pink noise, broadband noise, and highly redundant melodic fragments, all layered and sequenced in a variety of configurations, along with the musical deployment of silence, dominate the film—interrupted only by the voice of the narrator and the occasional voices of actors.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"116 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-04-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124863507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"I Am Big, It’s the Pictures That Got Small: Sound Technologies and Franz Waxman’s Scores for Sunset Boulevard (1950) and The Twilight Zone ’s “The Sixteen Millimeter Shrine” (1959)","authors":"Reba A. Wissner","doi":"10.1558/JFM.30618","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.30618","url":null,"abstract":"Franz Waxman composed over 150 film scores, the most famous of which is Billy Wilder’s film noir Sunset Boulevard (1950). The film plot bears a striking resemblance to Rod Serling’s teleplay for The Twilight Zone, “The Sixteen-Millimeter Shrine” (1959). Waxman, composer of the film, was approached to compose a score for a television episode that was what many term a shortened version of Wilder’s film for the small screen, but with supernatural elements. This article serves to remedy the dearth of literature on this topic and to form an examination of the ways that Waxman conceived of music to accompany films with similar themes but on different screens. Through this comparison of the two scores, a clearer picture of Waxman’s approaches to composing music for moving images will be presented.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123855624","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"“The Meaning of Romance”: Popular Song and Historical Narrative from Arthurian Literature to American Graffiti","authors":"J. R. Valdés-Miyares","doi":"10.1558/JFM.27582","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.27582","url":null,"abstract":"This article argues that a fundamental connection between music and narrative has existed since the age of medieval romance, and is still noticeable in the uses of popular song in modern cinema. The allusions to a code ultimately originating in medieval romance in George Lucas’s American Graffiti are a key clue to unraveling a complex history going back to the longing for a lost age in Arthurian romance, through the use of song in medieval drama, nineteenth-century melodrama, and historical romance, the integration of theme songs and compilation scores in film narrative, and the nostalgia for the age of rock ‘n’ roll in early-1970s America. The analysis of such connections points to the perennial function of old songs, by means of their familiar tunes and their allusive words, and occasionally their links with dances, in the affective, yet also ironic, recreation of a harmonious dreamed-up past in film.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132428311","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Early German Sound Sourcing with Songs in the Trilogy of the Mackeben-Jugo-Engel Ensemble","authors":"Gregg Wager","doi":"10.1558/JFM.27096","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.27096","url":null,"abstract":"Once German filmmakers had accepted the advent of talking motion pictures as an inevitable and important technological and aesthetic development in cinema, they anticipated a drastic shift in their foreign markets based on a language barrier that was more difficult to overcome than with silent films. While Germans still closely studied practices in the new synchronized sound in America’s Hollywood, their own experiments with how to use music in the enhanced medium still raised similar issues, but stylistically took cinema in slightly different directions based on the origins and development of the music itself. Composer Theo Mackeben, actress Jenny Jugo, and director Erich Engel collaborated on three comedies together during this era that emphasized original songs, culminating in a storytelling style that utilized both the fantasy of a recurring melody throughout the story featuring various kinds of source music, and the realism of having a character introduce the song without suspending the story as musicals often do. When the Nazi influence took hold, phasing out jazz music and attempting to deliberately introduce German folk elements into the movies, the intrusive new propaganda rules became obstacles to steer creative energies and innovation around.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"22 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114408855","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Barry Gray Archive","authors":"François Evans","doi":"10.1558/jfm.29830","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.29830","url":null,"abstract":"The Barry Gray Archive was established in Ashford, Kent, England in 2005, to preserve and to help make available artefacts of the varied work of British film and television composer Barry Gray (1908-1984) – one of the first musicians to use electronic musical instruments in commercial, audio-visual media. This article comprises a description of the rationale behind the archive, issues faced, motivations, methods adopted for digital preservation, copyright matters engaged with and an assessment of the surprising ways in which the archive is informing British scholarship. Aspects of how an archive can be structured as an electronic hub so as to enable appropriate perpetuation are presented, together with case studies to illustrate its continuing impact to date.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"8 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127077653","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}