{"title":"Modal Interchange and Semantic Resonance in Themes by John Williams","authors":"T. Schneller","doi":"10.1558/JFM.V6I1.49","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.V6I1.49","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the semantic properties of several characteristic triadic shifts in the film and ceremonial music of John Williams. These shifts result from particular modal inflections in major keys, which include the mixolydian subtonic (associated with the heroic and/or patriotic), and the lydian supertonic (associated with magic, wonder and flight). My aim in examining Williams’ use of mixed modes is both to gain a more precise understanding of one particular aspect of his style, and to place it into the larger context of the musical tradition in Hollywood.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132340009","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 Ingmar Bergman's Monsters: Horror Music, Mutes, and Acoustical Beings in Persona and Hour of the Wolf","authors":"Alexis Luko","doi":"10.1558/jfm.v6i1.5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.v6i1.5","url":null,"abstract":"Many of Ingmar Bergman’s films are indebted to the horror genre through topics that explore physical and psychological torture, mutilation, illness, murder, sexual taboos, dream, psychoanalysis, madness, and the supernatural. These emblematic horror tropes are reinforced with close-ups of expressive mouths and eyes and a masterful manipulation of shadow and light, helping to create an aesthetic that is at once intimate and haunting. There is a third plane, an aural one, on which Bergman intertwines music, a rich palette of sound effects, deathly silence, and blood-chilling screams. This paper focuses on the significance of music and the voice (or the lack thereof) in Bergman’s soundtracks and expands ideas put forward by Julia Kristeva about the “abject” and by Michel Chion pertaining to the omniscient and bodiless acousmetres or “acoustical beings” and mutes of film. This article examines mutes and acousmetres in Persona and Hour of the Wolf, and how the quality of their voices or, indeed, their silence, aids them in articulating their identities and manipulating and tyrannizing those around them. Bergman’s characters threaten to destabilize the narrative if and when they find their bodies and/or voices, and thus maintain an ominous power as they straddle diegetic and non-diegetic aural space.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130107430","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":"“Shirley, Bernstein Can’t Be Serious?”: Airplane! and Compositional Personas","authors":"T. Summers","doi":"10.1558/JFM.V6I1.75","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.V6I1.75","url":null,"abstract":"Elmer Bernstein describes that when he scored the comedy film Airplane! (1980), he “made up a role for the composer”, a “young, inexperienced composer composing th[e] score”. This article explores the notion of a scoring persona by examining how Bernstein not only deploys the persona in Airplane!, but also how he demonstrates that it is an insincere persona. The majority of the article analyses how Airplane!’s score, by using the compositional persona, satires film music, creates humor through the parodic music, and even seems to serve a pedagogical function. Airplane! highlights the issue of authorship in music for moving-image media and the article then suggests that audiences can understand film scores in terms of personas (whether or not intentionally, or consciously, deployed by the composers) and that understanding the work and impact of such personas is valuable for film music practitioners and analysts.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130857990","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":"Toward a Prehistory of Film Music: Hans Erdmann's Score for Nosferatu and the Idea of Modular Form","authors":"J. Müller, Tobias Plebuch","doi":"10.1558/JFM.V6I1.31","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.V6I1.31","url":null,"abstract":"Photoplay music is a genre that took shape during the “silent” period of cinema when extended narrative films became mass entertainment. Many photoplay pieces exhibit certain structural features that we propose to conceptualize as modular form: They consist of several brief segments (often indicated by double barlines and numbers) that are easy to rearrange and flexible in themselves. Hans Erdmann’s Fantastisch-romantische Suite, derived from his original Nosferatu score, is such a set of musical modules designed to accompany various films in ad hoc arrangements–a purpose supported not only by numerous breaking points but also by their harmonic, syntactic and textural design. While modular techniques persisted in the era of sound film well after 1930, they also continued certain practices of theatrical music of the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as compilation and quick arrangement of stock pieces in ballet, vaudeville, pantomime, and spoken drama.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"18 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2015-01-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127818570","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":"Philip Furia and Laurie Patterson. The Songs of Hollywood","authors":"J. L. Roth-Burnette","doi":"10.1558/JFM.V4I2.180","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.V4I2.180","url":null,"abstract":"Reprint Edition. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. [x, 280 p. ISBN: 978-0199931750. $31.50 (hardcover)] Illustrations, filmography, index, and song index","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"139 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129953237","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":"Charlotte Greenspan. “Pick Yourself Up”: Dorothy Fields and the American Musical","authors":"M. Goldsmith","doi":"10.1558/jfm.v4i2.171","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.v4i2.171","url":null,"abstract":"Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. [xxii, 298 p. ISBN: 9780195111101. $27.95 (hardcover)] Broadway Legacies. Illustrations, appendices, index, and songs, shows, and films index.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"112 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132933983","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":"D. Kern Holoman. The Orchestra: A Very Short Introduction","authors":"M. Goldsmith","doi":"10.1558/jfm.v4i2.183","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.v4i2.183","url":null,"abstract":"Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. [iv, 158 pp. ISBN: 9780199760282. $11.95 (trade paper)] Very Short Introductions. Illustrations, tables, sidebars, bibliography, and index.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"517 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123625057","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":"Bruce Johnson, ed. Earogenous Zones: Sound, Sexuality, and Cinema","authors":"Tony Fonseca","doi":"10.1558/jfm.v4i2.176","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.v4i2.176","url":null,"abstract":"London and Oakville, CT: Equinox, 2010. [x, 246 p. ISBN 9781845533182. $29.95 (trade paper)] Genre, Music, and Sound. Figures, musical examples, tables, and index.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"142 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-09-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128335774","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":"Remastered and Remaindered: Debussy’s Music, Nat King Cole’s Song, and David O. Selznick’s attempt at High Art on a Low Budget*","authors":"S. R. Ellis","doi":"10.1558/JFM.V4I2.115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.V4I2.115","url":null,"abstract":"With the 1948 film Portrait of Jennie producer David O. Selznick wanted to create the motion picture version of “high” art. By using the music of Claude Debussy as the basis for the film’s score, Selznick aimed for a score that would lend the movie the intrinsic quality of “great” art. Yet a closer look at decisions regarding music for Jennie shows how Selznick could not control the signifying process. Jennie thus provides us with an important site for understanding the complexity of musical signification. The use of Debussy’s music as the basis for the majority of the film’s score not only projects the image of “high” art, but also that of the banal. In opposite fashion, a “popular” song left out of the score, due to its supposed banality, through the years takes on a new kind of artful quality, achieving the timelessness that Selznick desperately sought for his movie.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128799166","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":"Sir Arthur Bliss’s Music Things to Come (1936): A Study of Contemporaneous Sources and Musical Materials","authors":"N. W. Snedden","doi":"10.1558/JFM.V4I2.83","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1558/JFM.V4I2.83","url":null,"abstract":"At the invitation of H. G. Wells, Sir Arthur Bliss composed his first and most famous film score, Things to Come, over the period 1934–35. Wells had full artistic control over the film and insisted on the music being composed before shooting commenced. Recording the majority of the score in advance was highly irregular in terms of the musical practice adopted, and it is clear many modifications were made in order to fit the music to the film. Six months in advance of the film premiere, Bliss performed his Suite from Film Music during the 1935 BBC Proms season. Primary source materials related to the music are analyzed, including newly found 78 rpm records made by Bliss and a Denham Film Studios playback recording titled “Utopian Hymn.” Bliss’s landmark score is lost except for “No. 9 Attack on Moon Gun,” preserved at Cambridge University Library.","PeriodicalId":201559,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Film Music","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2014-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125198255","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}