Writing exercises and analyses using Film Art: An Introduction

When we first conceived the idea of a film music and sound textbook nine years ago, we modeled the work on David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson's Film Art: An Introduction, not only for its rare combination of high standards and clear presentation but also for its focus on film analysis. As Bordwell puts it,

[The book is] aimed at undergraduate students and general readers who want a comprehensive and systematic introduction to film aesthetics. It considers common types of films, principles of narrative and non-narrative form, basic film techniques, and strategies of writing about films. It also puts film art in the context of changes across history.  (description on website: link)   [link checked on 3-08-2024]

 Film Art is now in its 11th edition. With the various content transformations along the way, several short analyses were deleted, but David has generously posted them to his website (at the same link as the quote above). Here is the list of film titles, in reverse chronological order:   [list checked on 3-08-2024]  

The Prestige. dir. Christopher Nolan, 2006.
Hannah and Her Sisters. dir. Woody Allen, 1985.
Desperately Seeking Susan. dir. Susan Seidelman, 1985.
Fuji. dir. Robert Breer, 1974.
Tout va bien. dir. Jean-Luc Godard, 1972.
High School. dir. Frederick Wiseman, 1968.
Innocence Unprotected. dir. Dušan Makavejev, 1968.
Last Year at Marienbad. dir. Alain Resnais, 1961.
A Movie. dir. Bruce Conner, 1958.
A Man Escaped. dir. Robert Bresson, 1956.
Day of Wrath. dir. Carl Dreyer, 1943.
Stagecoach. dir. John Ford, 1939.
Clock Cleaners. dir. Walt Disney, 1937.
The Man Who Knew Too Much. dir. Alfred Hitchcock, 1934.

 Since each of these analyses was intended as a self-contained section within a chapter, we can look at them as models for student analysis and writing exercises, even if only one of them focuses on sound (and none on music). These essays will be immediately relevant to chapters 8 and 15 in Hearing the Movies, and the compare-contrast writing exercises in Chapters 8 and 10, of course, but may be useful elsewhere for readings, assignments, or background reading for student projects. Of course, many similar analyses in the current edition of Film Art can be used for the same purpose!

Music in Up

The recent Disney animated film Up has a large amount of underscore. Michael Giacchino, who has had a longtime association with Disney, seems to be everywhere in the past few years. Instructors might use this score as a foil to a traditional adventure-fantasy film score from the 1930s or 1950s, or perhaps to a family character drama (in the vein of It's a Wonderful Life). All the traditional devices are here, in all the right places, but the sound of the score is slightly different. It would be interesting for students to speculate on what that difference is and also what it means for the film to employ traditional film-music techniques and an (almost) traditional style in this way -- or, more generally, what it means for music to be deployed this way in the present day.

There is, btw, a nicely done "time passing" montage near the beginning of the film.

One of the traditional elements of the score's design is the use of character themes. I will admit that I completely missed the thematic construction and focused on topical associations when I saw the film for the first time. It would be an interesting empirical study to find out the percentages of viewers who respond to a film's music topically or thematically on first viewing.