Harmony series 2, bass/treble dissonance

TAs of March 20, 2024, the content of this post, including an example of music from the main title sequence for Casablanca, has been moved to a file published on the Texas ScholarWorks platform: Film Music: Some Posts from Blogs. 

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!

Harmony series 1, a passage in Casablanca

As of March 20, 2024, the content of this post has been moved to a file published on the Texas ScholarWorks platform: Film Music: Some Posts from Blogs. 

Foreign Correspondent

Last year Jeff Smith published an essay on David Bordwell's website Observations on Film Art: here is a link to "Spies face the music: Jeff Smith on FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT."

According to Smith, "if you want to get a handle on the basic features of the classical paradigm, Foreign Correspondent’s typicality makes it [very] useful as an exemplar.  Newman’s music neatly illustrates several of the traits commonly associated with the classical Hollywood score’s dramatic functions." The essay is in fact a detailed enumeration and interpretation of leitmotifs. Despite being somewhat understated in many places, Newman's score is densely constructed with musical themes, and Smith does an excellent job of unraveling the complicated web of themes and their uses.

Note: The leitmotif is initially discussed in Chapter 5 of Hearing the Movies, under "Characteristic Music Practices in the Later Silent Era," pp. 121 ff.

administrative post: updated links to files

Early next year, Dropbox is changing the public folder to a shared folder. Therefore, I have moved all files that were formerly on Dropbox to Google Drive. Here is a list with the new links:

Guide to the blog Hearing the Movies: link.

Sleepless in Seattle cue list: link.

My research vita: link.

Guide to the blog available

I have put together a Guide to this blog, which now has more than 260 posts going back to February 2009. Tags are even greater in number. This document offers a topical guide, including live links. You can find it here: Guide. Update 12-06-22: For reasons unknown, I am able to open this link in Chrome but not in Safari. If you're also having trouble with that, apologies.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Part 1: Posts relating to pedagogy, with collation to the textbook, second edition
Part 2: Topical List of All Other Posts
    Film Production and Presentation
    Sounds
Music Catalogues and Handbooks/Guides
Music and Musicians
Music and Effects: Advice and Opinion
Composer Articles and Interviews
Sound Effects
Voices
Film Futures
Part 3: Alphabetical List of All Posts by Title
Part 4: Chronological List of Posts on Early Cinema, with Introductory Texts
Part 5: Topical List of Tags
Film titles
Actors and Performers
Directors, Producers, and Studios      
Genres, Styles, and Eras
Film and Film Music Terms
Film Production and Exhibition: general      
Film Production and Exhibition: Equipment                  
Film Exhibition: Illustrated Song
Composers and Composition
Music Publication, including manuals and catalogues
Columnists, Article Authors, Textbook Authors, and Scholars  along with some titles
Hearing the Movies pedagogy
Places, including Cities and Theaters
Site Administration and Unclassified
Part 6: Alphabetical List of Tags
Appendix: Documents for Erno Rapee’s Encyclopedia referenced in this HtM blog post: Rapee

Review of HtM2

Blake Howe has written a thorough, thoughtful, and very practically minded review of currently available textbooks for undergraduate film and media music classes. Hearing the Movies, second edition, is included and receives some very complimentary remarks, which, needless to say, we are happy to hear: in particular, comments about the chronological organization in the new edition, the close readings in chapters 10, 12, and 14, and the expansion and better integration of the writing exercises from the first edition.

The citation is Journal of Music History Pedagogy 6 (2016). Here's a link: Howe review.