Category: Film Music and Sound

Film, Film Music and Sound

Distant Voices, Still Lives (Part 3) – Music, Memory and Society.

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5. Part 6. Music, Memory and Society. Adorno and Eisler argue that: “As a matter of principle, priority goes to the truly novel musical resources. However, motion-picture music can also summon other musical resources of the most varied nature, on the condition that it reaches the most advanced contemporary modes of composing, which are characterized by … Continue reading Distant Voices, Still Lives (Part 3) – Music, Memory and Society.

Unknown's avataradamscovell2 Comments
Film, Film Music and Sound

Train to Train – Early Rhythms of Silent Film (Lumière and Keaton)

During the first quarter of film history, film language very quickly cemented itself into forms that would stay that way in mainstream cinema until the middle of the 20th century. Looking back at the surviving imagery of the first era of film (i.e. the silent era), it’s easy to see how these forms quickly solidified and became the norm for the typical and the innovative … Continue reading Train to Train – Early Rhythms of Silent Film (Lumière and Keaton)

Unknown's avataradamscovellLeave a comment
Film, Film Music and Sound

Distant Voices, Still Lives – Sounds of the Past. (Part 2)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 The Sounds of the Past “To this inexorable, insidious awareness of your own dependence on your past, like an illness that grows even harder to bear, I gave the name “Nostalgia”…” (Tarkovsky, 1986, p.206) One of Distant Voices, Still Lives’ key differences to all that had gone before in the canon of British working class … Continue reading Distant Voices, Still Lives – Sounds of the Past. (Part 2)

Unknown's avataradamscovell4 Comments
Film, Film Music and Sound

Antichrist (Lars von Trier) and Handel’s Aria (Lascia ch’io pianga)

Lars von Trier’s recent film work often uses very specific musical cues within its narrative framework.  His visual style has developed very clearly beyond his self-imposed Dogma ’95 rulings, and his sound world also reflects this almost seismic change. Though music is equally as imposing in his 2011 Melancholia, the music used in his controversial 2009 film, Antichrist, sums up this sparse but very specific musical … Continue reading Antichrist (Lars von Trier) and Handel’s Aria (Lascia ch’io pianga)

Unknown's avataradamscovellLeave a comment
Film, Film Music and Sound

The Problematic Reception of Derek Jarman’s Blue – Part 5 (Home Viewings and Conclusions)

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Home Viewing of Blue and New Reception Possibilities. “Say you were struck down tomorrow, what would your monument be?” – Dr Mathew Herbert. “Oh nothing, because film disappears, thank God.” – Derek Jarman (1993, p.117) There is an unstated irony within this essay in the fact that this writer has never been able to experience Blue in … Continue reading The Problematic Reception of Derek Jarman’s Blue – Part 5 (Home Viewings and Conclusions)

Unknown's avataradamscovell1 Comment
Film, Film Music and Sound

Persona (1966) – Consequences of a Silent World (Ingmar Bergman)

This article contains spoilers. Though drenched in visual complexities and sharp, hap-hazard editing, Ingmar Bergman’s Persona (1966) is film that is aurally interesting as it is exhilarating to view.  Its opening segment of film footage from all corners of cinematic life, spliced together to form a montage of passing thoughts and nightmares, is actually a beautifully put together piece of sound editing as well.  This … Continue reading Persona (1966) – Consequences of a Silent World (Ingmar Bergman)

Unknown's avataradamscovellLeave a comment
Film, Film Music and Sound

Distant Voices, Still Lives – Nostalgia and Hardship Through Sound & Music (Part 1).

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Working Class Pasts – Nostalgia and Past Hardship Through Sound and Music. “Since the 1970s especially, the tendency has grown for directors to indulge their own musical tastes in scoring a film” (Gorbman, 2006, p.17). Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) – Differences in Time. Terence Davies’ autobiographical second feature is the last film to be examined.  Unlike … Continue reading Distant Voices, Still Lives – Nostalgia and Hardship Through Sound & Music (Part 1).

Unknown's avataradamscovell4 Comments
Film, Film Music and Sound

The Problematic Reception of Derek Jarman’s Blue – Part 4 (New Technological Contexts).

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 The Reception of Blue in New Technological Forms and Contexts. “The degree to which the spectator identifies with the diegesis as his/her own hallucination fluctuates from spectator to spectator, from narrative moment to moment, from genre to genre.” (Gorbman, 1987, p.45). It is very hard to experience Blue today in the intended format that Jarman produced it in.  This … Continue reading The Problematic Reception of Derek Jarman’s Blue – Part 4 (New Technological Contexts).

Unknown's avataradamscovell2 Comments
Film, Film Music and Sound

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner – Use of Music and Sound In British Working Class Film (Part 4).

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. The Metaphorical Use of Diegetic Sound and Music. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner has several different uses of sound; two of which aren’t musical.  The title perhaps gives a hint that the sound of running feet on a hard ground will play a vital role in the film.  This rhythmic, … Continue reading The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner – Use of Music and Sound In British Working Class Film (Part 4).

Unknown's avataradamscovell6 Comments
Film, Film Music and Sound

The Problematic Reception of Derek Jarman’s Blue – Part 3 (Cinematic Screenings).

Part 1 Part 2 Blue’s cinematic screening – Readings, Reception and Contradictions. “Whilst homosexuals die, many heterosexuals reach for the remote control and simply turn up the volume.  Does it come in stereo?” (Jarman, 1993, p.138) The screening of Blue in cinemas during its 1993 release date is its most typical form though screenings were rare and often film festival based rather than through a … Continue reading The Problematic Reception of Derek Jarman’s Blue – Part 3 (Cinematic Screenings).

Unknown's avataradamscovell2 Comments