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Film, Film Music and Sound

A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 1 (Introduction).

The Russell Prism: How Ken Russell’s Auteuristic Aesthetics Presents a Reception Study of Classical Music and its Composers. The following essay was a dummy-run dissertation for my Masters course before realising that the subject had already been covered thrice in audio-visual academia.  Though none of three essays analyse or go into the depth of the work (instead choosing to shoehorn their own subject matter through … Continue reading A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 1 (Introduction).

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The Music of Folk Horror – Part 4 (The Wicker Man’s Narrative Functionality).

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Narrative Functionality. The music of The Wicker Man, while having few boundaries in terms of the effect of its various functions on its narrative content, is split into several different types.  For this section, the specific type of music to be looked at is the folk song; a form that makes several appearance in the film with original compositions … Continue reading The Music of Folk Horror – Part 4 (The Wicker Man’s Narrative Functionality).

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Film, Film Music and Sound

Analysis of Sound and Music in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) – Part 4 (Conclusions)

Part 1. Part 2. Part 3.  Combining the Readings: Similarities, Contradictions and Cross-Over. “It’s as if the film were pinpointing the very essence of the unfilmable: the entwined couple, monstrous, the two-backed beast of the primal scene, the impossible couple of body and voice.” – Michel Chion (1999, p.149). While Murphy and Fenimore examine and address different points and issues, their resulting essays not only … Continue reading Analysis of Sound and Music in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) – Part 4 (Conclusions)

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Film, Film Music and Sound

Analysis of Sound and Music in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) – Part 3 (Acousmatic Concepts)

Part 1. Part 2. Emphasis on Acousmatic Concepts in Ross J. Fenimore’s “Voices that Lie Within”. “Psycho almost didn’t happen.  This is a unique case of music literally saving a film.” – Sullivan (2006, p.246). Like much literature around Psycho, Fenimore’s “Voices That Lie Within” begins its argument with setting the scene. “Psycho begins with a theft.”(2010, p.80) he begins as so many often do.  … Continue reading Analysis of Sound and Music in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) – Part 3 (Acousmatic Concepts)

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Film, Film Music and Sound

The Lady Vanishes (Alfred Hitchcock, 1938) – Early Uses of Musical, Narrative Tools.

Hitchcock’s early British films tend largely to be devoid of the interesting, endlessly analysable scores his later films have, (thanks mainly to Bernard Herrmann being sat at the musical helm).  It seems to have been an almost standard practice to use a handful of musical scores or fragments in the occasional scene but to largely leave the films musically blank outside of their opening and … Continue reading The Lady Vanishes (Alfred Hitchcock, 1938) – Early Uses of Musical, Narrative Tools.

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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).

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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).

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Film, Film Music and Sound

The Persistence of Modernity in Japanese Film Scores – Part 3 (J-Horror, Kwaidan and House)

Part 1 Part 2 J-Horror and the Balance of Traditional and Modern Asian Music (House and Kwadian) The term J-Horror is often used within the critical evaluation of modern day Japanese film, usually to denote the success of two low budget horror films; namely Ringu (1998) and Ju-On (2002).  It is somewhat of a misnomer that the genre and its musical practices can be defined … Continue reading The Persistence of Modernity in Japanese Film Scores – Part 3 (J-Horror, Kwaidan and House)

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