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 … Continue reading A Musicological Study of Ken Russell’s Composer Films – Part 1 (Introduction).
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 … Continue reading The Music of Folk Horror – Part 4 (The Wicker Man’s Narrative Functionality).
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 … Continue reading Analysis of Sound and Music in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) – Part 4 (Conclusions)
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 … Continue reading Analysis of Sound and Music in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) – Part 3 (Acousmatic Concepts)
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 … Continue reading The Lady Vanishes (Alfred Hitchcock, 1938) – Early Uses of Musical, Narrative Tools.
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 … Continue reading The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner – Use of Music and Sound In British Working Class Film (Part 4).
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 … Continue reading The Problematic Reception of Derek Jarman’s Blue – Part 3 (Cinematic Screenings).
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 … Continue reading The Persistence of Modernity in Japanese Film Scores – Part 3 (J-Horror, Kwaidan and House)
