ABSTRACT

Since the establishment of film music studies, there has been a steady growth of serious analytical work on the film music repertoire. Film Music Analysis: Studying the Score offers the first collection of essays dedicated to the close investigation of musical structure and meaning in film music. Showcasing scholarship from a diverse and distinguished group of music theorists and musicologists, this book presents the many ways to inspect the inner workings of film music in a manner that is exciting and accessible to anyone curious about this music, regardless of their background in film or music theory.

Each chapter takes as its focus one music-theoretical parameter and explores how that concept can be used to analyze and interpret film music. Covering theoretical concepts that range from familiar categories such as leitmotif and pitch structure to more cutting-edge ideas such as timbral associativity, topic theory, and metrical states, the book provides a toolkit with which to explore this captivatingly varied repertoire. With example analyses drawn from classic and contemporary films, Film Music Analysis: Studying the Score is a valuable teaching tool and an indispensable addition to the library of any lover of film and music.

chapter 1|19 pages

Timbre in Film Music

Making Magic through Tone Color

chapter 2|26 pages

‘The click is your friend’

Film Scores and Tempo Analysis

chapter 4|24 pages

John Williams's Star Wars Themes

Good vs. Evil Conflicts as a Structural Principle for Leitmotifs

chapter 5|23 pages

Topic Theory and Film

Coming of Age in 1994's and 2019's Little Women

chapter 6|24 pages

A Matter of Time

Reality and Fantasy through Metrical Analysis in Contemporary Hollywood Film

chapter 7|22 pages

Film Music and Dialogic Form

chapter 8|17 pages

Tonal Analysis of the Integrated Soundtrack

Music, Sound, and Dialogue in Baby Driver

chapter 9|29 pages

Analyzing Musical Metamorphoses

Thematic Transformation in Shirley Walker's Batman

chapter 10|23 pages

Post-Tonal Theory and Hollywood Scores

Three Analytical Vignettes

chapter 11|23 pages

Attuning Serialism

David Shire's Scores for The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, 2010: The Year We Made Contact, and Zodiac