Lowering the Boom : Critical Studies in Film Sound / edited by Jay Beck and Tony Grajeda.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Beck, Jay, 1966- editor.

Grajeda, Tony, 1960- editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sound motion pictures.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (0 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Urbana : University of Illinois Press, [2008]

Summary:

As the first collection of new work on sound and cinema in over a decade, Lowering the Boom addresses the expanding field of film sound theory and its significance in rethinking historical models of film analysis. The contributors consider the ways in which musical expression, scoring, voice-over narration, and ambient noise affect identity formation and subjectivity. Lowering the Boom also analyzes how shifting modulation of the spoken word in cinema results in variations in audience interpretation. Introducing new methods of thinking about the interaction of sound and music in films, this volume also details avant-garde film sound, which is characterized by a distinct break from the narratively based sound practices of mainstream cinema. This interdisciplinary, global approach to the theory and history of film sound opens the eyes and ears of film scholars, practitioners, and students to film's true audio-visual nature. Contributors are Jay Beck, John Belton, Clark Farmer, Paul Grainge, Tony Grajeda, David T. Johnson, Anahid Kassabian, David Laderman, James Lastra, Arnt Maasø, Matthew Malsky, Barry Mauer, Robert Miklitsch, Nancy Newman, Melissa Ragona, Petr Szczepanik, Paul Théberge, and Debra White-Stanley.

Contents:

Intro

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Future of Film Sound Studies

New Approaches to Film Sound Studies

Alternative Paths

"Dark Corners" Revisited

Part I: Theorizing Sound

1. The Phenomenology of Film Sound: Robert Bresson's A Man Escaped

2. The Proxemics of the Mediated Voice

Body and Voice as Signifiers of a Communicative Relationship

Spatial Listening

Earlier Analyses of Mediated Voices

Mediation and Proxemics

Three Levels of Analysis

Snapshots from a Study

The Schizophonic Shout

The Schizophonic Average

Lowering the Boom?

3. Almost Silent: The Interplay of Sound and Silence in Contemporary Cinema and Television

When Is a Soundtrack "Silent"?

Relational Silences within the Soundtrack

Structural, Stylistic, and Generic Silences

Conclusion: Fade to Silence ...

4. The Sounds of "Silence": Dolby Stereo, Sound Design, and The Silence of the Lambs

Dolby Stereo

The Predominance of the Vertical

or, "There Is No Sound Designer"

The Silence of the Lambs

Part II: Historicizing Sound

5. Sonic Imagination

Or, Film Sound as a Discursive Construct in Czech Culture of the Transitional Period

Cinema Is No Longer Cinema-It Is a New Medium

Mechanism versus Organism

The Search for a New Synthesis: Synesthesia and Opto-phonogeny

Sound Cinema as a New Communication and Recording Medium

Noise versus Speech, the Noises of Speech, and the Spoken Word as Autonomous Action

6. Sounds of the City: Alfred Newman's "Street Scene" and Urban Modernity

"Street Scene" Recycled

"Street Scene" and the City: How Modernity Was Articulated and Mediated

Street Scene and the Sounds of the City, 1931

Interlude: "Street Scene" in the City, 1931-41

I Wake Up Screaming in the City, 1941

A Tale of the Suburbs, 1953

7. Film and the Wagnerian Aspiration: Thoughts on Sound Design and the History of the Senses

Sound Design, 1979, Part 1

Sound Design, 1856

Sound Design, 1915, Part 1

Sound Design, 1958

Sound Design, 1979, Part 2

Sound Design, 1915, Part 2

Part III: Sound and Genre

8. Asynchronous Documentary: Buñuel's Land without Bread

Structural Tensions

Forces of Redemption

Reflexive Documentary

Historical Contexts

Cinema as Truth

Cinema as Sacrifice

9. "We'll Make a Paderewski of You Yet!": Acoustic Reflections in The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T

"Practice until You Are Perfect!"

Magic in the Mother's Voice: "You Really Are Missing the Beat!"

The Man of My Dreams

or, "You're Working for Me Now!"

"I Don't Think the Piano's My Instrument!"

Coda

10. Paul Sharits's Cinematics of Sound

11. "Every Beautiful Sound Also Creates an Equally Beautiful Picture": Color Music and Walt Disney's Fantasia

Color Music and Musical Painting

Three Models of the Sound-Color Analogy

Notes:

Color Music and Walt Disney's Fantasia

Description based upon print version of record.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-252-05696-5

OCLC:

1409030655