BA Film Studies and German / Course details

This course explores the use of music in Hollywood Cinema up to the present day.  Our focus will be on how music has worked to both support and undermine the dominant ideology of Hollywood Cinema. We will discuss the concept of the Classical Hollywood Score and how it has functioned in partnership with the Classical Hollywood Narrative. Key developments and composers in Hollywood film music will be studied and particular emphasis will be given to the themes of gender and Black American music. Case studies include Fantasia, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Vertigo, Odds Against Tomorrow, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Do the Right Thing and The Empire Strikes Back. Students will be encouraged to work on a piece of music editing to the film of their choice in the final assignment. You do not need to be a musician to do this course! The emphasis will be on music's ideological function rather than musicological analysis. 

• To explore the development of film music in Hollywood cinema
• To develop awareness of the semiotic function of film music and how it can be put to ideological use to encourage students
• To apply an awareness of the necessary aesthetic strategies and ideological implications involved in using music for their own practical work

• Demonstrate awareness of the principles of the classical Hollywood score and how certain films have challenged and subverted them
• Identify and describe the way in which music functions ideologically in terms of race, gender and sexuality
• Show familiarity with the style and function of key composers and idioms (particularly Bernard Herrmann, Erich Wolfgang Korngold and the use of Black American and atonal music in film)
• Show awareness of and be able to account for any social and historical factors that contribute to the development of film music
• Translate an awareness of film music into individual research for seminars, essays and practical projects

• Critically analyse and interrogate films, scores and related sources (posters, trailers, reviews, industry documents and soundtrack recordings)
• Contextualise historically films, scores and practitioners, and to draw on contextualisation to develop understanding
• Critically evaluate a series of films, scores, practitioners and genres in relation to key moments of socio-political change in relevant territories
• Synthesise theoretical terms and concepts and apply these to analysis, argument and creative practice

• Research academic and non-academic materials, and evaluate the effectiveness of these materials as supporting evidence for individual essays, seminar presentations and creative projects
• Plan, undertake and evaluate independent critical and creative work
• Use relevant software to collect, compile and present audio-visual material for presentations and remix projects
• Communicate research material both verbally, audio-visually and in writing
• Develop and/or acquire skills in digital editing

• Demonstrate an ability to communicate effectively with others about intellectually demanding concepts, topics, materials
• Demonstrate an ability to draw with accuracy, focus, detail and precision on complex materials in independent work
• Demonstrate an ability to effectively present – through discussion and in writing – complex topics, drawing convincingly on oral, written and audio-visual media as appropriate to the topic

Feedback Method                            Formative or Summative

Seminar Presentation - oral               Formative

Essays – oral and written                   Formative and summative

Practical Project – oral and written     Formative and summative

Consultation on essays and                Formative
practical projects - oral
 

Brown, Royal. 1994. Overtones and Undertones: Reading Film Music. Berkeley and Los  Angeles: University of California Press.

Butler, David. 2002. Jazz Noir: Listening to Music from Phantom Lady to The Last Seduction.  Westport: Praeger.

Cooke, Mervyn. 2008. A History of Film Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.  

Cooke, Mervyn and Ford, Fiona (eds). 2016. The Cambridge Companion to Film Music. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Gabbard, Krin. 1996. Jammin’ at the Margins: Jazz and the American Cinema. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Gorbman, Claudia. 1987. Unheard Melodies: Narrative Film Music. London: British Film Institute.

Kassabian, Anahid. 2001. Hearing Film: Tracking Identifications in Contemporary Hollywood Film Music. London and New York: Routledge.

Ramsey, Guthrie. 2003. Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop. Berkeley: University of California Press.