Towards a Theory of Musicodramatic Practice in Film
Questions of Method
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jfm.v5i1-2.199Keywords:
Methodology, phenomenology, metaquestions, analysis, language, conceptual lagAbstract
Preliminary considerations are set out for a reassessment of the lineage of music for motion pictures, its cultural or social significance, and adequate methods for its analysis. These considerations mostly take the form of metaquestions of a methodological nature. Some of the strands in the development of the “language” of film, and film music specifically, are identified. Awareness of the shortcomings of a given monolithic explanation may lead not to a more refined explanation but to substituting a different single cause. Importantly, the field of study encompasses different generations of film music and film composer, each with differing priorities and limitations. Certain trends and key individuals create a weighting or gravitational pull in favor of certain expectations and conventions. The potential relevance of phenomenological method is considered. The impact of conceptual lag on methodology is examined. The central question becomes: What is specific to music in film compared to other types of music?
References
Berger, John. 1972. Ways of seeing. London: B.B.C./Penguin.
British Broadcasting Corporation. 1931. B.B.C. Year Book of 1931. London: British Broadcasting Corporation.
Carnap, Rudolf. 1932. The elimination of metaphysics through logical analysis of language, Erkenntnis 2; reprinted in Logical positivism, ed. A. J. Ayer, 60-81. New York: Free Press, 1959.
Carroll, Noël. 1996. Prospects for film theory: a personal assessment. In Post-theory: reconstructing film studies, David Bordwell and Noël Carroll, 37-70. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Chion, Michel. 1999. The voice in cinema. Trans. Claudia Gorbman. New York: Columbia University Press.
Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. 1984. Anti-Oedipus. Trans. Robert Hurley, Mark Seem, and Helen R. Lane. London: Athlone Press.
Eisenstein, Sergei. 1977. Film form. San Diego: Harvest.
Flaubert, Gustave. 1950. Madame Bovary. Trans. Alan Russell. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Frazer John. 1979. Artifically arranged scenes: the films of Georges Méliès. Boston: G. H. Hall.
Hubbert, Julie, ed. 2011. Celluloid symphonies. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Joe, Jeongwon and Rose Theresa, eds. 2002. Between opera and cinema. London: Routledge.
Krows, Arthur Edwin. 1930. The talkies. New York: Henry Holt & Company.
Kunzle, David. 1973. The early comic strip: narrative strips and picture stories in the European broadsheet from c.1450 to 1825. Berkeley: University of California Press.
———. 1990. The history of the comic strip, vol. 2: The nineteenth century. Berkeley: University of California Press.
———. 2007. Father of the comic strip: Rodolphe Töpffer. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Lacassin Francis. 1971. Pour un neuvième art: la bande dessinée. Paris: Christian Bourgois.
———. 1972. Pour une contre-histoire du cinéma. Paris: 10/18.
Naremore James. 1988. Acting in the cinema. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Prendergast Roy M. 1977. A neglected art. New York: New York University Press.
Runciman W. G. 1983, 1989, 1997. A treatise on social theory, 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sanderson, Richard. 1977. A historical study of the development of American motion picture content and techniques prior to 1904. New York: Arno Press.
