The Dancing Camera: Towards a theory of musical movement in film practice (original) (raw)
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The «Musicalised Image»: A Joint Aesthetic of Music and Image in Film
Aisthesis. Pratiche, linguaggi e saperi dell’estetico, 2019
Despite traditionally having been studied within the field of Musicology, the analysis of music in film should be approached as an aesthetic study of the relationship between «image» and «music» which is central to the cinematographic framework. From this interdisciplinary perspective numerous theoretical and methodologi-cal issues emerge. The aim of this article is to investigate, using both a synchronic and diachronic focus, some of the key issues arising from this joint music-image approach, in an attempt to develop a theoretical framework for a joint aesthetic of music and image: a study of «cinematographic expression» that brings together the visual and the sound dimensions and which we call the «musicalised image», a neologism of our own creation.
Music is a multi-parametric construct that operates at an almost subliminal level to support, highlight, complement, or even negate any other aspect of the cinematic experience. Current trends of film scoring reflect a fading interest in the associative dimensions of music; rather, composers now strive to contribute with a phenomenological score. It is primarily through embodiment, a hardwired process grounded in our physiology and cognition, that music functions phenomenologically within lm. Embodiment mediates signification, enabling the music to guide the audience’s attention toward particular visual events, to shape the perception of segmentation at micro- and macro-levels, to trigger a myriad of bodily states, and ultimately to present a unique perspective on the discourse of characters and cinematic narrative. Although most film-scoring techniques have gradually emerged through the intuitive use of music, interdisciplinary strands of scholarship from embodied cognition can be instrumental to examine these techniques from empirical and theoretical perspectives, and thus shed light on the logic that motivates the interaction between music and other facets of the cinematic experience.
The «Musicalisezd Image»: A Joint Aesthetic of Music and Image in Film
2019
Despite traditionally having been studied within the field of Musicology, the analysis of music in film should be approached as an aesthetic study of the relationship between «image» and «music» which is central to the cinematographic framework. From this interdisciplinary perspective numerous theoretical and methodological issues emerge. The aim of this article is to investigate, using both a synchronic and diachronic focus, some of the key issues arising from this joint music-image approach, in an attempt to develop a theoretical framework for a joint aesthetic of music and image: a study of «cinematographic expression» that brings together the visual and the sound dimensions and which we call the «musicalised image», a neologism of our own creation.
Interaction between Music and Image in Film – Presumptions and Typology
In this article I shall make an attempt to present a systematic model of the relationship between music and image in film. The interaction between music and image can be approached in various aspects. The functional aspect is one of the principle ones, when speaking about that. Glancing at this issue can distinguish several different types of this interaction. First of all the exploitation of music in film can be determined by merely practical and pragmatic functions as well as by commercial and ideological reasons (a pragmatic interaction). Seconds -formal compositional tasks, linking/separating, etc. structural functions (a structural interaction). Third -the reasons of rendering semantic functions, non musical (literary, narrative and like) senses (semantic interaction). Each of these interactions is realized by certain phenomenologically singled out situations of music and image contact: diegetic/non-diegetic (the source aspect), synchronicity-parallelism/asynchronicitycounterpoint (a community aspect), foregrounding/backgrounding (predominant aspect). The whole complex of phenomenological and functional aspects compose a hexagonal sound and image model embracing cardinal analytical points of cinema music.
Making Movies with Song: Movement, Style, and the Invitations of Music
Philosophy & Rhetoric 54.1, 2021
This essay responds to Alva Noë’s arguments that popular musics (rock, country, etc.) organize listeners through style and personality, while other musics, such as classical and jazz, organize listeners on the music itself. Noë’s arguments suggest that music is an existential phenomenon, and thus that music is ontological. There is much to like here, including the idea that musics can be existentially different. However, the work of pop musics cannot be confined solely to stylistics and personality; pop also has musical interest, which I explicate as the exploration of sound (3D)—timbre, groove, beat, tonality, texture, and so on. Classical, jazz, and other kinds of music may seek to emphasize the music itself (2D), but they are also caught up in style. Music, I conclude, is rhetorical in how it organizes or “moves” us, and we must attend to all its dimensions, musical and stylistic, in order to understand how so.
There is a Body in the Sound: Timbre and Embodiment in the Overlap of Film, Music, and Dance
2021
Dance, film, and music are living art forms. They unfold through time, motion, environments, and bodies. They take up shapes, rhythms, textures, and tones. They tell stories. And they often amplify one another in ways that I find deeply moving. In this dissertation, I argue that dance, film, and music move me not because they can intersect, but because they do. They are pieces of one another, enacting the very shapes and motions of living.This dissertation contributes to the growing scholarship at the edges of these overlapping disciplines. Drawing on new material feminism, theories of musical and cinematic embodiment, kinesthetic empathy in dance, and timbre studies, I propose a collection of theoretical models to analyze the coalescence of sound, bodies, motion, and meaning. These models include a semiotic approach to the analysis of timbre in film music (with a case study focus on musical timbre and spell sounds in the Harry Potter film saga), a system of music-dance analysis app...
Sound as choreographic object: A perceptual approach to the integration of sound in screendance
The Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies, 2016
‘Sound as choreographic object’ highlights the significance of sound within the field of screendance. It evaluates the perceptual position of sound within audiovisual mechanisms and positions sound’s communicative qualities as an essential contribution to sound film and possessing distinctive possibilities for screendance makers. It challenges the inherent ocularcentrism in film, and foregrounds sound’s cognitive interplay with the image in creating or dissolving illusions and by extension facilitating or disrupting narrative and temporal continuities. Paying special attention to sound and music in live-dance contexts, this chapter maps out some of the challenges for choreographers and composers in the transition to screendance. Highlighting film’s constructed relationship and the nature of the recording process, it focuses on the opportunities provided by the microphone and audio-editing to enable sound to become an integral choreographic component in dance filmmaking. By presenting the specific qualities that emerge when the audio and visual streams are synchronized a new temporal granularity is revealed. These thematic streams are presented via a range of works drawn from the history of film, screendance and music video.
The Not-so-fantastical Gap Between Music Studies and Film Studies
2017
The way is surveyed in which film music has been traditionally and typically approached by Music Studies, on the one hand, and Film Studies, on the other, highlighting the limitations that can be detected in each field—besides a disciplinary bias in which music is seen more as a music text (a score) rather than an element of the film, there is a ‘separatist conception’ in which music and film are seen as separate entities instead of two interacting elements of the same filmic system. Moreover, the preference for a communications model makes interpretation of meaning more important than the analysis of agency.