Empires of Sound

Empires of Sound: Music and Colonial Encounters in 20th-Century Narrative Film presents the first comprehensive interrogation of film music’s involvement with imperial and (settler-)colonial themes across narrative fiction features from the 1930s-1990s. It interprets a recurring ‘colonial sonic gaze’ in soundtracks over this time, from the blatant exoticism, orientalism and primitivism of scores for early sound film to more nuanced dualisms of self/Other through incorporation of world music sonorities by the century’s end. Chapter themes include the (mis)representation of Indigenous Americans by Max Steiner; scores for (British) Empire-themed film produced on both sides of the Atlantic; Maurice Jarre’s compositions for postcolonial screen narratives; unique approaches to music and sound in mid-century Australian cinema; soundtracks to end-of-empire narratives set in East Asia; scoring for mission-themed film in the Americas; and musical portrayals of slavery on screen and associated white saviour themes. Overall findings lead to the original conception of ‘film aurality’ as potentially enabling future reparative approaches to film musicology.