Palgrave Studies in Audio-Visual Culture – serie

The Sounds of Silent Films is a unique collection of investigatory and theoretical essays that, for the first time, unite up-to-date research on the complex historical performance practices of silent film accompaniment with in-depth analyses of relevant case studies.

In recent years, there has been something of an explosion in the performance of live music to silent films. This book is the first of its kind in that it aims to bring together writings and interviews to delineate the culture of providing music for silent films.

The Musicality of Narrative Film is the first book to examine in depth the film/music analogy. Using comparative analysis, Kulezic-Wilson explores film's musical potential, arguing that film's musicality can be achieved through various cinematic devices, with or without music.

Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, The Visual Music Film explores the concept and expression of musicality in the visual music film, in which visual presentations are given musical attributes such as rhythmical form, structure and harmony.

The Sounds of Silent Films is a unique collection of investigatory and theoretical essays that, for the first time, unite up-to-date research on the complex historical performance practices of silent film accompaniment with in-depth analyses of relevant case studies.

The Musicality of Narrative Film is the first book to examine in depth the film/music analogy. Using comparative analysis, Kulezic-Wilson explores film's musical potential, arguing that film's musicality can be achieved through various cinematic devices, with or without music.

Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, The Visual Music Film explores the concept and expression of musicality in the visual music film, in which visual presentations are given musical attributes such as rhythmical form, structure and harmony.

In recent years, there has been something of an explosion in the performance of live music to silent films. This book is the first of its kind in that it aims to bring together writings and interviews to delineate the culture of providing music for silent films.

Intersecting Film, Music, and Queerness uses musicology and queer theory to uncover meaning and message in canonical American cinema.

Utilising film musicals ranging from those by Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to von Trier’s Dancer in the Dark (2000), Feeling Film: A Spatial Approach investigates how we might go about understanding the audience's spatial relationship with film aesthetics, what it might look like, and the tools needed to conduct analysis.

This book explores the concept of incongruent film music, challenging the idea that this label only describes music that is inappropriate or misfitting for a film’s images and narrative.

This book looks at the uses of popular music in the newly-redefined category of the nostalgia game, exploring the relationship between video games, popular music, nostalgia, and socio-cultural contexts.

This book serves as a comprehensive investigation into the ways in which current scholars working with sound are re-inventing acoustic ecology across diverse fields, drawing on acoustic ecology’s focus on sensory experience, place, and applied research, as well as attendance to mediatized practices in sounded space.

This book serves as a comprehensive investigation into the ways in which current scholars working with sound are re-inventing acoustic ecology across diverse fields, drawing on acoustic ecology’s focus on sensory experience, place, and applied research, as well as attendance to mediatized practices in sounded space.

By dividing this period into five phases—The Classical American Musical Phase, The British Invasion Phase, The New Hollywood Alienation Phase, The Disco Phase and The Post-Disco Conservative Phase—the book pinpoints key moments at which individual developments occurred and lays out a path of expansion in popular music function.

By dividing this period into five phases—The Classical American Musical Phase, The British Invasion Phase, The New Hollywood Alienation Phase, The Disco Phase and The Post-Disco Conservative Phase—the book pinpoints key moments at which individual developments occurred and lays out a path of expansion in popular music function.

This book offers a fresh approach to British film music by tracing the influence of Britain’s musical heritage on the film scores of this era.

This book offers a fresh approach to British film music by tracing the influence of Britain’s musical heritage on the film scores of this era.

This open access collection deals with musical moments in film as one of the most pivotal and compelling issues of current film music research. Musical moments as defined by Amy Herzog occur when a musical number inverts the normal relationship between the image track and the soundtrack in a film in such a way that what we see is determined by what we hear. As one potential approach, this definition provokes a variety of perspectives to investigate the disruptive potential of these moments and numbers as a creative device in the production of audiovisual narratives. In this sense, the book responds to a need for an anthology that introduces students as well as scholars of cinema, musicology, media studies and cultural studies more broadly, to recent discourses in film music scholarship. The volume includes contributions by early career researchers as well as by established experts in the fields of musicology, film studies, media studies, and cultural studies, promoting cross-disciplinary collaboration in film music research.

This book reconsiders audiovisual culture through a focus on human perception, with recourse to ideas derived from recent neuroscience. It proceeds from the assumption that rather than simply working on a straightforward cognitive level audiovisual culture also functions more fundamentally on a physiological level, directly exploiting precise aspects of human perception. Vision and hearing are unified in a merged signal in the brain through being processed in the same areas. This is illustrated by the startling ‘McGurk Effect’, whereby the perception of spoken sound is changed by its accompanying image, and counterpart effects which demonstrate that what we see is affected by different sounds accompanying sounds. This blending of sound and images into a whole has become a universal aspect of culture, not only evident in films and television but also in video games and short Internet clips. Indeed, this aesthetic formation has become the dominant of this period. The McGurk Universe attends to how audiovisual culture engages with and mediates between physiological and psychological levels.

This book reconsiders audiovisual culture through a focus on human perception, with recourse to ideas derived from recent neuroscience. It proceeds from the assumption that rather than simply working on a straightforward cognitive level audiovisual culture also functions more fundamentally on a physiological level, directly exploiting precise aspects of human perception. Vision and hearing are unified in a merged signal in the brain through being processed in the same areas. This is illustrated by the startling ‘McGurk Effect’, whereby the perception of spoken sound is changed by its accompanying image, and counterpart effects which demonstrate that what we see is affected by different sounds accompanying sounds. This blending of sound and images into a whole has become a universal aspect of culture, not only evident in films and television but also in video games and short Internet clips. Indeed, this aesthetic formation has become the dominant of this period. The McGurk Universe attends to how audiovisual culture engages with and mediates between physiological and psychological levels.

This book focuses on the aural and musical sphere of fictional audio-visual reconstructions of the Holocaust, a defining event in the history of the 20th century. The author understands the soundtrack of these films as an affective mediator of time, which connects filmic representations of the past with the present.

This book focuses on the aural and musical sphere of fictional audio-visual reconstructions of the Holocaust, a defining event in the history of the 20th century. Musicology has seen an increasing number of works on the function of film music and the construction of identity in media contexts in recent years. This project analyses the use of music in feature films about the Shoah. The analysis of 'the sound of Nazi violence', as well as the escape from and resistance against it, not only reveals a lot about the construction of the filmic characters' emotive states, but also tells us more about our own relationship to the past. The author understands the soundtrack of these films as an affective mediator of time, which connects filmic representations of the past with the present. Analysis focuses on the soundtracks of four films: Schindler's List, The Pianist, Taking Sides and Inglourious Basterds.

This book approaches music in audiovisual culture as a complex merged signal rather than as a simple ‘addition’ to the images of film. The audiovisual is central to modern culture, with screens and speakers (including headphones) dominating communication, leisure and drama. While this book mostly addresses film, it also deals with sister media such as television and video games, registering that there is a ‘common core’ of synchronized image and sound at the heart of these different but related media. The traditions of sound and what Michel Chion calls ‘audiovision’ (1994), including principles of accompaniment and industrial processes from film, have been retained and developed in other media. This book engages with the rich history, and varied genres, different traditions and variant strategies of audiovisual culture. However, it also points to and emphasizes the ‘common core’ of flat moving images and synchronized sound and music which marks a dominant in electronic media culture (what might be called ‘screen and speaker/diaphragm culture’).Addressing music as both diegetic and non-diegetic, as both songs and score, the analyses presented in this book aim to attend the precise interaction between music and other elements of audiovisual culture as defining overall configurations. While many writings about music in audiovisual culture focus on ‘what it communicates’, its processes are more complicated and can form a crucial semi-conscious (or perhaps unconscious) background. While music’s effect might be far from simple and unified, part of screen music’s startling effect comes from its unity with the image. Cross-modal ‘crosstalk’ between sound and image forms a whole new signal of its own. Each chapter marks a case study making for a varied collection that embraces rich history and different traditions, as well as the distinct aesthetic boldness of different genres and formats.

This book approaches music in audiovisual culture as a complex merged signal rather than as a simple ‘addition’ to the images of film. The audiovisual is central to modern culture, with screens and speakers (including headphones) dominating communication, leisure and drama. While this book mostly addresses film, it also deals with sister media such as television and video games, registering that there is a ‘common core’ of synchronized image and sound at the heart of these different but related media. The traditions of sound and what Michel Chion calls ‘audiovision’ (1994), including principles of accompaniment and industrial processes from film, have been retained and developed in other media. This book engages with the rich history, and varied genres, different traditions and variant strategies of audiovisual culture. However, it also points to and emphasizes the ‘common core’ of flat moving images and synchronized sound and music which marks a dominant in electronic media culture (what might be called ‘screen and speaker/diaphragm culture’).Addressing music as both diegetic and non-diegetic, as both songs and score, the analyses presented in this book aim to attend the precise interaction between music and other elements of audiovisual culture as defining overall configurations. While many writings about music in audiovisual culture focus on ‘what it communicates’, its processes are more complicated and can form a crucial semi-conscious (or perhaps unconscious) background. While music’s effect might be far from simple and unified, part of screen music’s startling effect comes from its unity with the image. Cross-modal ‘crosstalk’ between sound and image forms a whole new signal of its own. Each chapter marks a case study making for a varied collection that embraces rich history and different traditions, as well as the distinct aesthetic boldness of different genres and formats.

The field of Film-Music Studies has been increasingly dominated by musicologists; this book brings the discipline back squarely into the domain of Film Studies, offering an approach in which music and visuals are seen as equal players in the game. Blending Neoformalism with Gestalt psychology and Leonard B. Meyer's musicology, this study treats music as a cinematic element, offering scholars and students of both music and film a set of tools to help them analyse the wide-ranging impact that music has in films. This second edition provides an updated survey of the field and a new chapter featuring additional case studies, including a novel analytical category for studying the contemporary 'sound-design style' film music.

This book explores the synergetic cooperation and sometimes complex relationship between Western pop songs and East Asian films. While much research has examined the impact of songs in films, the nuances that emerge when films and songs come from different cultural contexts has not been as widely explored.

This book offers a groundbreaking exploration of how music represents enigma in film, shedding light on a subject that is both elusive and under-researched. Enigmatic phenomena, which are often inaccessible and hard to define, are regularly depicted in cinema.  With its intrinsic connection to emotion, music enhances the representation and interpretation of these mysteries, creating, intensifying, and addressing the inscrutable and providing emotional understanding where science and logic may fall short.Music and Enigma in Film categorizes enigmas into four main themes: religion, mythology, the paranormal, and the inexplicable, which serve as the structural foundation for the discussion. Through a musicological lens, chapters investigate how film music presents and invokes these enigmatic themes, analyzing the role of different music genres, sonic elements, and the relationship between sound and image. The book also explores the psychological mechanisms of musical perception—such as synaesthesia and Gestalt perception—that facilitate the comprehension of mysterious parameters in film music, inviting readers to consider the similarities between these mechanisms and specific musical attributes. Readers will also discover how music expresses ideological meaning by exploring the historical and cultural connotations that underpin the enigmatic undertones of film music.Music and Enigma in Film is an invaluable resource for scholars and students of film studies, musicology, and cultural studies, as well as filmmakers and composers fascinated by the mysterious interplay of sound and image in cinema