Film/Music Analysis - A Film Studies Approach

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.

List of contents

Introduction: Who Is Entitled to Study Film Music?.- PART 1: Pars Destruens.- Chapter 1: The Not-So-Fantastical Gap between Music Studies and Film Studies.- Chapter 2: Some Recent Attempts to Bridge the Gap.- PART 2: Pars Construens.- Chapter 3: The Neoformalist Proposal.- Chapter 4: Film/Music Analysis I: Music, Gestalt, and Audiovisual Isomorphism.- Chapter 5: Film/Music Analysis II: Functions and Motivations of Music.- Chapter 6: Film/Music Analysis III: Historiography and Film-Music Styles.- PART 3: Pars Demonstrans.- Chapter 7: A Few Illustrations of Film/Music Analysis.- Chapter 8: Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. The Extraterrestrial. The Bonding Power of Music.- Recapitulation and Final Thoughts.- References.- Filmography.

Product details

• Authors: Emilio Audissino
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English, German
• Product format: Hardback
• Release: 11.09.2025
• EAN: 9783031918988
• ISBN: 978-3-0-3191898-8
• No. of pages: 300
• Illustrations: Approx. 300 p. 20 illus., 10 illus. in color.
• Series: Palgrave Studies in Audio-Visual Culture
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Photography, film, video, TV; Filmgeschichte, Filmtheorie und Filmkritik, Musikwissenschaft und Musiktheorie, Film Theory, Film Studies, Theory of Music, Film Analysis, Film music, Gestalt Psychology, film musicology, neoformalism