Seeing Through Music: Gender and Modernism in Classic Hollywood Film Scores

— —

Peter Franklin (Professor of Music, Professor of Music, Oxford University, Oxford)

Seeing Through Music

Gender and Modernism in Classic Hollywood Film Scores

Peter Franklin (Professor of Music, Professor of Music, Oxford University, Oxford)

$81.95

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

Availability Information

We source books from suppliers in Australia and overseas. For books we don't currently have in stock, the time it takes to get them from our suppliers can vary widely - from a few days to a few months - so we check each book with each supplier to determine the expected time it will take to be supplied to us.

We then advise you accordingly. If the time taken to get any book is too long for you, you can let us know and we will cancel or adjust your order, and refund as required.

To find out the anticipated arrival time for specific items prior to ordering, please contact us by phone or email:

Phone +61 2 9264 3111, or 1800 4 BOOKS (1800 4 26657) if outside Sydney:
option 1 Abbey's Bookshop (Crime, History, Science, Kids & more) • info@abbeys.com.au
option 2 Language Book Centre (ESL & Foreign Languages) • language@abbeys.com.au
option 3 Galaxy Bookshop (Sci-fi, Fantasy, Romance, Graphic Novels) • sf@galaxybooks.com.au

QTY:

English

Oxford University Press Inc
23 July 2015

Film theory & criticism; Musical scores, lyrics & libretti; Gender studies: women

Series: Oxford Music/Media Series

"Hollywood film music is often mocked as a disreputably ""applied"" branch of the art of composition that lacks both the seriousness and the quality of the classical or late-romantic concert and operatic music from which it derives. Its composers in the 1930s and '40s were themselves often scornful of it and aspired to produce more 'serious' works that would enhance their artistic reputation. In fact the criticism of film music as slavishly descriptive or manipulatively over-emotional has a history that is older than film - it had even been directed at the relatively popular operatic and concert music written by some of the émigré Hollywood composers themselves before they had left Europe. There, as subsequently in America, such criticism was promoted by the developing project of Modernism, whose often high-minded opposition to mass culture used polarizing language that drew, intentionally or not, upon that of gender difference. Regressive, late-romantic music, the old argument ran, was -- as women were believed to be -- emotional, irrational, and lacking in logic.

This book seeks to level the critical playing field between film music and ""serious music,"" reflecting upon gender-related ideas about music and modernism as much as about film. Peter Franklin broaches the possibility of a history of twentieth-century music that would include, rather than marginalize, film music -- and, indeed, the scores of a number of the major Hollywood movies discussed here, like The Bride of Frankenstein, King Kong, Rebecca, Gone With The Wind, Citizen Kane and Psycho. In doing so, he brings more detailed music-historical knowledge to bear upon cinema music, often discussed as a unique and special product of film, and also offers conclusions about the problematic aspects of musical modernism and some arguably liberating aspects of ""late-romanticism."""

By: Peter Franklin (Professor of Music Professor of Music Oxford University Oxford)
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 236mm, Width: 158mm, Spine: 13mm
Weight: 296g
ISBN: 9780190246549
ISBN 10: 0190246545
Series: Oxford Music/Media Series
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 23 July 2015
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , A / AS level , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Peter Franklin is author of Mahler: Symphony No. 3, The Life of Mahler, and Reclaiming Late-Romantic Music: Singing Devils and Distant Sounds.

Reviews for Seeing Through Music: Gender and Modernism in Classic Hollywood Film Scores

Franklin examines the gendered tenets of Modernism that relegated film scores - along with Mahler and Rachmaninoff - to the cultural dumpster. He brilliantly dissects 20th-century canon formation and serves up luscious accounts of how music produces its powerful effects in favorite movies. Guilty pleasures exonerated! --Susan McClary, Professor of Music, UCLA Seeing Through Music breaks through entrenched cliches and uses symphonic film music to help rewrite the history of modernism and mass culture. Read this book, and trade your guilty pleasure in old movies and their music for guilt-free insight. --Lawrence Kramer, author of Interpreting Music Fascinating...highly recommended. --Choice An excellent contribution to the scholarly literature on both film music and musical modernism. Its significance lies in the way it links the two, allowing each to shed important light on the reception and aesthetic assumptions of the other. --Notes Invaluable for presenting a new perspective on the heavily examined topic of classic Hollywood films...Hopefully the groundwork it lays down will aid future scholars to fill the gaps extant in relation to the study and significance of film music. --Alphaville