1st Edition

Music in Epic Film Listening to Spectacle

Edited By Stephen Meyer Copyright 2017
    258 Pages
    by Routledge

    258 Pages
    by Routledge

    As both a distinct genre and a particular mode of filmmaking, the idea of the epic has been central to the history of cinema. Including contributions from both established and emerging film music scholars, the ten essays in Music in Epic Film: Listening to Spectacle provide a cross-section of contemporary scholarship on the subject. They explore diverse topics, including the function of music in epic narratives, the socio-political implications of cinematic music, and the use of pre-existing music in epic films. Intended for students and scholars in film music, film appreciation, and media studies, the wide range of topics and the diversity of the films that the authors discuss make Music in Epic Film: Listening to Spectacle an ideal introduction to the field of music in epic film.

    Series Foreword

    Preface: Epic Genre, Epic Style  Stephen C. Meyer

    Acknowledgments

    Part I: Marketing and Production

    1. Branding the Franchise: Music and the (Corporate) Myth of Origin  James Buhler

    2. Manufacturing the Epic Score: Hans Zimmer and the Sounds of Significance  Frank Lehman

    Part II: Narrative and Interpretation

    3. Topoi and Intertextuality: Narrative Function in Hans Zimmer’s and Lisa Gerrard’s Music to Gladiator  Joakim Tillman

    4. The Politics of Authenticity in Miklós Rózsa's Score to El Cid  Stephen C. Meyer

    Part III: Pre-Existing Music and the Epic Style

    5. From Authenticity to Anachronism: Pre-Existing Music and "Epic Englishness" in Elizabeth and Master and Commander  Alexandra Wilson

    6. Records, Repertoire and Rollerball: Music and the Auteur Epic  Julie Hubbert

    Part IV: Songs and Themes

    7. "The epic and intimately human": Contemplating Tara’s Theme in Gone With the Wind  Nathan Platte

    8. "We’re the real countries": Songs as Private Musical Territories in the Epic Romances Casablanca, Doctor Zhivago, and The English Patient  Todd Decker

    Part V: Genre and the (Anti-)Epic

    9. Inverting the Epic: The Music of Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven  Kirsten Yri

    10. The Western as National Epic: Musical Persona and Narrative Distance in High Noon  Jordan Carmalt Stokes

    Biography

    Stephen C. Meyer is Associate Professor of Musicology at the University of Cincinnati.