Play the Way You Feel: The Essential Guide to Jazz Stories on Film

IF 0.4 2区 艺术学 0 MUSIC JOURNAL OF MUSICOLOGICAL RESEARCH Pub Date : 2021-03-30 DOI:10.1080/01411896.2021.1901542
P. Sommerfeld
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引用次数: 1

Abstract

NPR jazz critic Kevin Whitehead frames his intended goals in writing Play the Way You Feel as “partly about jazz movies as a narrative tradition with recurring plot points and story tropes” (p. ix) as well as “how jazz and its people are regarded in American culture and how filmmakers depict jazz subculture” (p. xi). With a primarily chronological organization that works its way from the 1920s to the present in topical chapters, such as “Origin Stories,” “Suffering Artists,” and “The Jazz Musician (and Fan) as Character,” the book is written as a guide for a jazz-loving but not necessarily academic audience. The deep knowledge of jazz film history in America Whitehead offers is impressive, but those topical threads prove difficult to track over 350 pages of prose for both scholar and layperson alike. The book’s strength resides in the detailed knowledge Whitehead provides about the individual films on which his book focuses. Many of the films covered, particularly those from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, are either obscure or lesser known. Whitehead’s topics focus on the flaws and failings of the films’ content, but his approach foregrounds their positive traits—or at least those elements worthy of a second look. This decidedly “kleinmeister” approach to music history, in which unknown works are highlighted as worthy of scholarly attention, is well-known in the musicological discourse, and this book would have benefited from addressing head-on the shortcomings of that approach. Yet it is Whitehead’s treatment of film narrative that prevents the book from negotiating any larger considerations of his stated goals: “jazz movies as narrative tradition” or “how filmmakers depict jazz subculture.” Whitehead’s discussions of individual films offer play-by-play walkthroughs of the plot with occasional statements that nod to larger issues. He prioritizes detailed narrative summary over analysis. For example, in his discussion of St Louis Blues (1929), Whitehead states that “St. Louis Blues is a male director’s woman’s picture; the heroine suffers for our entertainment” (p. 7). Whitehead never explains what he means, nor does he thread that connection, tying it to later discussions. This specific point itself is buried in the middle of a paragraph and is situated as more offhand, unsupported aside than analysis. This approach to narrative summaries proves difficult to follow throughout the book. Whitehead is most concerned with the process of film adaptation and accuracy: what details from a jazz performer’s life were excised, changed, or chronologically compressed to fit the film narrative. Whitehead peppers his text with anecdotes and offhand observations in search of a larger, unifying argument. Similarly, he occasionally draws connections between narrative, cinematography, and other elements of a production’s mis-en-scène. But he fails to link them as part of the larger arguments he frames in the introduction. Especially in the later chapters, Whitehead jumps from detail to detail, when topic sentences would have helped the reader understand why those details are compelling or important. Snippets of dialogue from the selected films are occasionally
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按你的感觉去玩:电影中爵士乐故事的基本指南
美国国家公共电台(NPR)的爵士评论家凯文·怀特黑德(Kevin Whitehead)将他的写作目标设定为“部分关于爵士乐电影作为一种叙事传统,具有反复出现的情节点和故事修辞”(第ix页),以及“爵士乐和它的人在美国文化中是如何被看待的,电影制片人是如何描绘爵士乐亚文化的”(第xi页)。以一个主要的时间顺序组织,从20世纪20年代到现在,在主题章节中,如“起源故事”,“受苦的艺术家”,以及《作为角色的爵士音乐家(和粉丝)》(The Jazz musicians (and Fan)),这本书是为热爱爵士但不一定是学术读者编写的指南。怀特黑德对美国爵士电影史的深入了解令人印象深刻,但对于学者和外行来说,这些主题线索很难追踪超过350页的散文。这本书的优势在于怀特黑德提供了关于他的书所关注的个别电影的详细知识。所涵盖的许多电影,特别是那些来自20世纪30年代、40年代和50年代的电影,要么是鲜为人知的,要么是鲜为人知的。怀特黑德的主题集中在电影内容的缺陷和失败上,但他的方法突出了电影的积极特征——或者至少是那些值得再看一遍的元素。这种明确的“克莱因迈斯特”(kleinmeister)研究音乐史的方法,将不知名的作品突出显示为值得学术关注的作品,在音乐学论述中是众所周知的,这本书将从正面解决这种方法的缺点中受益。然而,正是怀特黑德对电影叙事的处理,阻止了这本书对他所陈述的目标进行更大的考虑:“作为叙事传统的爵士电影”或“电影制作人如何描绘爵士亚文化”。怀特黑德对个别电影的讨论提供了对情节的逐场演练,偶尔也会提到更大的问题。他优先考虑详细的叙述总结,而不是分析。例如,怀特黑德在他对《圣路易斯蓝调》(1929)的讨论中指出:“《圣路易斯蓝调》是男性导演的女性电影;女主角为了我们的娱乐而受苦”(第7页)。怀特黑德从来没有解释他的意思,也没有把这种联系联系起来,把它与后来的讨论联系起来。这个特定的观点本身就隐藏在段落的中间,比分析更随意,更没有根据。这种叙述总结的方法很难在整本书中遵循。怀特黑德最关心的是电影改编的过程和准确性:为了适应电影叙事,爵士表演者的生活中有哪些细节被删除、改变或按时间顺序压缩。怀特黑德在他的文章中加入了轶事和随意的观察,以寻求一个更大、更统一的论点。同样地,他偶尔也会把叙事、摄影和一部作品中场景失误的其他元素联系起来。但他没有把它们作为他在引言中构建的更大论点的一部分联系起来。特别是在后面的章节中,Whitehead从一个细节跳到另一个细节,当主题句可以帮助读者理解为什么这些细节是引人注目或重要的时候。所选影片的对话片段偶尔会出现
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.30
自引率
0.00%
发文量
17
期刊介绍: The Journal of Musicological Research publishes original articles on all aspects of the discipline of music: historical musicology, style and repertory studies, music theory, ethnomusicology, music education, organology, and interdisciplinary studies. Because contemporary music scholarship addresses critical and analytical issues from a multiplicity of viewpoints, the Journal of Musicological Research seeks to present studies from all perspectives, using the full spectrum of methodologies. This variety makes the Journal a place where scholarly approaches can coexist, in all their harmony and occasional discord, and one that is not allied with any particular school or viewpoint.
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