Pub Date : 2023-02-04DOI: 10.5406/19407610.16.1.04
Shuang Wang
Abstract:The manuscript of Wu Dajiang’s score for Painted Skin is the only one of King Hu’s film music scores known to exist today. The manuscript represents new and direct evidence of King Hu and his film composers’ working method. With the aim of investigating the presentational force of the film music, this article reviews several pivotal leitmotifs and their repetitions. Based on the interviewees’ testimonies, this study reveals that the production of the music could not be ascribed to Wu Dajiang alone, as credited in the film. Evidently, King Hu’s artistic intentions carried considerable weight in the musical decision-making process, and the manuscript reflects the collaborative nature of the music production process. Music assistant Lu Lianghui’s substantial contribution is of particular importance. His compositional devices, including his design of repetitive leitmotifs and a new type of operatic scoring, which features Nuo Opera, make the presentational force of the music self-explanatory. The effective integration of the visual and audio elements owes much to King Hu and Lu Lianghui’s close collaboration.
{"title":"A Neglected Story: Observations on the Manuscript of Wu Dajiang’s Film Score for Painted Skin (1993)","authors":"Shuang Wang","doi":"10.5406/19407610.16.1.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/19407610.16.1.04","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The manuscript of Wu Dajiang’s score for Painted Skin is the only one of King Hu’s film music scores known to exist today. The manuscript represents new and direct evidence of King Hu and his film composers’ working method. With the aim of investigating the presentational force of the film music, this article reviews several pivotal leitmotifs and their repetitions. Based on the interviewees’ testimonies, this study reveals that the production of the music could not be ascribed to Wu Dajiang alone, as credited in the film. Evidently, King Hu’s artistic intentions carried considerable weight in the musical decision-making process, and the manuscript reflects the collaborative nature of the music production process. Music assistant Lu Lianghui’s substantial contribution is of particular importance. His compositional devices, including his design of repetitive leitmotifs and a new type of operatic scoring, which features Nuo Opera, make the presentational force of the music self-explanatory. The effective integration of the visual and audio elements owes much to King Hu and Lu Lianghui’s close collaboration.","PeriodicalId":41714,"journal":{"name":"Music Sound and the Moving Image","volume":"4 1","pages":"51 - 72"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2023-02-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84214851","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Criticality and Film Music","authors":"R. Stopford","doi":"10.3828/msmi.2022.10","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/msmi.2022.10","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41714,"journal":{"name":"Music Sound and the Moving Image","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43097634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Reviews","authors":"Ron Rodman, E. Mazierska","doi":"10.3828/msmi.2022.11","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/msmi.2022.11","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41714,"journal":{"name":"Music Sound and the Moving Image","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45322145","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:In this article I will explore the use of indie music within two African American independent films, Medicine for Melancholy (2008) and Pariah (2011). These two films are rare examples of African American films featuring an extensive employment of indie music, despite a huge growth in such music appearing within feature films over the past twenty years. I investigate some of the racial contours of indie music and examine how it is utilised within the two films under analysis. Both these films employ indie music to explore individuals who do not conform to some of the more stereotypical characteristics of black identities. I frame these analyses within a broader discussion of the links between indie music–particularly indie rock– and whiteness, exploring prejudices against, and marginalisation of, many black music artists within indie music cultures.
{"title":"'Everything About Being Indie Is All Tied to Not Being Black': Indie Music, Race, and Identity in Medicine for Melancholy and Pariah","authors":"J. Sexton","doi":"10.3828/msmi.2022.9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/msmi.2022.9","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In this article I will explore the use of indie music within two African American independent films, Medicine for Melancholy (2008) and Pariah (2011). These two films are rare examples of African American films featuring an extensive employment of indie music, despite a huge growth in such music appearing within feature films over the past twenty years. I investigate some of the racial contours of indie music and examine how it is utilised within the two films under analysis. Both these films employ indie music to explore individuals who do not conform to some of the more stereotypical characteristics of black identities. I frame these analyses within a broader discussion of the links between indie music–particularly indie rock– and whiteness, exploring prejudices against, and marginalisation of, many black music artists within indie music cultures.","PeriodicalId":41714,"journal":{"name":"Music Sound and the Moving Image","volume":"16 1","pages":"129 - 152"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44515310","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:This article details the historical factors that shaped Hollywood's adoption of magnetic recording during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It draws upon economic theories of technological change, archival correspondence, technical records, analyses of postproduction workflows, and delineations of the structural constraints that limited how the film industry initially wired magnetic media into its production and postproduction stages. In so doing, I explain why the adoption of such a revolutionary recording technolog y did not initially usher in changes to the industry's modes of acoustical representation and why these changes instead took place several decades later.
{"title":"Tape Recording Hollywood","authors":"Eric Dienstfrey","doi":"10.3828/msmi.2022.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/msmi.2022.8","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article details the historical factors that shaped Hollywood's adoption of magnetic recording during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It draws upon economic theories of technological change, archival correspondence, technical records, analyses of postproduction workflows, and delineations of the structural constraints that limited how the film industry initially wired magnetic media into its production and postproduction stages. In so doing, I explain why the adoption of such a revolutionary recording technolog y did not initially usher in changes to the industry's modes of acoustical representation and why these changes instead took place several decades later.","PeriodicalId":41714,"journal":{"name":"Music Sound and the Moving Image","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48110612","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01DOI: 10.5406/19407610.15.3.01
Heidi Hart, B. Schirrmacher
Abstract:Unlike most films dealing with the challenges of climate change or globalization, Benedikt Erlingsson's film Woman at War (2018) is full of energetic humor and contradictions. The protagonist's conflicting roles as choir director, eco-warrior, and future adoptive mother undermine expected binaries, as do onscreen musicians in this communication of complexity. In our intermedial and ecocritical analysis, we demonstrate how the film's sound design exploits ambiguities of diegesis, nature and culture, music and noise, and order and revolt to generate a more empowering than merely entertaining plot.
{"title":"Music, Noise, and Nature: Energetic Ambiguities in Benedikt Erlingsson's Woman at War","authors":"Heidi Hart, B. Schirrmacher","doi":"10.5406/19407610.15.3.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/19407610.15.3.01","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Unlike most films dealing with the challenges of climate change or globalization, Benedikt Erlingsson's film Woman at War (2018) is full of energetic humor and contradictions. The protagonist's conflicting roles as choir director, eco-warrior, and future adoptive mother undermine expected binaries, as do onscreen musicians in this communication of complexity. In our intermedial and ecocritical analysis, we demonstrate how the film's sound design exploits ambiguities of diegesis, nature and culture, music and noise, and order and revolt to generate a more empowering than merely entertaining plot.","PeriodicalId":41714,"journal":{"name":"Music Sound and the Moving Image","volume":"25 1","pages":"19 - 3"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76567369","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01DOI: 10.5406/19407610.15.3.03
Kaapo Huttunen
Abstract:This study focuses on the soundtrack of the Danish television series The Killing, and especially on its stylistic features that point to the Middle East. Moreover, it takes a critical look at the strategies used in the music and sound design of the series that relate to immigration and Islamic culture in particular.
{"title":"The Soundtrack of The Killing, its Orientalist Features, and the Implicit Other","authors":"Kaapo Huttunen","doi":"10.5406/19407610.15.3.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/19407610.15.3.03","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This study focuses on the soundtrack of the Danish television series The Killing, and especially on its stylistic features that point to the Middle East. Moreover, it takes a critical look at the strategies used in the music and sound design of the series that relate to immigration and Islamic culture in particular.","PeriodicalId":41714,"journal":{"name":"Music Sound and the Moving Image","volume":"115 7","pages":"45 - 59"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72386659","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-10-01DOI: 10.5406/19407610.15.3.02
Vasco Zara
Abstract:This article explores the strategies used in movies to recreate the sound of the Middle Ages. The musical elements that our culture chooses for identifying the past and their reasons for those choices are an interesting point to start this investigation. Bakhtin's notion of "chronotope" is useful for discovering the musical signs of "medievalness"; indeed, the sources for authenticity are not the "historical" sources but the musical paradigm defined before the Second World War.
{"title":"Sounding the Middle Ages: A Cinematic Chronotope","authors":"Vasco Zara","doi":"10.5406/19407610.15.3.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5406/19407610.15.3.02","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This article explores the strategies used in movies to recreate the sound of the Middle Ages. The musical elements that our culture chooses for identifying the past and their reasons for those choices are an interesting point to start this investigation. Bakhtin's notion of \"chronotope\" is useful for discovering the musical signs of \"medievalness\"; indeed, the sources for authenticity are not the \"historical\" sources but the musical paradigm defined before the Second World War.","PeriodicalId":41714,"journal":{"name":"Music Sound and the Moving Image","volume":"55 1","pages":"20 - 44"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76478044","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract:Two music videos were commissioned for Aloe Blacc’s breakthrough song ‘I Need A Dollar’ (2010). The Harlem, New York version directed by Kahlil Joseph adopts a split-screen technique, depicting an unnamed man negotiating the city’s busy streets while, at the same time, framing Blacc as a directionless musician singing wistfully at the window of a dilapidated flat. Derek Pike’s Las Vegas, Nevada version, on the other hand, portrays the singer as a struggling musician traversing the desert before – unexpectedly – winning the jackpot at a casino. This article explores two main lines of argument. Firstly, I explore how institutional and industrial contexts result in two distinguishable music videos, suggesting that although both versions are created in similarly professional and commercialised settings one video is produced within a more ‘independent’ environment. Secondly, I explore how two different music videos can emphasise or de-emphasise certain elements of a song’s content and meaning, drawing from Emily J. Lordi’s theorisation of ‘soul’ to suggest that the ‘soul music’ qualities of Blacc’s ‘I Need A Dollar’ record are emphasised when practitioners adopt a more ‘soulful’ approach to music video creation (Lordi, 2020).
摘要:Aloe Blacc的突破性歌曲《I Need A Dollar》(2010)获得了两部mv的委托。卡里尔·约瑟夫(Kahlil Joseph)执导的纽约哈莱姆版采用了分屏技术,描绘了一个无名男子在城市繁忙的街道上穿梭,而与此同时,布莱克则被塑造成一个在一栋破旧公寓的窗户边惆惆地唱歌的漫无方向的音乐家。另一方面,德里克·派克(Derek Pike)在内华达州拉斯维加斯的版本中,把这位歌手描绘成一个苦苦挣扎的音乐家,穿越沙漠,然后意外地在一家赌场赢得了头奖。本文探讨了两个主要的论点。首先,我探讨了制度和工业背景如何导致两个不同的音乐视频,这表明尽管两个版本都是在类似的专业和商业化环境中创作的,但一个视频是在一个更“独立”的环境中制作的。其次,我探索了两种不同的音乐视频如何强调或不强调歌曲内容和意义的某些元素,从Emily J. Lordi的“灵魂”理论中得出,当从业者采用更“深情”的方法来创作音乐视频时,black的“I Need a Dollar”唱片的“灵魂音乐”品质就会得到强调(Lordi, 2020)。
{"title":"Searching for Soul, Reframing the Pursuit of Capital: A Comparison of Kahlil Joseph’s and Derek Pike’s ‘I Need A Dollar’ Music Videos","authors":"J. O. Jackson","doi":"10.3828/msmi.2022.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3828/msmi.2022.3","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Two music videos were commissioned for Aloe Blacc’s breakthrough song ‘I Need A Dollar’ (2010). The Harlem, New York version directed by Kahlil Joseph adopts a split-screen technique, depicting an unnamed man negotiating the city’s busy streets while, at the same time, framing Blacc as a directionless musician singing wistfully at the window of a dilapidated flat. Derek Pike’s Las Vegas, Nevada version, on the other hand, portrays the singer as a struggling musician traversing the desert before – unexpectedly – winning the jackpot at a casino. This article explores two main lines of argument. Firstly, I explore how institutional and industrial contexts result in two distinguishable music videos, suggesting that although both versions are created in similarly professional and commercialised settings one video is produced within a more ‘independent’ environment. Secondly, I explore how two different music videos can emphasise or de-emphasise certain elements of a song’s content and meaning, drawing from Emily J. Lordi’s theorisation of ‘soul’ to suggest that the ‘soul music’ qualities of Blacc’s ‘I Need A Dollar’ record are emphasised when practitioners adopt a more ‘soulful’ approach to music video creation (Lordi, 2020).","PeriodicalId":41714,"journal":{"name":"Music Sound and the Moving Image","volume":"16 1","pages":"53 - 77"},"PeriodicalIF":0.1,"publicationDate":"2022-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42899961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}