This groundbreaking collection by the most distinguished musicologists and film scholars in their fields gives long overdue recognition to music as equal to the image in shaping the experience of film. Refuting the familiar idea that music serves as an unnoticed prop for narrative, these essays demonstrate that music is a fully imagined and active power in the worlds of film. Even where films do give it a supporting role—and many do much more—music makes an independent contribution. Drawing on recent advances in musicology and cinema studies, Beyond the Soundtrack interprets the cinematic representation of music with unprecedented richness. The authors cover a broad range of narrative films, from the "silent" era (not so silent) to the present. Once we think beyond the soundtrack, this volume shows, there is no unheard music in cinema.

About the Author

Daniel Goldmark is Assistant Professor of Music History at Case Western Reserve University. He is the author of Tunes for 'Toons: Music and the Hollywood Cartoon (UC Press). Lawrence Kramer is Professor of English and Music at Fordham University and editor of 19th Century Music. His many books include Opera and Modern Culture, Musical Meaning: Toward a Critical History, and Why Classical Music Still Matters, all from UC Press. Richard Leppert is Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor in Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota. His many books include Theodor W. Adorno: Essays on Music, and The Sight of Sound: Music, Representation, and the History of the Body, both from UC Press.

List of Illustrations
Introduction: Phonoplay: Recasting Film Music

PART I. MUSICAL MEANING
1. The Boy on the Train, or Bad Symphonies and Good Movies: The Revealing Error of the “Symphonic Score”
Peter Franklin
2. Representing Beethoven: Romance and Sonata Form in Simon Cellan Jones’s Eroica
Nicholas Cook
3. Minima Romantica
Susan McClary
4. Melodic Trains: Music in Polanksi’s The Pianist
Lawrence Kramer
5. Mute Music: Polanski’s The Pianist and Campion’s The Piano
Michel Chion
PART II. MUSICAL AGENCY
6. Opera, Aesthetic Violence, and the Imposition of Modernity: Fitzcarraldo
Richard Leppert
7. Sight, Sound, and the Temporality of Myth Making in Koyaanisqatsi
Mitchell Morris
8. How Sound Floats on Land: The Suppression and Release of Folk and Indigenous Musics in the Cinematic Terrain
Philip Brophy
9. Auteur Music
Claudia Gorbman
10. Transport and Transportation in Audiovisual Memory
Berthold Hoeckner
11. The Fantastical Gap between Diegetic and Nondiegetic
Robynn J. Stilwell
PART III. MUSICAL IDENTITY
12. Early Film Themes: Roxy, Adorno, and the Problem of Cultural Capital
Rick Altman
13. Before Willie: Reconsidering Music and the Animated Cartoon of the 1920s
Daniel Goldmark
14. Side by Side: Nino Rota, Music, and Film
Richard Dyer
15. White Face, Black Noise: Miles Davis and the Soundtrack
Krin Gabbard
16. Men at the Keyboard: Liminal Spaces and the Heterotopian Function of Music
Gary C. Thomas

Notes on Contributors
Index of Films Cited
Works Cited
General Index

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Reviews

"Interesting and substantive"
— Journal Of The American Musicological Society/ Jams

“A groundbreaking source of knowledge for anyone interested in understanding, or playing a role, in the ongoing collaboration between audio and visual arts.”
— Skyscraper Magazine

“Both the editors and contributors to this volume have rightfully taken film music scholarship beyond the soundtrack.”
— Notes

“Recommended.”
— Choice

“Vivid.”
— Modernism/Modernity

"Put briefly, this is a superb collection of essays. They are lucidly and eloquently written, and make their points with wit and clarity. They are full of perceptive, highly stimulating, and occasionally provocative illustrations of how practice connects to theory (and vice versa) without getting bogged down in academic language. The contributors include a combination of exceptionally admired film music scholars, and of musicologists renowned for their keen insights into the cultural contexts of music production and reception. This book is an excellent resource and compelling read."—Derek B. Scott, author of From the Erotic to the Demonic: On Critical Musicology

About the Book

About the Author

Table of Contents

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Reviews