![]() ![]() Vernallis (2013, p.42) argues that one way in which post-classical cinema deviates from the classical style is through its foregrounding of “striking audiovisual effects” and through her analysis of Michael Bay’s Transformers (2007) argues that “much of Transformers’ meaning and power stems from the soundtrack” (Vernallis 2013, p.50). This sequence is evidence of a breaking from the traditions of the classical Hollywood style, where the “music regularly takes a back seat to other elements of the film” and is “rarely foregrounded in this manner”. For example, in the ‘Party Man’ sequence, Donnelly (1998, p.148) observes how the music dominates the visual rhythm of the scene, with the actions of the Joker and his gang directly reflecting the rhythms within the music of the score. ![]() So whilst Donnelly (1998, p.143) has observed that post-classical film scores, such as those by John Williams for Lucas’s Star Wars trilogy ( Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and The Return of the Jedi (1983)) and those by Danny Elfman for Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992) share classical Hollywood’s usage of the long orchestral score, they are not simply a continuation of a tradition of “underscoring”. In his study of Post-Classical film scoring, Donnelly (1998, p.143) argues that whist “many contemporary scores bare some resemblance to studio era film music, industrial imperatives and aesthetic concerns have not remained static” and so we cannot consider contemporary film music to be a direct continuation of classical cinema scoring. Machin (2010, p.155) argues that “It should not be something of which the audience is conscious” but rather “it should unobtrusively contribute to the film experience”. The purpose of this study is to compare examples of post-classical scoring to the first two of these principles, invisibility and inaudibility, to better understand both the consolidation and expansion of these practices put forward by Cooke.Ĭlassical Hollywood film music has an “inherent necessity not to draw attention to itself” (Sabaneev cited in Cooke 2008, p.74) and is “a stimulus that we hear but, by and large, fail to listen to” (Kalinak 1992, p.3) which “works toward the goal of a transparent or invisible discourse” (Gorbman 1987, p.72). In classical film music, Gorbman (1987, p.73) argues that seven principles for composition, mixing and editing can be seen at work: invisibility inaudibility signifier of emotion narrative cueing that can be referential or connotative continuity unity and, finally, that any of the previous principles can be violated in the service of the other principles. This lead to both the consolidation and expansion of existing practices of orchestral scoring as well as the diversification of types of music being in film scores. Cooke (2008, p.183) goes on to suggest that “the diversification of musical styles and techniques in narrative cinema from the 1950s onwards was partly caused by momentous changes in the film industry” which included the the rise of the commercial theme song as an important revenue stream for film studios as well as the emergence of rock and roll and wider youth culture. The classical Hollywood score arose from an “intersection of changing technology, aesthetics and economics” (Kalinak 1992, p.66) and, as Cooke (2008, p.67) argues, resulted in a “formulaic product designed to appeal to a mass spectatorship”. ![]()
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