A comprehensive introduction to film music for the general student, the film historian, and the aspiring cinematographer. It is a historically structured account of the evolution of music in films. The book is arranged as a chronological survey and includes biographical sketches on many important film composers in addition to the development of the films themselves.

Beginning with the era of synchronized sound in the 1920s, music has been an integral part of motion pictures. Whether used to heighten the tension of a scene or evoke a subtle emotional response, scores have played a significant—if often unrealized—role in the viewer’s enjoyment. In The Invisible Art of Film Music, Laurence MacDonald provides a comprehensive introduction for the general student, film historian, and aspiring cinematographer. Arranged chronologically from the silent era to the present day, this volume provides insight into the evolution of music in cinema and analyzes the vital contributions of scores to hundreds of films. MacDonald reviews key developments in film music and discusses many of the most important and influential scores of the last nine decades, including those from Modern Times, Gone with the Wind, Citizen Kane, Laura, A Streetcar Named Desire, Ben-Hur, Lawrence of Arabia, The Godfather, Jaws, Ragtime, The Mission, Titanic, Gladiator, The Lord of the Rings, Brokeback Mountain,and Slumdog Millionaire. MacDonald also provides biographical sketches of such great composers as Max Steiner, Alfred Newman, Franz Waxman, Bernard Herrmann, Elmer Bernstein, Henry Mancini, Maurice Jarre, John Barry, John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Dave Grusin, Ennio Morricone, Randy Newman, Hans Zimmer, and Danny Elfman. Updated and expanded to include scores produced well into the twenty-first century, this new edition of The Invisible Art of Film Music will appeal not only to scholars of cinema and musicologists but also any fan of film scores.

Celluloid Symphonies is a unique sourcebook of writings on music for film, bringing together fifty-three critical documents, many previously inaccessible. It includes essays by those who created the music—Max Steiner, Erich Korngold, Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein and Howard Shore—and outlines the major trends, aesthetic choices, technological innovations, and commercial pressures that have shaped the relationship between music and film from 1896 to the present. Julie Hubbert’s introductory essays offer a stimulating overview of film history as well as critical context for the close study of these primary documents. In identifying documents that form a written and aesthetic history for film music, Celluloid Symphonies provides an astonishing resource for both film and music scholars and for students.

Death and Garden Narratives in Literature, Art and Film: Song of Death in Paradise explores the combination of two motifs, death and gardens, to show how the two subjects are intertwined and used in various media and cultural contexts. Using cultural, literary, film, and art history theories, the contributors analyze various death and garden sceneries in literary works by Arthur Machen, Agatha Christie, J.K. Rowling, as well as in superhero comics, films, and cultural and art contexts such as Ian Hamilton Finley's “Little Sparta,” the poetic verses from the Karoo Desert National Botanical Garden in South Africa, and the Australian wilderness.

"This is an in-depth study of arrangers in pop, analyzing their techniques and revealing their significant contribution to popular music"--Page 4 of cover.

In Film Music, fourteen of the world's best known film composers discuss their craft, revealing the creative process that led to the familiar sound of the most memorable films of our time. Like all titles in the Screencraft Series, Film Music is beautifully produced and lavishly illustrated with drawings, scripts, storyboards, models and stills from classic films. A companion CD features a composition from each of the fourteen contributors. Musicians, composers, filmmakers and film enthusiasts will find much to learn and much to enjoy in this unique volume. Includes CD featuring a piece of music from each contributor Part of the Screencraft series, the first books to explore the crafts of filmmaking by tracing the entire creative process

Max Steiner is one of the greatest—not to mention most prolific—composers of the Golden Age of Hollywood. The winner of three Academy Awards, Steiner’s credits include King Kong, The Informer, Gone with the Wind, Now, Voyager, Since You Went Away, Johnny Belinda, and The Caine Mutiny. Though known for timeless melodies that symbolize the glamor of Hollywood’s Golden Age, Steiner has also been hailed as a film scoring pioneer. In Max Steiner: Composing, Casablanca, and the Golden Age of Film Music, Peter Wegele unveils the man behind dozens of memorable scores, offering a portrait of the composer from a personal and professional point of view. Beginning with background on the history and techniques of film music, Wegele then examines Steiner’s musical innovations, some of which are still used today. This is followed by a thorough analysis of one of Steiner’s legendary scores—the music to Casablanca. More than eighty transcribed musical examples demonstrate how efficient, musically clever, and tremendously skilled the composer was when he wrote this score. Drawing on quotes, notes from production files, and excerpts from the original script for Casablanca, Wegele provides insight not only into the production history of the film, but also into the workings of Hollywood during the Golden Age. Including an appendix that compares Steiner with four other composers of his age—Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Alfred Newman, Franz Waxman, and Hugo Friedhofer—and a complete filmography of Steiner’s work, this book is an invaluable examination of the composer’s life and career. Film music composers, music scholars and students, directors, and anyone interested in film and music history will enjoy this detailed portrait of a musical genius.

How science changed the way artists understand reality Exploring the Invisible shows how modern art expresses the first secular, scientific worldview in human history. Now fully revised and expanded, this richly illustrated book describes two hundred years of scientific discoveries that inspired French Impressionist painters and Art Nouveau architects, as well as Surrealists in Europe, Latin America, and Japan. Lynn Gamwell describes how the microscope and telescope expanded the artist's vision into realms unseen by the naked eye. In the nineteenth century, a strange and exciting world came into focus, one of microorganisms in a drop of water and spiral nebulas in the night sky. The world is also filled with forces that are truly unobservable, known only indirectly by their effects—radio waves, X-rays, and sound-waves. Gamwell shows how artists developed the pivotal style of modernism—abstract, non-objective art—to symbolize these unseen worlds. Starting in Germany with Romanticism and ending with international contemporary art, she traces the development of the visual arts as an expression of the scientific worldview in which humankind is part of a natural web of dynamic forces without predetermined purpose or meaning. Gamwell reveals how artists give nature meaning by portraying it as mysterious, dangerous, or beautiful. With a foreword by Neil deGrasse Tyson and a wealth of stunning images, this expanded edition of Exploring the Invisible draws on the latest scholarship to provide a global perspective on the scientists and artists who explore life on Earth, human consciousness, and the space-time universe.

Praised throughout the cartoon industry by such luminaries as Art Spiegelman, Matt Groening, and Will Eisner, this innovative comic book provides a detailed look at the history, meaning, and art of comics and cartooning.

Music in Action Film is the first volume to address the central role of music and sound in action film—arguably the most dominant form of commercial cinema today. Bringing together 15 essays by established and emerging scholars, the book encompasses both Hollywood blockbusters and international films, from classic works such as The Seven Samurai to contemporary superhero franchises. The contributors consider action both as genre and as a mode of cinematic expression, in chapters on evolving musical conventions; politics, representation, and identity; musical affect and agency; the functional role of music and sound design in action film; and production technologies. Breaking new critical ground yet highly accessible, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of music and film studies.