Film Music Interest Group
Mission
For much of the 20th century "film music" and "Hollywood music" were virtually synonymous pejorative terms in the world of American art music and criticism. The scholarly study of Hollywood film music still remains on the periphery of American musicology, as most musicologists and film scholars studying music in films have tended to disdain Hollywood, preferring to focus on films made in other countries, though largely for sociopolitical reasons rather than historical and aesthetic ones. As a consequence, from a scholarly perspective, Hollywood film music--let alone American music for films made outside Hollywood--remains largely unexplored territory.
That is now changing and there is a growing interest in examining film music "Made in Hollywood, U.S.A.," as each Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios film used to say beneath the words "The End." In a tentative way, old prejudices against "Hollywood music" and Hollywood as the "Motion Picture Capitol of the World" are gradually being dispelled, and a new understanding is emerging of the traditionally maligned art of Hollywood film scoring and culture out of which it grew. The Film Music Interest Group will identify research problems and methodologies unique to the field. For example, few musicologists possess knowledge, let alone competence, in the area of film production and its historiography, often relying instead on academic film theory (secondary literature) for their knowledge of film as a cultural form rather than consulting primary source materials in libraries and special archival repositories. Source studies and bibliography are badly needed in film music research and the interest group will respond to that. It will, at the same time, report new and important research and writing in the field and compile a directory of film music scholars in America.
2009 Annual Meeting
Film Music Interest Group Panel Discussion: "Earth vs. Mars: Music for Desolate Places"
A panel will explore the musical depiction of the prairie and desert in Westerns,
and how much the same musical language was used or adapted for the even more
vast and bleak landscapes of other planets in science fiction films of the 1950s
and ‘60s. Perhaps it is no coincidence that films of both genres were
filmed in the same geographical locations, such as the Mojave Desert, Vasquez
Rocks, Red Rock Canyon, and Death Valley in Southern California. Whether Earth
or Mars, humanity’s aversion to solitude or ultimate fear of a universe
devoid of life is embodied in the often lonely music composed to depict these
inhospitable environments.
A preview of a forthcoming article to appear
in The Journal of Film Music consists of a dialog between Michael Beckerman
and William Rosar discussing how even the most desolate landscapes in Westerns
are often accompanied by pastoral music containing sylistic elements long associated
with scenes of bucolic pastures and shepherds in opera and program music. Beckerman
has called this paradoxica juxtaposition of music and place the "Idyllic
Sublime." A case in point is Victor Young's pastoral main theme for the
1953 Western Shane.
Resources
Film Score Monthly - Online magazine
Film Music Society - Composers & songwriters, studios, research libraries, and other organizations
Film Music World - Trade magazine with links to film music network, institute, and radio
Soundtrack.Net - News, features, reviews, resources, and podcasts
Film Music Network - News and jobs
Film Sound - A great film music bibliography
Directory/Research
Let us know what you are working on: SAM Film Music Interest Group