Historical Markers of the Modern Soundtrack

Lectures

First presented in RMIT Media & Communications, 1985 & Swinburne Film & TV School, 1988; expanded for Audio-Visual Concepts, RMIT Media Arts from 1998

  • Citizen Kane

    1941 - Orson Welles (USA)

    Layers, levels & mixing

    Orson Welles’ radiophonic legacy
    distinctions & processes
    radio as text
    the gendered voice

  • The Birds

    1963 - Alfred Hitchcock (USA)

    Volume, perspective & density

    Hitchcock’s cinematic perversion
    perception & comprehension
    silence
    physics, acoustics & grammar
    rhythm

  • Playtime

    1967 - Jacques Tati (France)

    Architecture & sonic space

    post-war Europe and building new cities
    design form & purpose
    aural/urban design
    muzak

  • The Innocents

    1961 – Jack Clayton (UK)

    Silence & breath

    ghostly acoustics
    dimensional suggestion
    altered mix states
    possessed voices

    To be archived

  • Way of the Dragon

    1972 - Bruce Lee (Hong Kong)

    Post-dubbing & the body

    English language productions
    foreign films
    active dubbing
    Hong Kong Kung-Fu movies

  • California Split

    1974 - Robert Altman (USA)

    Voice, performance & live space

    Robert Altman's sound-image fusion
    noise & silence
    vocal performance

  • Last Year In Marienbad

    1960 - Alan Resnais (France)

    Textuality & vocal narration

    The New Novel
    monologues & dialogues
    off-screen placement
    spatial location

  • The Conversation

    1972 - Francis Ford Coppola (USA)

    Distortion & misperception

    zones of audibility
    private & public space
    sonic stability
    psycho-acoustics

  • Psycho

    1960 - Alfred Hitchcock (USA)

    Psychological states & atonality

    Profile - Bernard Herrmann
    repetition & thematic structure
    musical motifs

  • Once Upon A Time in the West

    1968 - Sergio Leone (Italy)

    Opera, genre & theatre

    Ennio Morrricone’s arrangements & recording
    thematic song scoring
    audio cues
    self-reflexivity

  • West Side Story

    1963 - Robert Wise (USA)

    Opera & lyric drama

    plasticity
    mise-en-scene
    transposition of stage musical
    harmonic territorialization

  • The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

    1969 - Jacques Demy (France)

    Operetta & sung narrative

    Jacques Demy & Michel Legrand collaborations
    musical narration
    absence of dialogue
    pictorial synthesthesia

  • Suspiria

    1977 - Dario Argento (Italy)

    Rock & synthesizer scores

    historical streams & distinctions
    modern & contemporary developments
    time lines

  • Metropolis

    1921 - Fritz Lang + 1983 - Giorgio Moroder (Germany/Italy)

    Silent cinema & sound/image relations

    time frame of ‘silent’ cinema
    sound & music in the silents
    how sound film language develops

  • Kwaidan

    1963 - Masaki Kobayashi (Japan)

    Synchronism & mysticism

    Toru Takemitsu’s decompostions
    collapsed music
    Eastern sensibilities
    conscious theatrics
    sono-musical gesture

    To be archived