Music and Sound in the Films of Dennis Hopper

by Stephen Lee Naish

Across his directorial films, American filmmaker Dennis Hopper used music and sound to propel the narrative, signpost the era in which the films were made, and delineate the characters’ place within American culture. This book explores five of Hopper’s films to show how this deep engagement with music to build character and setting continued throughout his career, as Hopper used folk, punk, hip-hop, and jazz to shape the worlds of his films in ways that influenced other filmmakers and foreshadowed the advent of the music video format.

The author traces Hopper’s distinctive approach to the use of music through films from 1969 to 1990, including his innovative use of popular rock, pop, and folk in Easy Rider, his blending of diegetic performances of folk and Peruvian indigenous music in The Last Movie, his use of punk rock in Out of the Blue, incorporation of hip-hop and rap in Colors, and commissioning of a jazz/blues soundtrack by Miles Davis and John Lee Hooker for The Hot Spot. Uncovering the film soundtrack as a vital piece of the narrative, this concise and accessible book offers insights for academic readers in music and film studies, as well as all those interested in Hopper’s work.

92 pages, Hardcover

Published February 16, 2024

About the author

Stephen Lee Naish is a writer, visual artist, and the author of six books of nonfiction, notably, Create or Die: Essays on the Artistry of Dennis Hopper (AUP), Riffs and Meaning (HeadPress), and Screen Captures: Film in the Age of Emergency (Newstar Books). His work has appeared in Aquarium Drunkard, Film International, Sublation Magazine, The Quietus, Empty Mirror, Dirty Movies, Albumism, and Merion West. He lives in Kingston, Ontario.

Reviews

[angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read! I have read other books by this author, and really enjoy Naish's writing style.
I would highly recommend it for reading and discussion in a films study class, and to those who thought they knew Dennis Hopper or are discovering him for the first time.