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100 Modern Soundtracks
Philip Brophy's bfi Screen Guide provides a soundmap to a hundred films that engage the ears. Covering titles as diverse as Car Wash and Apocalypse Now, Le Samourai and Stalker, Shaft and Citizen Kane each entry outlines the film's distinctive contribution to the hitherto underexplored world of sound in cinema.
The author guides the reader through an alternative cinema canon of the 'ear' of sonically exciting and remarkablefilms from all across the world and their amazing diversity of purpose and effect.This guide shows how most critics completly underestimate the significance of sound and how it is caught between the two irrreconcilable forces of the 'sound track'and sound design.
In his introduction and analysis (or more accurately 'hearing) of 100 films, the author compels the reader to 'listen not look' and to 'think with their ears'. 100 Film Scores and Sound Design is a provocative and absorbing guide to some of the most exciting uses of sound in popular and international cinema.
The author guides the reader through an alternative cinema canon of the 'ear' of sonically exciting and remarkablefilms from all across the world and their amazing diversity of purpose and effect.This guide shows how most critics completly underestimate the significance of sound and how it is caught between the two irrreconcilable forces of the 'sound track'and sound design.
In his introduction and analysis (or more accurately 'hearing) of 100 films, the author compels the reader to 'listen not look' and to 'think with their ears'. 100 Film Scores and Sound Design is a provocative and absorbing guide to some of the most exciting uses of sound in popular and international cinema.
270 pages, Paperback
First published June 15, 2004
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July 15, 2021
This is a fascinating if somewhat bizarre book. The copy I checked out from the library is a smallish (7"x5") hardcover with no dust jacket. The pages are of a nice weight and crisp, clear photos from the films are sprinkled throughout. The author works on the premise that the film score and sound design of a film cannot be separated and must be analyzed together. One hundred films are selected, not the best films ever, but ones that illustrate the inseparability of the two. The selections come from a variety of times (1941-2002) and places (Japan, Iran, Netherlands, France, UK, US, etc.)
In the introduction, modernism is equated with destruction, which seems a bit dystopian. I can only speak for the movies I have seen, but some of the author's interpretations seem beautiful but dark. For example, for Psycho, there is a description of the violin as a symbol of death "carved from a living tree...strung with the guts of an eviscerated cat, and teased erotically by the hair of a dead horse." And for the comedy Dr. Dolittle, a diatribe on how the "clinically sane" employ audiovisual distancing to ignore "street crazies" instead of listening to the floating voices of others' schizophrenia. It's either really deep, or a little creepy.
In the introduction, modernism is equated with destruction, which seems a bit dystopian. I can only speak for the movies I have seen, but some of the author's interpretations seem beautiful but dark. For example, for Psycho, there is a description of the violin as a symbol of death "carved from a living tree...strung with the guts of an eviscerated cat, and teased erotically by the hair of a dead horse." And for the comedy Dr. Dolittle, a diatribe on how the "clinically sane" employ audiovisual distancing to ignore "street crazies" instead of listening to the floating voices of others' schizophrenia. It's either really deep, or a little creepy.
Displaying 1 of 1 review