The Oxford Handbook of Film Music Studies

Gathers new essays from leading scholars in film studies,
musicology, music theory, and cognitive science

Offers a combination of historical studies, topic surveys,
theoretical models, and case studies

Provides one hundred illustrations, including musical examples
and screen stills

The Oxford Handbook of Film Music Studies charts the interdisciplinary activity
around music in visual media, addressing the primary areas of inquiry: history,
genre and medium, analysis and criticism, and interpretation. Chapters in Part I
cover the range most broadly, from the relations of music and the soundtrack to
opera and film, textual representation of film sound, film music as studied by cognitive
scientists, and Hanns Eisler's work as film composer and co-author of the foundational
text Composing for the Films (1947). Part II addresses genre and medium with
chapters focusing on cartoons and animated films, the film musical, music in arcade
and early video games, and the interplay of film, music, and recording over the
past half century. The chapters in Part III offer case studies in interpretation
along with extended critical surveys of theoretical models of gender, sexuality,
and subjectivity as they impinge on music and sound. The three chapters on analysis
in Part IV are diverse: one systematically models harmonies used in recent films,
a second looks at issues of music and film temporality, and a third focuses on television.
Chapters on history (Part V) cover topics including musical antecedents in nineteenth-century
theater, the complex issues in sychronization of music in performance of early (silent)
films, international practices in early film exhibition, and the symphony orchestra
in film.

Readership: Students and scholars in film music, film studies,
and media studies