Academics Navigation

Academics

You are here

Courses

CampusHaverford
SemesterSpring 2024
Registration IDMUSCH251B001
Course TitleStrange Music: Monsters, Ghosts, and Aliens on Stage and Screen
Credit1.00
DepartmentVisual Studies
InstructorFreedman,Richard
Times and DaysMW 11:30am-12:55pm
Room LocationROB200
Additional Course InfoClass Number: 2492 Scholars of film often speak of the camera as an “all-seeing eye.” But what role does the ear play in cinematic experience? This course will explore the history, character, and function of music (and sound) in the first half of the twentieth century (and beyond): how they worked with (and against) the camera’s gaze to complicate narratives, to articulate time, and more generally to represent feeling and identity. This term will put special focus on the non-human: monsters, ghosts, aliens, and more generally the idea of the magical or supernatural. What does such radical Otherness sound like? How has it been represented musically? And how have composers and sound designers put such conventions to work in films of the last 100 years, from Metropolis and Nosferatu to Dune and Arrival? To answer these questions we’ll explore the silents, the early sound film and (especially) the long arc of composers (from Eric Korngold to Bernard Herrmann and from John Williams to Hans Zimmer. We’ll consider the legacy of Romanticism, the possibilities of Modernism, and even the Avant Garde, and learn about orchestration, harmony and thematic process as they contribute to cinematic narrative. We will also consider various theories of sound, music, and film staked out by film and operatic composers themselves, as well as critical and scholarly essays by leading writers on the monstrous, the alien, and the supernatural.; Crosslisted: VIST; Prerequisite(s): No formal prerequisite, but some previous study of either music or visual media would be helpful Humanities, A: Meaning, Interpretation (Texts) (Hav: HU, A)
Miscellaneous Links
New Search