An Appreciation of Film Music (2007)
(Parts I & II, English, 2006-2007, 28 Pages)
Author: Payman Akhlaghi
Original Graduate Paper Toward Degree of PhD in Composition
Independent Research Study
Excerpts of a Projected Book on the Subject
Fall 2006 - Winter 2007, UCLA
Free to Read on Scribd
(*) Full bibliography is missing from this version.
Filmmakers and composers discussed or referenced in part include:
Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky, Ingmar Bergman, Alfred Hitchcock, Claude Lelouch, Fritz Lang, Ennio Morricone, Sergei Prokofiev, Bernard Herrmann, Franz Waxman, Gabriel Yared, et al. A comparison of different cinematic adaptations of Hamlet, as well as a commentary on Eisenstein's experience with Kabuki theater are included.
(*) Excerpts:
[1] Chapter 1
Yellow Wails of the Meadow
In 1928, Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) wrote in praise of the Japanese Kabuki for its integration of the different sensory and intellectual elements of theater into a cohesive artistic entity, one that if perceived as it had been instinctually intended, would induce a unified emotional and dramatic effect in the audience. There, he spoke of “a monism of ensemble”, where “sound-movement-space-voi ce … do not accompany (nor even parallel) each other, but function as elements of equal significance.” The Kabuki artist employed the theater as a quasi-synesthetic medium, building “his summation to a grand total provocation of the human brain, without taking any notice which of these several paths he is following.” As he observed, for example, once a character moved to the fore of the stage, ever further away from a surrendered castle, his movement was conveyed and accentuated in four stages of removal: [...]
