16414657.Pdf
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Sound and Image: Experimental Music and the Popular Horror Film (1960 to the present day) David Abel June 2008 Submitted for the Award of PhD Awarding body: University of Central Lancashire MAL Universityuclan of Central Lancashirc Student Declaration Concurrent registration for two or more academic awards Either *1 declare that while registered as a candidate for the research degree, I have not been a registered candidate or enrolled student for another award of the University or other academic or professional institution I' or *1 decl at while register r the research d r, I was with the Uni specific permission, cl'fe'-g-istered candidat enrolled studen e following awar Material submitted for another award Either *1 declare that no material contained in the thesis has been used in any other submission for an academic award and is solely my own work. or *I declare that the following material contained in the thesis formed part of a submission for the award of (state award and awarding body and list the material below): "I Collaboration Where a candidate's research programme is part of a collaborative project, the thesis must indicate in addition clearly the candidate's individual contribution and the extent of the collaboration. Please state below Signature of Candidate Type of Award Ptid JC, J/M School uNiGVIflyl) one/ cI Abstract This study investigates the functional relationship between sound and image within a particular generic and historical context - experimental music and the popular horror film, from 1960 to the present day. The study responds to a significant gap in the literature that requires sustained and in-depth academic attention. Despite recent expansion, the field of film music studies has yet to deal with alternative functional models that challenge the overall applicability of the dominant narrative-based theoretical framework. Recent scholarship suggests that a proper theoretical comprehension of horror film music's primary function requires a refocusing of the hermeneutic emphasis upon dimensions of the cinematic (or audio-visual) sign that can be described as `non- representational. ' This study applies a relatively new psychoanalytical framework to explain how the post-1960 horror film deploys these non-representational elements, incorporating them into an overall cinematic strategy which indexes the transition towards a post-classical cinematic aesthetics. More specifically, this study assessesjust how efficiently experimental musical styles and techniques aid the reconfiguration of the syntactical components of horror film to these very ends. Using three case study directors, this study focuses upon major developments in musical style and cinematic technology, describing the ways in which these have facilitated this cinematic strategy. A particularly useful contribution to the knowledge is made here via the study's explanation as to how the particular psychoanalytical framework applied can illuminate the functional and theoretical relationships often posited between both the formal and subjective dimensions of the post-1960 horror film experience. The conclusions reached suggest this theoretical explication of post-1960 horror film music's function can now take its place alongside previously dominant narrative frameworks. Given the influential status of the horror genre, the findings of this investigation prove useful for comprehending the increasing heterogeneity of post- classical film music in general, and the functional relationship(s) of sound and image in particular. CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER ONE 9 Experimental Music and the Horror Soundtrack Theoretical Frameworks and Methodological Approaches 1.0 Introduction 1.1 Some Initial Implications for Studying the Post-Classical Horror Soundtrack 1.2 ReassessingFilm Music Scholarship: A Historical Survey Of Theoretical and Methodological Approaches 1.2.1 Early Challenges to Classical Hollywood Film Music 1.2.2 The Imposition of the Narrative Paradigm 1.2.3 Contemporary Trends in Film Music Scholarship 1.3 Other Intellectual Disciplines CHAPTER TWO 82 Tradition, Tonality and Textuality: A Historical Reappraisal of Horror Film Music 2.0 Introduction 2.1 The Visceral Horror Cinema and the Sound-Image Syntax 2.1.1 Shock Affect: Some Stylistic Precursors of the Classical Horror Film 2.2 Early and Classical Honor Film Music and the Late-Romantic Dichotomy 2.3 Historical Convergences: Atonality, Aesthetic Brevity and The Modernist Intervention 2.4 Hyper-Aesthetics and Horror Film Music: Phenomenological Evolutions and Economic Contingencies CHAPTER THREE 126 Post-Classical Evolutions in Cinematic Enjoyment: Psycho, Experimental Music and the Hyper-Aesthetics of Popular Cinema 3.0 Introduction 3.1 Resituating Psycho - Form, Content, and the Role of Soundtrack in the Post-Modem Cinema of Attractions. 3.2 Deconstructing the Psycho Score: Herrmann's Anti-Classicism, Hyper-Aesthetics and the Late-Romantic/Early Modernist Influence 3.3 Reconfiguring Spectatorship: Psycho's Sound-Image Syntax, Extra-Subjectivity and the Interfacing of Gaze and Voice. CHAPTER FOUR 192 Soundtrack, Subjectivity, and Cinematic Materialism: Figurations of the Lacanian Real in the Visceral Cinema of Dario Argento (1975 - 1980). 4.0 Introduction 4.1 Semiotic Excess and Extra-Subjectivity: Argento's Visceral Cinema and the Hyper-Aesthetics of Euro-Horror 4.1.2 Deep Red, Horror, and the use of Rock Music: Argento's Transition to the Visceral Technique. 4.2 Suspiria and Soundtrack: The Extra-Subjective Spectator and Post- Modem Gothic Spaces. 4.2.1 Positioning the Extra-Subjective Spectator 4.2.2 The Materiality of Film Music 4.2.3 Soundtrack and Post-Modern Gothic Spaces 4.3 The Zizekian-Lacanian Subject and the Real Thus Rendered CHAPTER FIVE 260 Cine-Sonic Technology, Experimental Music and Semiotic Excess in Ken Russell's Altered States 5.0 Introduction 5.1 Excess and Vulgarity in the Cinema of Ken Russell 5.1.2 The Musician's Filmmaker 5.2 Altered States: A Case Study 5.2.1 Cinematic Technology and Experimental Music: Dolby Sound and the Rendering of the Real 5.2.2 Interrupting the Diegesis 5.2.3 Harmonic Ambiguity and the Tension between the Real and the Symbolic CONCLUSION 314 BIBLIOGRAPHY 324 DISCOGRAPHY 334 FILMOGRAPHY 335 Acknowledgements I would like to offer my sincerest gratitude to my Director of Studies, Paul Humble, whose tireless care and supervision of this project was a steadying and inspiring influence throughout. Paul found time from a very busy work schedule to see me on many occasions and provided feedback on all the drafts the thesis went through. A debt of gratitude is due also to the other members of the supervisory team: Dave Russell, Will Kaufman, and John Mundy, who were all forthcoming with their own feedback and advice on drafts. I must also thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council. This project only happened due to their assistance and funding, and they were extremely understanding of my personal circumstances throughout the journey to completion. Additional thanks goes to Mick Gornell for his help with certain drafts, and to Anne Wichmann and Margaret Fisher for their assistance. A special note of thanks goes to composer, Simon Boswell, who took time out from a busy schedule to allow me to interview him in person and at length. The staff of the British Film Institute were also very accommodating in gaining access to the more obscure resource materials this project required. Finally, I would like to say a word of loving thanks to my parents, James and Dorothy Abel, whose endless encouragement,love and support has been crucial to this whole experience. Introduction It is one of the most infamous moments of modern cinema. A shower curtain is ripped aside, catalysing one of the most psychologically devastating sequences of popular cinema: Marion Crane's murder at the hands of Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's milestone of horror cinema, Psycho (1960). As Bates stabs at Crane's prone figure, the discordant shrieks from Bernard Herrmann's musical score seemingly merge with Hitchcock's disorienting jump-cuts, creating an overall audio-visual assault that seems to tear at the very fabric of cinema itself Unparalleled at the time for its sonic fury and visual distinctiveness, Psycho has gradually become one of the most discussed movies of contemporary film scholarship. And yet, despite such unprecedented attention, as recently as 2006, the film-theorist, Laura Mulvey was noting how the significance of Psycho "waxes rather than wanes."' One recent and persuasive application of Hitchcock's film has seen theorists and historians of film use it to explicate wider evolutionary shifts and reconfigurations in popular cinematic practice across a crucial transitional period, from the classical to the post-classical. As Mulvey explains, "Psycho represents a moment of change in the history of the film industry [... ] it reachesback to the chronicle of cinema with which Hitchcock himself is so inextricably imbricated, but it also stands, metaphorically, for a decisive ` Laura Mulvey, Death 24x a Second: Stillness and the Moving Image (London: Reaktion Books, 2006), p. 8. 1 break with that kind of cinema."2 This type of `break' manifests itself across a number of individual (albeit related) areas of film scholarship, taking in issues of form and content, economic and industrial imperatives, in addition to the subsequent theoretical ramifications of such a divide. Film-theorist, Linda Williams, describes the significance of Hitchcock's film in