The Contemporary Hollywood Film Soundtrack: Professional Practices and Sonic Styles Since the 1970S
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The Contemporary Hollywood Film Soundtrack: Professional Practices and Sonic Styles Since the 1970s Submitted by Amy Charlotte McGill to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English, November 2008. This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. …………………………………. 2 Abstract Since the 1970s, the soundtrack in Hollywood has come of age as a complex and sophisticated site of cinematic art. Greater combinations of sounds expressing a wider spectrum of tones, textures and volumes can be heard at the movies more than ever before, while behind the scenes, the number of personnel producing them has grown considerably. Moreover, this era has witnessed a proliferation of different artistic and professional approaches to sound. This thesis provides a detailed and wide-ranging picture of these developments and how they were ultimately affected by changes within the American film industry. Drawing on a range of accounts by contemporary sound practitioners and critics, the thesis explores sound production practices, focusing on the sound designer and composer, their creative choices, collaborative relationships - or “sound relations” - and the technologies they employ. The soundtrack is also examined in terms of “sonic style”: the ways in which sound effects, music and the voice function variously in the service of contemporary film narration and genre. It is argued that Hollywood sound production practices and styles have diversified to a high degree, particularly during the last three decades. Industrial realignments on the “New Hollywood” landscape in the 1970s and the integration of the independent and major sectors throughout the 1990s have introduced greater flexibility to mainstream filmmaking norms. These events have played key roles in the expansion of its different sonic styles and working practices in contemporary Hollywood. I take George Lucas and David Lynch, their respective sound design partners Ben Burtt and Alan Splet and composers John Williams and Angelo Badalamenti, and identify distinctions between their professional modus operandi and sonic styles to illustrate the growing diversification within the industry. Most importantly, these examples are used to demonstrate both the intricacy and variety that characterises the styles and crafts of the contemporary Hollywood soundtrack. 3 The Contemporary Hollywood Film Soundtrack: Professional Practices and Sonic Styles Since the 1970s. Contents 3 Acknowledgements 4 Introduction 5 One. Methodological and Conceptual Issues in the Study of the Film Soundtrack 15 Two. Increased Diversity and Paradigms of Hollywood in the Post Studio Era 30 Three. Sound Authorship and Contemporary Hollywood 53 Four. Behind the Sonic Effect and Symphonic Score: Sound Practices in 69 Contemporary Hollywood Five. Tracking Sound: Professional Practices and Technologies in the Studio Era 89 Six. David Lynch, George Lucas and Key Collaborators in Sound 102 Seven. Sound Relations: Studies of Production Practice in Contemporary 122 Hollywood Eight. Stylish and Functional: Sound Analysis and Sonic Narration 148 Nine. The 1970s: Experimental Nightmares and Blockbuster Fantasies 187 Ten. The 1980s: New Adventures in Sci-Fi 231 Eleven. The 1990s: From Suburbia to the Stars 246 Twelve. Into the Sonic Millennium, 2000-2007 266 Conclusion. A Bird’s Eye View of the Contemporary Film Soundtrack 289 Figures 301 Filmography 311 Bibliography 322 4 Acknowledgments First and foremost, many thanks go to Helen Hanson whose guidance, encouragement and patience have been invaluable, and extended beyond the confines of this thesis. I would also like to thank Steve Neale, James Lyons, Nadine Wills and Stacey Gillis for helping to cultivate my fascination with the Hollywood cinema, and for kindly assisting me in securing funding for research along the way. Randy Thom and Steve Maslow deserve my gratitude for providing some useful insights (as well as some amusing anecdotes) about their sound work with David Lynch. I would like to acknowledge Gianluca Sergi for his advice, and whose work has proved crucial to my own project. I am also grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding me for two years. Thanks too to my family who never stopped cheering me on, especially my mother Jan, who inspired me to take this path in the first place. Mary Ings deserves attention for help that I could not have done without. Finally, thanks to my husband Joe, whose editorial suggestions, impeccable grammar and unceasing emotional support saw me through to the end. 5 Introduction There is something about the liquidity and all-encompassing embrace of sound that might make it more accurate to speak of her as a queen rather than a king. But was she then perhaps a queen for whom the crown was a burden, and preferred to slip on a handmaiden’s bonnet and scurry incognito through the backways of the palace, accomplishing her tasks anonymously? (Walter Murch “Stretching Sound to Help the Mind See”) No ay banda: there is no band […] It is all a tape recording (Mulholland Dr. David Lynch) The anonymous “queen”, the nonexistent “band”. These take on much symbolic weight when we consider the soundtrack in the cinema, as they imply something elusive, unknown and hidden. Critics have often noted that film studies lean heavily towards analysis of the image, thus leaving the soundtrack shrouded in mystery (Rick Altman 1980 3; Gianluca Sergi 2004 3). The words of sound designer Walter Murch quoted above express dismay at the lesser role that sound has played in the cinema, both in the process of film production and in the theatre. But is the film soundtrack really an under recognised and neglected phenomenon? The recent upsurge of film scholars bringing sound to the forefront of their debates would certainly suggest otherwise. Indeed, some have commented on the redundancy of the view that sound is a neglected domain in the study of film and other media (Helen Hanson 2007 28; Randolph Jordan 2007 1). In the last three decades, a number of eminent directors in the American film industry have demonstrated an increasing appreciation of sound in films and the filmmaking process, from Robert Altman, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas to David Lynch and Joel and Ethan Coen. The budding prominence of the soundtrack in the filmmaking and scholarly communities is concurrent with recent developments in the aesthetics and professional roles of film sound. In recent years, the personnel dedicated to sound production have increased in number while the soundtrack’s artistic and technical possibilities have grown. Many of these developments are traceable to Hollywood cinema since the 1970s, a decade that marks the beginning of Hollywood’s 6 “contemporary” era. A new generation of sound experts including the aforementioned Walter Murch exploited new technological developments like Dolby stereo to realign the professional workplace for sound production while intensifying the intricacy of the sounds on the soundtrack. Wider industrial changes in this period of Hollywood have also made an impact. The increasing overlap between the independent sector and the major studios diversified conventions for cinematic storytelling, style and production practices, expanding both the stylistic and professional possibilities in the area of sound. It is these many developments that interest me. This thesis will provide a history of the contemporary soundtrack in Hollywood from the mainstream to the independent margins, tracing the developments in its stylistic features and functions and the professional practices behind its construction. My project is to reveal the ways in which sonic styles and production practices are more complex and diverse in Hollywood films and filmmaking than ever before. It is perhaps for these reasons that the soundtrack has become more enticing to critics and filmmakers alike. Contemporary Hollywood provides a rich and exciting area for the study of the film soundtrack. There are a growing number of scholars committed to discussing the soundtrack and its development as a key component in mainstream cinema (Marc Mancini 1985; Charles Schreger 1985; Elisabeth Weis 1995; Sergi 2004 and 2005b). But why the recent interest in this period of Hollywood, and why choose this as the focus of my own study? More fundamentally, what do we mean when we discuss sound in Hollywood, given the complexities involved in defining this cinema? In answering the first question, let us briefly examine the key points of interest in the recent history of the film soundtrack, some of which I have flagged above. The major American film industry has long been at the forefront of technological change for film sound, ushering in the industry standardisation of systems like Dolby stereo since it debuted in theatres in the mid 1970s. These systems aimed to heighten sound quality, permitting greater 7 numbers of sounds to be combined on the soundtrack. In turn this has both commanded and cultivated the creative talents of an increasing professional body, thus inaugurating new roles such as the sound designer. Walter Murch and his work on Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979), and Ben Burtt who has since 1977 collaborated with George Lucas on the Star Wars movies, innovated and arguably revolutionised the soundtrack under these developments (Mancini 1985), thus foregrounding the audio experience in theatres while raising the professional profile of sound personnel to the public and critical consciousness (Sergi 2004). With this period of development in mind, it would be reasonable to say that the soundtrack has come of age as a complex artistic phenomenon, reaching maturation in a climate of technological change and intense creativity from a key group of sound professionals.