As the first collection of new work on sound and cinema in over a decade, Lowering the Boom addresses the expanding field of film sound theory and its significance in rethinking historical models of film analysis. The contributors consider the ways in which musical expression, scoring, voice-over narration, and ambient noise affect identity formation and subjectivity. Lowering the Boom also analyzes how shifting modulation of the spoken word in cinema results in variations in audience interpretation. Introducing new methods of thinking about the interaction of sound and music in films, this volume also details avant-garde film sound, which is characterized by a distinct break from the narratively based sound practices of mainstream cinema. This interdisciplinary, global approach to the theory and history of film sound opens the eyes and ears of film scholars, practitioners, and students to film''s true audio-visual nature.
Contributors are Jay Beck, John B
Trade Review
“An excellent collection of essays which reveals much about the state of play of soundtrack studies and offers many fresh and original insights. It will certainly be of value to students and scholars of film sound.”--Music, Sound, and the Moving Image
"A substantial and important book,
Lowering the Boom includes work from both established scholars and emerging voices in the field and is a welcome addition to auditory culture and sound studies."--Steve J. Wurtzler, author of
Electric Sounds: Technological Change and the Rise of Corporate Mass Media“[
Lowering the Boom reclaims] cinema as an “audiovisual” object, demonstrating conclusively that whatever the relative importance of the “audio” and “visual” parts,
neither can be ignored . . . . I hope
Lowering the Boom is widely read.”--
Jump Cut"A central text for the study of sound in media. Lowering the Boom's wide range of topics joins history and critical debates and will be useful and appealing to scholars and students of sound design, media studies, and film theory."--Donald Crafton, author of The Talkies: American Cinema's Transition to Sound, 1926-1931
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction: The Future of Film Sound Studies 1
Jay Beck and Tony GrajedaPart 1: Theorizing Sound 1. The Phenomenology of Film Sound: Robert Bresson's
A Man Escaped 23
John Belton 2. The Proxemics of the Mediated Voice 36
Arnt Maaso 3. Almost Silent: The Interplay of Sound and Silence in Contemporary Cinema and Television 51
Paul Theberge 4. The Sounds of "Silence": Dolby Stereo, Sound Design, and
The Silence of the Lambs 68
Jay BeckPart II: Historicizing Sound 5. Sonic Imagination; or, Film Sound as a Discursive Construct in Czech Culture of the Transitional Period 87
Petr Szczepanik 6. Sounds of the City: Alfred Newman's "Street Scene" and Urban Modernity 105
Matthew Malsky 7. Film and the Wagnerian Aspiration: Thoughts on Sound Design and the History of the Senses 123
James LastraPart III: Sound and Genre 8. Asynchronous Documentary: Bunuel's
Land without Bread 141
Barry Mauer 9. "We'll Make a Paderewski of You Yet!": Acoustic Reflections in
The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T 152
Nancy Newman 10. Paul Sharits's Cinematics of Sound 171
Melissa Ragona 11. "Every Beautiful Sound Also Creates an Equally Beautiful Picture": Color Music and Walt Disney's
Fantasia 183
Clark FarmerPart IV: Film Sound and Cultural Studies 12. "A Question of the Ear": Listening to
Touch of Evil 201
Tony Grajeda 13. "Sound Sacrifices": The Postmodern Melodramas of World War II 218
Debra White-Stanley 14. Real Fantasies: Connie Stevens,
Silencio, and Other Sonic Phenomena in
Mulholland Drive 233
Robert MiklitschPart V: Case Studies of Film Sound 15. Selling Spectacular Sound: Dolby and the Unheard History of Technical Trademarks 251
Paul Grainge 16. (S)lip-Sync: Punk Rock Narrative Film and Postmodern Musical Performance 269
David Laderman 17. Critical Hearing and the Lessons of Abbas Kiarostami's
Close-Up 289
David T. Johnson 18. Rethinking Point of Audition in
The Cell 299
Anahid Kassabian Works Cited 307
Contributors 327
Index 331
