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Beyond the Soundtrack: Representing Music in Cinema. Edited by Daniel Goldmark, Lawrence Kramer, and Richard Leppert. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007. [vii, 324 p. ISBN-10 0520250699; ISBN-13 9780520280697. $60.] Illustrations, music examples, filmography, index.
In his seminal work, La mémoire collective ([Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1950]; English edition, The Collective Memory, translated by Francis J. Ditter, Jr., and Vida Yazdi Ditter [New York: Harper & Row, 1980]), noted French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs described the overwhelming power of music upon collective and internal memory:
The sound makes one think about the object because the object is recognized through the sound; but only rarely might the object . . . itself evoke the sound. On hearing the clinking of chains, one might think of a prison gang; or the jingling of bridles, the cracking of a whip, and the galloping of horses might remind one of a chariot race. Were such scenes to appear on a movie screen without a hidden orchestra accompanying and imitating these sounds, we would not evoke them on our own and the figures moving in silence would present a much less effective illusion. (The Collective Memory, pp. 158-59)
The editors and contributors of Beyond the Soundtrack: Representing Music in Cinema wish to advance this very notion in recognizing that both the musical score and sonic landscape of a film are as vital to the diegesis as the images they accompany (and, in some cases, as Halbwachs might have argued, even more dominant). This diverse collection of essays-showcasing films, directors, and composers from around the world-offers a distinctive crossdisciplinary perspective on the relationship between sound and the moving image, relying largely on a reflexive approach.
The work is divided into three relatively equal segments, with chapters grouped under the categories of musical meaning, agency, and identity in an attempt to construct "a managed heterogeneity" (p. 7). The monograph stems from papers presented at the 2004 conference "Beyond the Sound track," hosted by the University of Minnesota, which sought to pair scholars from musicology and film studies. In the introduction to the volume, the editors candidly argue that a greater dialogue should...