Deleuze and film music : building a methodological bridge between film theory and music

204 Pages·2011·1.27 MB·English

by  Gregg Redner

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‘In this wonderful study of music scoring for film, Gregg Redner u Deleuze
(an accomplished musicologist in his own right) turns to the z
philosopher Gilles Deleuze to seek a way in which to talk about e
music as part of the mise-en-scène. Up until now there have been

two fundamental and somewhat opposing approaches to film a anD Film
scoring – the one emanating from musicologists, the other from n
specialists in film studies. Neither seemed to satisfy the needs
D
of the other and certainly neither was able to really fully explain

what happens to music in film nor, indeed, what music causes F music
to happen within film. Redner sets out to find a way of bridging i
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these two opposing approaches by investigating the materiality
m
of music and showing how its presence is a significant as other
presences within the image. In so doing, he offers us a new

and fresh way to understand film music. This most readable of m
books is written with intellectual grace and scholarly elegance;
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the analyses of selected films will incite the reader to revisit

them with a new eye and ear. All six films become marvellously s builDinG a methoDoloGical briDGe
refreshed through this most scintillating of studies.’ i
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between Film theory anD music
– Susan Hayward, Professor of Cinema Studies, University of
Exeter, UK
Gregg Redner is Lecturer in Film Studies at the University of
Western Ontario, Canada.
ISBN 978-1-84150-370-7
0 0
by GreGG reDner
9 781841 503707
intellect | www.intellectbooks.com
Deleuze and Film Music
Building a Methodological Bridge Between
Film Theory and Music

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DelWeuhzye W aen dM Faiklme AMrutsic
Building a Maett hwohdyo ilto gisi ctaalu Bgrhitdge Between
Film Theory and Music
by Richard Hickman
by Gregg Redner
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First published in the UK in 2011 by Intellect,
The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2011 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press,
1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2011 Intellect Ltd
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Front cover image: Learning about Russian Music © Howard Hodgkin. Courtesy of Gagosian
Gallery. Photo credit: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd.
Cover design: Holly Rose
Copy-editor: Heather Owen
Typesetting: John Teehan
ISBN 978-1-84150-370-7 / EISBN 978-1-84150-437-7
Printed and bound by Gutenberg Press, Malta.
Contents
Foreword 1
Susan Hayward, Cinema Studies, University of Exeter, UK
Chapter One: Introduction 3
Chapter Two: Methodology 17
Chapter Three: Deleuzian Sensation and Maurice Jaubert’s Score for L’Atalante 25
Chapter Four: The Division of the One: Leonard Rosenman and the Score
for East of Eden 47
Chapter Five: Dmitri Shostakovich’s Score for Kozintsev’s Hamlet 75
Chapter Six: Fragments of a Life: Becoming-Music/Woman In
Kryzysztof Kieslowski’s Blue 107
Chapter Seven: The Changing Conception of Space As a Delineator In
Film Score Style: A Comparative Analysis of the Scores For
Things To Come and Scott of the Antarctic 133
Chapter Eight: Conclusion 173
References 177
Corpus of Films 187
Films Cited In Text 193

Foreword
Susan Hayward
Professor of Cinema Studies,
University of Exeter, UK
In this wonderful study of music scoring for film, Gregg Redner (an accomplished
musicologist in his own right) turns to the philosopher Gilles Deleuze to seek a way in
which to talk about music as part of the mise-en-scène. Up until now there have been two
fundamental and somewhat opposing approaches to film scoring—the one emanating
from musicologists, the other from specialists in film studies. Neither seemed to satisfy
the needs of the other and certainly neither was able to really fully explain what happens
to music in film nor, indeed, what music causes to happen within film. Redner sets out
to find a way of bridging these two opposing approaches by investigating the materiality
of music and showing how its presence is a significant as other presences within the
image. In so doing, he offers us a new and fresh way to understand film music. This most
readable of books is written with intellectual grace and scholarly elegance; the analyses
of selected films will incite the reader to revisit them with a new eye and ear. All six films
become marvellously refreshed through this most scintillating of studies.
1
Deleuze and Film Music: Building a Methodological Bridge Between Film Theory and Music

2
Chapter One: Introduction
In his 1942 book The Film Sense, the Soviet filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein carries out
an engaging discussion and analysis of the technique of vertical montage which he
developed for use in his film, Alexander Nevsky (1948). For our purposes, one of the more
interesting chapters in the book involves an analysis of a brief segment of film drawn
from the ‘Dawn of Anxious Waiting’, which precedes the famous ‘Battle on the Ice’. In
this analysis, Eisenstein juxtaposes seventeen measures of Sergei Prokofiev’s score with
twelve frames from the film, creating what for me is the most complete and successful
analysis of a segment of film music ever conducted. In an analysis of overwhelming
complexity, Eisenstein manages to achieve a rich synthesis of music and mise-en-scène,
one that has arguably not been surpassed in 56 years.
What makes Eisenstein’s analysis so exciting is that he does not discuss the music in a
traditional theoretical manner, a practice which often results in an analysis which is at best
only partially successful. He does not make use of the traditional tools of music theory
but, instead, draws the music into a dialogue with the film’s rhythmic, visual, kinetic and
graphic elements, thereby freeing himself to explore these on a non-privileged basis. I am
not suggesting that a traditio nal musical analysis is not helpful and illustrative. Indeed,
there have been a number of excellent analyses of Prokofiev’s score for the film, but these
analyses concentrate on the music, often times to the complete avoidance of the mise-en-
scène. Clearly, if one wants to understand a score from a ‘music only’ perspective, then a
purely musical analysis is the appropriate way to go. However, what Eisenstein accomplishes
runs much deeper. It is not that Eisenstein is not interested in the music as such, for his own
heavy involvement with Prokofiev during the composition of the score suggests otherwise.
Eisenstein is after something completely different; he wants to understand how the score
functions as a part of the whole, not as a disconnected and isolated singularity. Regrettably,
the relative specificity of Eisenstein’s analytic methodology has prevented its application on
a larger scale, yet it remains, in the opinion of this author, the most stimulating, thought-
provoking and successful example of film musical analysis to date.
During its short life, film music analysis has, as a rule, taken one of two paths. The
first utilizes an analytic methodology which is appropriated from the discipline of
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