Michel Chion is renowned for his explorations of the significance of
frequently overlooked elements of cinema, particularly the role of
sound. In this inventive and inviting book, Chion considers how cinema
has deployed music. He shows how music and film not only complement but
also transform each other.
The first section of the book examines film music in historical
perspective, and the second section addresses the theoretical
implications of the crossover between art forms. Chion discusses a vast
variety of films across eras, genres, and continents, embracing all the
different genres of music that filmmakers have used to tell their
stories. Beginning with live accompaniment of silent films in early
movie houses, the book analyzes Al Jolson's performance in The Jazz
Singer, the zither in The Third Man, Godard's patchwork sound
editing, the synthesizer welcoming the flying saucer in Close
Encounters of the Third Kind, and the Kinshasa orchestra in Felicité,
among many more. Chion considers both original scores and incorporation
of preexisting works, including the use and reuse of particular
composers across cinematic traditions, the introduction of popular music
such as jazz and rock, and directors' attraction to atonal and dissonant
music as well as musique concrète, of which he is a composer.
Wide-ranging and original, Music in Cinema offers a welcoming overview
for students and general readers as well as refreshingly new and
valuable perspectives for film scholars.
