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- Audissino, Emilio, Senior Lecturer, 1981-
(author)
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When the Score Tells More : Music and Connotations in Raiders of the Lost Ark
- 2014
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In: 20th SERCIA Conference 'Movies and Music: National and Transnational Approaches'. Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands, 18-20 September 2014.
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- Music in films should be approached not so much as “music” – i.e. a musical text to be analysed as a musicologist would analyse a symphonic poem – but as one of the many cinematic devices that cooperate in constructing the film. As one of the film's devices, a piece of music should be analysed as to its narrative/stylistic/thematic function in a give scene. In my approach, the functions of music in films can be sorted into three types, depending on what the principal activity and response are that music elicits from the viewer: emotive function (music creates or reinforces moods and emotional reactions), perceptive function (music boosts or modifies the spatial and temporal perception of the film), and cognitive function. This paper focusses on the latter. Music performs a cognitive function when it prompts an interpretive activity, when it stresses or even discloses connotations and implicit meanings that otherwise might have passed unnoticed. The case study is Raiders of the Lost Ark (S. Spielberg, 1981), where John Williams' score – mostly through its telling instrumentation – is fundamental in tracing the development of the theme of Faith and in revealing God's presence throughout the film.
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