| Unit name | The Classical Hollywood Style: American Film Music 1930 - 1960 |
|---|---|
| Unit code | MUSI30094 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | H/6 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
| Unit director | Dr. Heldt |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
Joint Hons students must normally have taken Issues in History I or II at Level C |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of Music |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts, Law and Social Sciences |
When we say that something "sounds like film music", what we think of are scores such as E.W. Korngold's The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) or The Sea Hawk (1940), Franz Waxman's The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Max Steiner's King King (1935) or Gone With the Wind (1939), Bernard Herrmann's Hangover Square (1945) or Vertigo (1958), David Raksin's Laura (1944), Hugo Friedhofer's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) or Miklos Rosza's Ben-Hur (1959) - music by (often) European emigre composers for the big Hollwood studios in their heyday. The unit will look at different aspects of this story: How film production worked in the studio system, how music fitted into this system, what the aesthetic consequences of this system were, how composers adapted symphonic and operatic techniques to film music, and finally at the afterlife of the classical Hollywood style from Star Wars (1977) to Far from Heaven (2002).
