Book Review: Film Music

Somewhere between Thanksgiving break and the always hellish and homework saturated final weeks of fall semester, I was able to squeeze in a reading of this slim 160 page text.  Film Music: A Very Short Introduction is, exactly as the title says, a short guide to and history of the use of music in movies.  The title is part of a massive series of books put out by the Oxford University Press.  The Very Short Intro series covers a whole range of topics from the massively broad (history, drugs, the meaning of life, etc.) to the slightly more defined (Aztecs, Kabbalah, The Tudors, etc.).  Prior to picking up this title I had some slight knowledge of the series, as I had read Postmodernism: A Very Short Introduction for a class.  Truthfully I found Postmodernism to be pretty dry, but I took a gamble and picked this title up because the subject sounded interesting to me.

Like Madonna, I find movie soundtracks compelling.  I am interested in how image and sound intersect to create meaning and feeling.  I love those moments when the image and music work together to create the "perfect storm" of glorious emotional manipulation.  But while I am interested in how music works in narrative film, I had read very little on the subject before I picked up this title.

Kathryn Kalinak's Film Music is primarily comprised of theory regarding how and why music works in conjunction with film and a history of how music has been used in film.  My favorite part of Kalinak's text was actually the theoretical stuff.  As a movie fan I love to hear people muse about the effects of film, even if such theorizing is abstract in nature.  I know this sort of musing is an acquired taste, and some people straight up just don't like it, but those who are interested in film analysis should find Film Music's first few chapters to be full of compelling ideas to mull over.  I also appreciated that Kalinak steered clear of hardcore academic speak in her chapters on theory.  While her writing carries an air of formality she keeps pretensions at a minimum and is upfront about the limits and sometimes contradictory nature of film theory.  I also thoroughly enjoyed her analysis of the infamous use of "Stuck in the Middle With You" during the torture scene in Reservoir Dogs.  It almost makes me wish she'd included more specific case studies of music in film, though I realize this would have invalidated the "very short" part of the title.

I wasn't as enthusiastic about the history side of the book, though I did think it was solid enough.  Kalinak covers the history of film sound from its inception as live accompaniment to silent film all the way up to Slumdog Millionaire composer A.R. Rahman's 2009 dual Oscar wins.  I appreciate the large swath of time Kalinak covers, as well as the global range of history that the book covers.  My only problems with the historical aspects of the book were that the text in this section tended to be a bit dry and, again, I was left wanting to know more.  Perhaps this latter criticism isn't valid, as this book is intended to be solely a simple introduction.  Still I couldn't help but be a tad frustrated at the book's brevity.

Overall though, I think there's plenty to recommend in this text.  Film studies students or those with an interest in the field are the ones who are most likely to enjoy this title, but the writing is accessible enough that casual readers should be able to walk away with something as well.