USC THORNTON SCHOOL OF MUSIC



USC THORNTON SCHOOL OF MUSIC / SMPTV

MUCO 442: HISTORY OF FILM MUSIC

JON BURLINGAME, ASST. PROF. burlinga@usc.edu

rev. syllabus 8/10

Catalog description:

A comprehensive survey of the craft of composing music for motion pictures and television, geared specifically to composers, combining film-music history and score analysis.

Recommended reading:

Burlingame, Jon. Sound and Vision: 60 Years of Motion Picture Soundtracks. Billboard Books, 2000.

Hickman, Roger. Reel Music: Exploring 100 Years of Film Music. W.W. Norton & Co., 2006.

Karlin, Fred. Listening to Movies. Schirmer Books, 1994.

Palmer, Christopher. The Composer in Hollywood. Marion Boyars, 1990. Thomas, Tony. Music for the Movies, second edition. Silman-James Press, 1997.

Grading:

a. First semester: One paper (due week 9): Analysis of one complete film score (to be approved by instructor), including a discussion of each cue in the score (description of both the music and its dramatic context, and opinion of its effectiveness).

b. Second semester: Another paper, subject to be determined.

c. Attendance and general class participation.

Disability:

Any student requesting academic accomodations based on a disability is required to register with Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accomodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301. Phone: (213) 740-0776.

[first semester]

Week 1. Introduction

* Overview of the course

* Film-music functions: origins of music in motion pictures

* Discussion of music in silent films: original vs. compiled scores, combinations

Weeks 2, 3. Transition to Sound / Pioneering Efforts

* Early experiments with underscoring dialogue and action

* Pioneers in dramatic scoring during the 1930s

* Max Steiner - RKO, Warner Bros.

(King Kong, Gone With the Wind, Now Voyager, Casablanca)

* Alfred Newman - United Artists, 20th Century-Fox

(Wuthering Heights, The Song of Bernadette, How the West Was Won)

* Herbert Stothart - MGM

(The Good Earth, The Wizard of Oz, Random Harvest)

Weeks 4, 5, 6. The Golden Age

* Rise of the classically trained composer in Hollywood

* Erich Wolfgang Korngold

(The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, Kings Row)

* Miklos Rozsa

(Double Indemnity, Spellbound, Quo Vadis, Ben-Hur)

* Franz Waxman

(Sunset Boulevard, A Place in the Sun, The Spirit of St. Louis)

* Dimitri Tiomkin

(Lost Horizon, High Noon, The Alamo)

* Victor Young

(For Whom the Bell Tolls, Shane, Around the World in 80 Days)

Weeks 7, 8. The Medium Matures

* Film medium begins to mature, new approaches taken

* Bernard Herrmann

(Citizen Kane, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Vertigo, Psycho)

* David Raksin

(Laura, Forever Amber, The Bad and the Beautiful)

* Hugo Friedhofer (The Best Years of Our Lives)

* Hans J. Salter (The Wolf Man)

* Roy Webb (Cat People, Notorious)

Weeks 9, 10. New Faces, New Sounds: the ‘50s and ‘60s

* European-style 19th-century romanticism becomes outmoded as American music and composers come to the fore

* Alex North

(A Streetcar Named Desire, Spartacus, The Misfits)

* Leonard Rosenman

(East of Eden, Rebel Without a Cause, Fantastic Voyage)

* Elmer Bernstein

(Man With the Golden Arm, Magnificent Seven, To Kill a Mockingbird)

* Jerome Moross (The Big Country)

Weeks 11, 12. New Faces, New Sounds: the ’60s and ‘70s

* Influence of young composers from the big-band era and television

* Jerry Goldsmith

(Planet of the Apes, Patton, Chinatown, Star Trek: The Motion Picture)

* Henry Mancini

(Touch of Evil, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Pink Panther)

* John Barry

(Goldfinger, The Lion in Winter, Out of Africa)

Week 13. Jazz Composers in Film

* Johnny Mandel

(I Want to Live!, The Sandpiper)

* Quincy Jones

(The Pawnbroker, In Cold Blood, In the Heat of the Night)

* Dave Grusin

(On Golden Pond, The Firm)

* Terence Blanchard

(25th Hour, Inside Man)

Week 14. New Faces, New Sounds: the ‘70s and ‘80s

* Fresh sounds from composers in the popular-music fields

* Lalo Schifrin

(Cool Hand Luke, Dirty Harry, Enter the Dragon)

* Jerry Fielding

(The Wild Bunch, Straw Dogs, The Outlaw Josey Wales)

Week 15. Resurgence of the Symphonic Score

* Spielberg and Lucas spur return to orchestral tradition

* John Williams

(Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars, Schindler’s List)

[second semester]

Weeks 1, 2. Foreign Composers and Notable Foreign-Film Scores

* Ennio Morricone

(The Good, the Bad & the Ugly; The Mission)

* Nino Rota

(8 1/2, Romeo and Juliet, The Godfather)

* Maurice Jarre

(Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago)

* Georges Delerue

(Jules et Jim, Day for Night, Agnes of God)

* Michel Legrand

(The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Thomas Crown Affair, Summer of ’42)

Weeks 3, 4. Concert Hall Composers in Film

* Surprising number of famed concert composers who wrote for film, why

* Stigma of scoring for film: Is it disappearing?

* Leonard Bernstein (On the Waterfront)

* Aaron Copland (The Red Pony, The Heiress)

* Sergei Prokofiev (Alexander Nevsky)

* Dmitri Shostakovich (Zoya, Michurin, Hamlet)

* William Walton (Henry V, Hamlet, Richard III)

* Ralph Vaughan Williams (41st Parallel, Scott of the Antarctic)

* Malcolm Arnold (The Bridge on the River Kwai)

* Toru Takemitsu (Dodes’ka-den, Ran)

* Richard Rodney Bennett (Murder on the Orient Express, Equus)

* John Corigliano (The Red Violin)

* Philip Glass (Kundun, The Hours)

Week 5. The Impact of Television

* History of television scoring; classic shows with outstanding scores

* Laurence Rosenthal (Peter the Great, Young Indiana Jones Chronicles)

Weeks 6, 7, 8, 9. Scoring Contemporary Films

* Changes in musical styles, circumstances in the ‘90s and beyond

* Danny Elfman (Batman, Edward Scissorhands)

* Michael Giacchino (The Incredibles, Ratatouille)

* Elliot Goldenthal (Alien 3, Frida)

* James Horner (Braveheart, Titanic)

* James Newton Howard (The Sixth Sense, The Village)

* Randy Newman (The Natural, Avalon)

* Thomas Newman (American Beauty, Finding Nemo)

* Rachel Portman (Emma, The Cider House Rules)

* Howard Shore (The Lord of the Rings trilogy)

* Alan Silvestri (Forrest Gump)

* Hans Zimmer (Rain Man, Gladiator)

* other new composers

Week 10. Classical Music in Film

* Instances of classical music adapted for film

* Examples: 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Exorcist, Excalibur, Amadeus, Platoon

Weeks 11, 12. The Use of Songs in Film

* Dramatic use of songs vs. songs as marketing tools

* Pre-existing songs: Casablanca, Easy Rider, The Graduate, Apocalypse Now

* Original songs: Shaft, Saturday Night Fever, etc.

* Rise, role and impact of the “music supervisor”

Weeks 13, 14. Animation Scores; Contemporary Issues

* Carl Stalling at Warner Bros., Scott Bradley at MGM, Frank Churchill and Leigh Harline at Walt Disney

* Fantasia

* Modern examples: Pixar films, TV animation music

* Creativity in independent film scoring

* Union vs. non-union dates

* Orchestral vs. electronic in low-budget films

* Practical advice

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