This book is at heart, a collection of essays, from numerous scholars and creative talents, which is concerned with reviewing the broad functions music plays within cinema. The editors’ intentions are to provide readers with an overview of cinematic scores, from the intellectual and creative labour expended in their creation, through the theory underlying their structures along with the many ways in which they can be analysed and interpreted. From the outset, it is abundantly clear that this book’s audience is primarily academic film scholars and musicologists although musicians and composers will likely also glean value from this work. The more casual reader may find this book less engaging although anyone with a love of movie soundtracks may still garner considerable edification and enjoyment from consulting it.
The work opens with content, figure and table listings, followed by some brief biographical information on the contributing authors and editors, followed by the usual acknowledgements. These are followed by a short three-page introduction to the book, which while briefly outlining its intent, squarely focusses on providing a guide to the specific highlights and topics each chapter addresses. Suitably informed by this, the reader is now well equipped to access this book’s primary content.
This work’s main body comprises 21 chapters, which are subdivided into four groups. The opening five chapters address aspects behind the creative labour expended in Making Film Music. Part two, entitled Approaching Film Music, devotes five chapters to exploring and considering various aspects of film music theory. Part three, Genre and Idiom, develops this theme through six essays exploring cinematic music within discrete film genres or musical styles. Finally, part four shifts from the prior predominantly Anglo centric framing to address Music in World Cinema in five concluding chapters.
Numerous monochrome illustrations and photographs, along with musical notation extracts, periodically accompany the essays comprising this book. Such images are generally crisply reproduced on the page, with the musical notations particularly pleasingly presented. Frequency of such non-textual content’s inclusion varies by individual author, with some making scant or no use at all, which may diminish the work’s attraction for some casual readers. However, this reviewer found the degree of image content included to be well justified and likely to add value for the work’s intended audience.
Two useful indexes are incorporated at the book’s end; however, as a primarily anthological work predictably no further appendices, beyond a 28-page cited sources list are included. The first index comprises a ten-page alphabetical listing of film and television programmes whose musical content is mentioned within the work. The list is varied and enables the reader to easily dive into diverse discussions, such as, for example, the historical contextualisation of music within Battlestar Galactica (p. 211) or the musicology of the Spaghetti Western genre (p. 226). Spanning 17 pages, the second index is the more usual subject or topic index and is well formatted and functional. From reviewing this topic listing, it is clear that a considerable spectrum of theoretical topics, musical forms and film genres are demonstrably covered. However, as a relatively modest sized anthology, some scholars may be disappointed that comprehensive encyclopaedic coverage is not included in the cover price.
Nevertheless, this in undoubtedly a scholarly and worthy book suitable for acquisition into general collections by those academic and scholarly libraries which support researchers and academics working within film studies, media or music. While the discourse is scholarly, the text is for the most part accessible and would also be of use to both undergraduate and postgraduate students studying within such disciplines. The price, especially the paperback edition, is relatively inexpensive, and hence, normally, I would have no reluctance in recommending its purchase. However, there remains the question of how much value this work would offer within a reference collection, given its anthological rather than encyclopaedic construction. As noted above, while the indexing is excellent, many of the entries it directs the reader to are brief mentions rather than generous thematic expositions. Consequently, while its purchase price and scholarly content make a strong case for general acquisition, I can only give a muted recommendation as a reference work.
