By exploring the relationship between music and the moving image in film narrative, David Neumeyer shows that film music is not conceptually separate from sound or dialogue, but that all three are manipulated and continually interact in the larger acoustical world of the sound track. In a medium in which the image has traditionally trumped sound, Neumeyer turns our attention to the voice as the mechanism through which narrative (dialog, speech) and sound (sound effects, music) come together. Complemented by music examples, illustrations, and contributions by James Buhler, Meaning and Interpretation of Music in Cinema is the capstone of Neumeyer's 25-year project in the analysis and interpretation of music in film.
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The book is cogently (even, at times, beautifully) written and is well supported by frame stills, figures, musical examples and analytical sketches. To benefit fully from the analyses, the book demands a level of literacy with music-theoretic concepts that suggests its intended readership is primarily music scholars and graduate students, rather than film or media scholars, though readers without musical training could still gain much from it.
" - Music Analysis
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Neumeyer introduces an eloquent and all inclusive film music theory that focuses on the spectator's mental activities (revealed through systematic analysis) in constructing and enhancing meanings through music and sound in cinema.
" - Music and Letters
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Neumeyer . . . expands his significant contribution to film music studies with this magisterial volume. . . . Essential.
" - Choice
