Listening to Movies

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course will shift your attention from watching movies to also listening to them. It will introduce you to anew way of experiencing films by educating your sense of hearing. Amid a strong emphasis oncinema - ranging from musical accompaniment during the silent era to sound in experimental films; or fromclassical Hollywood underscoring to Bollywood musicals - we will consider the soundtrack of movingpictures within the larger history of audiovisual media from lantern shows to television series or from commercials to video games. Based on a core repertory of twelve films, the course will cover various topicsand issues surrounding film sound: aesthetic and psychological (such as representation, narration, emotion);social and political (such as race, ethnicity, propaganda); cultural and economic (such as production,technology, dissemination). After taking this course, you will never quite look at a screen without listening tothe soundtrack, having come to perceive and understand how the powers of sound and music shape our waysof knowing the world.