Classic Movie Music!: The Hollywood Sound, and Where It Came From

3 units

Why does E.T. soar through the air to the sound of a symphony orchestra? Why do you carry multiple melodies from Star Wars or Harry Potter around in your head? This course goes back in time to the 1930s, ’40s, and early ’50s, when nearly every film had a symphonic score. These are the films that inspire the symphonic movie music we know today. All the major Hollywood studios had standing orchestras and house composers and arrangers who defined the musical sound of specific genres, star vehicles, studios, and “Hollywood” itself. This course considers both the aesthetic qualities of symphonic movie music and the creative and industrial structures that produced it. We will screen films from many genres: adventure (King Kong), swashbucklers (Captain Blood), horror (The Bride of Frankenstein), noir (Laura), musicals (The Wizard of Oz), westerns (High Noon), melodramas (Now, Voyager), and dramas (On the Waterfront). Required weekly screenings will be held at the Hi-Pointe Theatre (1005 McCausland, convenient to the South Campus Shuttle). Admission free to enrolled students.