Combat Movie Music and Sound After Vietnam

3 units

This course considers the Hollywood combat movie genre after the Vietnam War (post 1975) by listening closely to how these always noisy films use music and sound effects to tell stories of American manhood and militarism. Centering on an elite group of prestige films--actions movies with a message for adult audiences--the course examines thirty-five years of Hollywood representations of World War II, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and post-9/11 wars against terrorism. Close analysis of how combat film directors and composers have used music and sound in conjunction with the cinematic image will be set within a larger context of ancillary texts (source materials, soundtrack recordings, published and unpublished scripts), media folios ( press kits, reviews, editorials, newspaper and magazine stories and interviews), and scholarly writing from across the disciplines. Films to be screened include Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Hamburger Hill, Courage Under Fire, Saving Private Ryan, The Thin Red Line, We Were Soldiers, Flags of our Fathers, The Hurt Locker, and Act of Valor, as well as pre-1975 combat films starring John Wayne. The ability to read music is not required. Required Screenings. Prequisites: None